Myrtle Rising

When Hashem Set Me Free (for at least a couple of days) from My Own Self-Recrimination & the Lesson Learned from That

9/8/2022

For a few years, I felt very frustrated with myself due to a certain middah I consistently failed to overcome.

From all the mussar sefarim, Rav Avigdor Miller, Pele Yoetz, and many more, I knew I was wrong to feel the way I did, but simply could not change this particular middah.

Mostly, it did not affect other people or most aspects of my life.

It simply stood as an obstacle within my own personal growth, only affecting others in specific circumstances.

I davened about it, spoke to Hashem about it (which often felt like running into a brick wall, for some reason still not fully understood by me), read Torah sources about it, did writing exercises to overcome it and internalize the correct middah, but...nothing.

A few years of investment achieved some progress in external behavior.

But internally? Almost nothing.

Furthermore, I observed people who naturally possessed the middah I knew I needed to cultivate.

Initially, I admired them.

I tried to learn from them.

But the more I learned, the more frustrated I felt with myself.

Why couldn't I make this change AT ALL?

Why was even a baby-step of progress so impossible?

Others seemed to manage, even in situations similar to or much worse than mine.

And still others even seemed to excel in this middah, no matter how challenging.

Why was I so different and — let's face it — so much more defective than nearly everyone else in this particular area?

Then, in a short amount of time, Hashem suddenly revealed something to me.

When Good Middot Go Bad & Bad Middot Come to the Rescue

Hashem showed me this desired flip in its harmful extreme.

I saw how people imbued with this middah opposite to mine leading broken lives with not much hope for any improvement.

They made & continued to make destructive mistakes, enduring a lot of suffering in the process, a lot of which seemed to be partly self-inflicted.

Despite them succeeding in a certain middah in which I continue to fail miserably, I noticed my life, for all its flaws & disappointments, was much more successful (according to Torah definition) than theirs.

And it lifted a burden from me.

When everything became clear, I felt so grateful that I was NOT like those people with the middah I so badly desired.

In fact, the revelation made me high for 2 days.

And while I still realize I need to work on this middah, I'm so grateful for NOT having it naturally because it's highly destructive if one lacks balance & awareness.

I guess I was being harder on myself than I realized.

This blog keeps pounding away against toxic shame and feeling bad about having bad middot because the bare presence of bad middot is from a Hashem & not something to feel bad about in and of itself.

It's your response to your bad middot that shows how good (or bad) you are.

But I guess for myself, with all the work in which I invested without reaping more than a tiny piece of grain, I just felt like I should be doing better already.

Also, I felt like I'm really not such a good person if I feel this way, ESPECIALLY after all the work I invested in that area.

Like, "Wow, I must be pretty bad if this is the result after all this work!"

Sort of like someone who does everything they can to succeed in algebra, including tutoring, tons of practice, and all sorts of alternative methods for YEARS — yet still fail every algebra test — may conclude they are stupid or at the very least, really bad at math.

But that's a worldly parable.

Spiritual physics work differently.

Our feelings & middot don't define our goodness or badness.

Our success in better behavior (or lack of) doesn't define whether we are good or bad.

Rather our DESIRE/RATZON to struggle against certain feelings & middot (as defined by Torah & mussar) define how good or bad we are.

Attack of the Potentially Holy Green-Eyed Monster

It's like if someone suffers terrible envy of others.

They read about it, talk to Hashem about it, constantly do their best to internalize the truth that Hashem decides everything and there is no need for envy because Hashem gives each person what they TRULY need and deserve.

And yet, after years of working on this, the person still suffers terrible envy!

It feels like failure because if a person developed an acute awareness of how lacking in emunah envy is, then they feel like they're a hopeless atheist or something when they cannot move beyond the envy, feeling stuck exactly where they started.

"Maybe I'm a religious hypocrite..." the person may start to muse.

Or the very few times they managed to overcome envy, they snapped right back to square one, as if they never moved in the first place.

It's very frustrating and discouraging.

(BTW, envy isn't my problem; just using it as an example.)

But then the person discovers people completely lacking in any envy whatsoever.

And they see people with potential who never moved their entire life.

Their magnanimous nature leaped overboard, causing them to give too much credence to other opinions (including anti-Torah opinions), behaving too generously with not-very-good people, and not accomplishing all the spiritual potential they possess.

Rather, due to your struggle with envy, you balanced yourself out without even meaning to.

You also made tremendous strides in life because your envy also ignited you with the fire to strive for certain goals.

For some people, the fire of envy gives them the fortitude to create a large family or to be more tsanuah or achieve more in Torah learning or to perform greater acts of kindness.

Envy used positively imbues them with the courage & fire to go against the current when the current roils in the wrong direction.

A wonderful person also brought to my attention something said by Rav Itamar Schwartz:

The sin of man was a lustful desire, but the jealousy itself which brought about this desire was not a sin.

Jealousy is rather the very nature that Hashem has designed man with.

It is upon a person to use jealousy for holiness, by being ‘jealous’ of the Creator, so to speak – to desire to integrate one’s being with Him, and, through this yearning, to become integrated with the Creator.

***

The holy use of jealousy, the desire to integrate with the Creator, is also a quick “destruction” [in the positive sense]:

It is a complete self-nullification, where man becomes completely integrated with the Infinite.

https://bilvavi.net/he/node/9798

So kinah (often translated as jealousy, envy, or zealotry) is, in its innate pure form, a desire to integrate with God.

Amazing.

So despite how ugly envy feels and looks (if you've ever encountered a person who stares daggers at you while curling their upper lip in rage & disgust when you mention even a small nice thing experienced in your life, then you know how ugly it looks)...it's actually a holy middah in its essence.

Kinah brings a person to complete bonding with Hashem!

Who knew?

So a person suffering from terrible kinah might actually possess the potential for holiness & deveikus MORE than others.

Very cool.

That's just one example and, like mentioned above, not my personal grueling frustrating impossible struggle.

The Real Difference between Esav & Yaakov, and What It Means For Us

The other virtue is the Esav virtue discussed in the Lubavitcher Tanya and in this post:
what-if-you-lean-more-toward-esav-than-yaakov-avinu-the-perfect-mitzvah-for-imperfect-people.html

Esav's failure lay NOT in feeling drawn toward all the bad stuff that attracted him, but his failure lay in SUBMITTING to these attractions.

Esav gave up & gave in.

THAT was his mistake.

Not the fact that he experienced these terrible taavot, but that he caved in to them.

And that's what I learned to embrace.

So yes, I will continue to work on this impossible (for me) middah.

But I no longer feel bad about failing...as long as I work it.

The Third Factor Contributing to Torah-Oriented Therapy that Works

8/8/2022

When I originally wrote the post on how & why therapy worked for one girl, I intended to include a 3rd major reason why it worked, but in writing the article, it flew out of mind.

Here's the article:
www.myrtlerising.com/blog/when-torah-oriented-therapy-worked-how-it-worked-and-why

And the 2 reasons stated there are:

The client's own ratzon to do the work necessary to improve.
The therapist making halacha & effective techniques a priority.

And the third?

The therapist must LIKE the client.

To Be Effective, One Must Learn to be Honest with Oneself

The necessity of the mentor actually liking the person being mentored is always true, whether regarding a therapist, rabbi, rebbetzin, advisor, counselor, mentor, or any other type of confidant or consultant.

Liking someone includes empathy too.

You can know a behavior is wrong while also empathizing with the reason for that person's behavior.

And a responsible should do his or her best to know when they cannot help someone.

For example, when I showed admiration to a therapist for offering 1st-time appointments for free, she stated she did it for herself as much as the new client.

That way, she explained, she felt free to reject the client if she saw it wouldn't work.

A lot of times, you can tell in 10 minutes or less whether you like someone. An experienced person can tell in 10 minutes or less whether they can work with someone, whether the potential exists.

In the above-mentioned post, the therapist genuinely liked the girl she helped.

In fact, the therapist specialized in teenage girls and genuinely liked them.

This counts as a PRIME factor in helping another person improve.

When Mentoring/Advising/Counseling Goes Wrong

Probably, we've experienced encounters with people meant to help us, but instead made us feel disliked, defective, stupid, insignificant, and gave surprisingly bad advice.

For example, I knew a rebbetzin with incredible energy who did tremendous much-needed chessed of all types.

Throughout her life, she made meaningful and continuous contributions to Torah life.

However, she didn't appreciate introverted people.

She didn't hate them, but she did not appreciate them, and this prevented her from really liking them.

Because of this, her advice with introverted types tended to go like a coin-flip.

Sometimes she offered suitable advice to them, sometimes not.

And when unsuitable, her advice sometimes turned out badly wrong.

In fact, she even discouraged shidduchim between introverts, offering different reasons why it wouldn't work.

The reasons usually sounded either offensive or just not so logical (because they emanated from emotion, and not reason).

I personally know of 2 shidduchim she actively discouraged at first, but the 2 couples got married anyway.

One marriage worked out really well because they are excellent people who are obviously perfect for each other.

The other marriage turned out less happy because the wife lacks good middot (while the husband possesses excellent middot), but this rebbetzin did not discourage the shidduch because of that. In fact, this rebbetzin thought the young woman's middot were just fine (except for her introversion, of course).

In another situation, she several times berated an introverted girl suffering serious doubts about a shidduch until the girl lost confidence in her own perceptions & went through with the marriage, which the girl later always regretted (though the couple never got divorced).

When dealing with introverts, the rebbetzin's manner of giving the advice sometimes suddenly turned harsh or abrasive.

The sudden harsh or angry tone came as shock because she normally seemed so cheerful and smiley.

This sudden about-face resulted from her impatience when dealing with an introvert, who often wants to think through things before acting, or who thinks more deeply and with more complexity about issues, and needs to work through that before making a decision.

A lot of people want to understand WHY they need to do something before they do it.

And yes, it's weird when people like this rebbetzin end up working with baalei teshuvah and gerim because they whole reason WHY the people did teshuvah is BECAUSE they think this way!

Yes, there's a downside in overthinking things.

But there's an upside too. It always depends on how it's done.

This rebbetzin is very smart & exceptionally competent doer rather than a thinker.

And that's fine. Some doers appreciate thinkers and vice-versa.

In other words, some people appreciate differences.

But this one did not.

So even though she willingly made herself available as a consultant-rebbetzin to others, she simply proved herself unable to offer suitable advice to personalities she does not really like or appreciate.

And we're all like that.

The key is to making yourself LIKE the person turning to you. (Easier said than done, but often possible when one cares enough & is aware enough.)

Unfortunately, the above-mentioned rebbetzin lacked the ability to do that because she convinced herself she was a real ohev Yisrael, that she loved everybody.

She honestly believed this about herself. (And she genuinely did a lot of good.)

So she never realized she didn't actually love a significant part of the frum population (introverts).

Instead, she believed her impatience or anger or discrimination came from the other person's exceptionally difficult nature...which was sometimes true, of course.

But often, it wasn't.

This explains why people go to a rabbi, rebbetzin, advisor, etc., who others label as "SO AMAZING!!!" and "helped SO MANY people with this exact problem!" and so on...but then receive obviously unsuitable advice or get treated badly or dismissively.

It could be they ARE amazing...but not with you.

It could be they ARE extremely helpful...but not to you.

And all that could mean there is something wrong with you...or it could mean there's something wrong with them.

Or it could mean they simply aren't the right shaliach for you in a particular situation.

A Mentoring Success Story

The rebbetzin who mentored me so helpfully also really liked me.

We hit it off from the first time we met (at a class she gave in my neighborhood).

She also genuinely liked young women, young mothers.

She felt genuine sympathy for our issues, while also seeing our flaws and our potential.

Not all middle-aged women feel this way.

Some feel envious toward young mothers because they remember those years as easier than their lives now.

Or it's generational; they see your generation as spoiled and they resent it.

But she wasn't like that at all. She was really empathetic, yet practical.

Because you always felt she stood squarely on your side, it was much easier to take her advice, even the hard-to-follow advice.

Her unswerving & affectionate loyalty to your best interests was the honey that made the bitter pill of breaking middot easier to swallow.

Interestingly, she felt genuine affection toward the more introverted, introspective, emotionally complicated women that most others (understandably) find so exasperating to deal with.

Even more interestingly, she wasn't like that at all herself!

She was a particularly fearless & proactive doer and rescuer.

(And a real handful as a child; these types usually are.)

In fact, her lack of fear led her into dangerous situations at times (because fear helps us take proper precautions)...situations in which her fearlessness & quick thinking helped her to find a way out of these situations.

(I still remember when an attempted kidnapping ended in her driving off in the potential abductor's car, leaving him in the dirt while she sped off to the police station. And she was totally blasé about it later.)

She never engaged in the kind of complex-bordering-on-neurotic thought processes that some of us do.

Yet she held great affection for those completely different than her.

Somehow, she was able to understand & appreciate those whose brains were wired so differently than hers.

Another way she differed from me and many others she helped is that she grew up in a very solid Chassidish family who survived the Holocaust with their Yiddishkeit firmly (and miraculously, IMO) intact.

And they weren't regular Chassidim either, but Chassidim with yichus & importance.

Yet somehow, she managed to understand & identify with people from secular or even non-Jewish backgrounds.

And she provided tremendous help & guidance. At times, she mamash saved lives, both in the emotional sense and literally.

Without even meaning to, she stood as a wonderful role model.

She saw people as basically good & capable, but sometimes just in need of hand up.

(This is a VERY different & much healthier—and Torah-based—view of people, as opposed to many who view people as according to their flaws or dysfunctional behaviors, and who often generalize negatively, saying stuff like, "Most people are this-and-such-negative-trait...")

She also saw herself as a mere shaliach, acknowledging she wasn't the right shaliach for everyone, which is a very important (and Torah-true) approach to adopt when dealing with others.

That approach removes a lot of ego, which interferes in genuinely helping others.

Not only did I merit her mentoring myself, but sent a lot of people to her over the years until she could no longer do it.

I think the combination of her innate personality & an upbringing based on AUTHENTIC chassidish & Torah principles facilitated her to turn out this way.

Outgrowing a Mentor, an Advisor's Error, and Unpredictable Acts of God

Sometimes, things change.

It's very common to outgrow a therapist/mentor/rabbi/rebbetzin, etc.

You won't outgrow a gadol or a rebbetzin on the level of Rebbetzin Batsheva Kanievsky, of course.

But others? Yes.

For example, secular Jews who started out thinking their college campus rabbi or the modern Orthodox rabbi of their local shul were the tops later outgrew these people as their spiritual needs matured.

You can & should be grateful for what they gave you at the start.

But it's fine to outgrow them. This is not much spoken about, but it IS normal.

Sometimes a therapist or mentor gave you what you needed at the beginning, but simply lacked what you needed to grow even more, due to their own blind spots or deficiencies.

Again, it's good to be grateful & appreciative while going on to bigger and better things.

On the other hand, sometimes the mentoring relationship stops working due to the one being mentored or counseled.

That person either refuses to grow at all or to grow beyond a certain point.

Sometimes, the counselor/therapist/rabbi/rebbetzin/advisor/mentor/friend honestly believed they could help, then realized only part way through their error.

(The person turning to them for help often experiences this error as a painful rejection, but it is an honest mistake. Hopefully, the advisor eases out as nicely as possible—meaning, without trashing the person.)

Other times, the advisor experiences a life-changing event or struggle (death of a loved one, a natural disaster, a financial upheaval, divorce, injury, trauma, burnout, etc) that prevents them from being able to give what they normally could.

These are legitimate difficulties, and though painful & upsetting for the client, it's not anyone's fault and the limitations (including termination) should be respected.

It's nearly always Hashem's way of guiding the person to a better shaliach (including turning to Hashem alone) along their individual path.

3 Factors Necessary for Effective Therapy/Counseling/Mentoring

So here is it again, in the updated version...

In order for any kind of therapy, counseling, advice, etc., to be genuinely effective (NOT just a "feel-good" effect, but actual improvement), the following 3 factors must exist:

The client's own ratzon to do the work necessary to improve.
The therapist making halacha & Torah-oriented approaches a priority.
The therapist must like the client.

Bringing to Life the Joy of the Beit HaMikdash & Its Profound Loss: A Tisha B'Av Visualization from Rav Avigdor Miller

5/8/2022

I found helpful the following description of what it was really like for Am Yisrael to make pilgrimage to the Beis HaMikdash, what it was like to be in Yerushalayim at its height, and also what we lost with its Destruction.

I hope you'll find it helpful too.

Note: I wasn't able to get the Hebrew letters to format without going wonky, which forced me to delete them. But the English translations of those phrases remain.

To see the original transcript in its full inspiration, please click here:
https://torasavigdor.org/parshas-devarim-tisha-bav-rebuilding-the-ruins/

Loss of Shechinah

And so we should analyze, at least superficially, the elements that we can discern in the matter of the Churban Beis Hamikdash.

When Shlomo built the Beis Hamikdash the Shechinah came in and filled the entire heichal...When Shlomo saw that, he said Hashem said to He'll dwell in a thick cloud, and everybody saw the Shechinah (Melochim I:1:12).

That’s what Hashem promised us: ׁThey shall make for me a Mikdash, which means a holy place, an especial place for Me...and I shall dwell in their midst.

In a nutshell that’s what the Beis Hamikdash meant:

We felt that Hashem lives with us.

That feeling, that awareness, was something that transformed the lives of the Am Yisroel.

Just a visit to Yerushalayim transformed a person; the Torah says that’s the reason for bringing maaser sheini to Yerushalayim.

You know, maaser sheini means that every year - almost every year - you separate one tenth of your produce and you bring it to Yerushalayim to eat.

And it takes some time before you consume all that food; a tenth of your produce! Sometimes you have to spend weeks in Yerushalayim before you can eat it up.

And what’s it for?

The Torah says (Devarim 23:14)...it's for the purpose of so that you become more and more aware of Hashem’s Presence every minute you are there.

All day long you were in the shadow of Hashem’s Home.

That was the greatness of having a Beis Hamikdash. The knowledge that the Shechina lives with us!

Loss of Strength

Now the Binyan Shlomo was the pride of our nation. It was perfect in everything. The kohanim gedolim were anointed with the shemen hamishchah.

They had the two luchos habris. The stone tablets were there inside.

Everything graced the first Beis Hamikdash and nobody ever dreamed that the hand of a gentile could touch it...nobody ever dreamed it could happen (Eicha 4:12).

...You Elokim are fearsome when You come out of Your sanctuary (Tehillim 68:12). Constantly you find such expressions in Tanach.

From the Mikdash, the power of Hashem came forth to defend His people. It was unthinkable that it could be destroyed.

But finally that dreaded day came when the nation saw the Beis Hamikdash set to the torch.

The House of Hashem; the house where our Hashem lived with us is burning! It was a great day of mourning never to be forgotten.

And that’s why to this day when we mourn, it’s mostly for the Churban haBayis.

Loss of Enlightenment

However, it wasn’t only the Beis Hamikdash that fell. The loss of the Sanhedrin in the lishkas hagazis is a tremendous irreparable loss.

It was the Torah center from which the Toras Hashem flowed out to all the corners of Eretz Yisroel.

The lishkas hagazis in the Beis Hamikdash was the center of the Torah nation – and that went lost along with the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash.

We have to mourn for the loss of Nevuah. Ahh, the Prophets, the Nevi’im!

What a great gift that was; when the Shechina was shoreh b’Yisroel and the nevi’im spoke words of truth. The Word of Hashem enlightened the eyes of the people.

When the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, nevuah ceased and we lost that great opportunity.

We don’t have the great teachers, the pathfinders, the guides, that we had in the days of old.

That’s something to weep over.

Loss of Happiness

What about the loss of our national happiness?

We have to picture how our forefathers went up to Yerushalayim three times a year in masses.

Every town had a little army of men and their families who set out to Yerushalayim three times a year.

They would march on the roads with the cattle and sheep that they intended to bring as offerings.

They put on their Yom Tov garments, and they took along musical instruments and they sang and played music on the road.

And soon they heard from another road the same sounds of festivity and they were joined by a band from the next town as the roads merged.

As they continued, the army swelled and became a huge multitude and soon the roads were clogged. You could barely move. But they were all singing and dancing on the road.

They were oblivious to the time. They didn’t realize that the minutes were passing by.

To them it seemed that time was standing still. They weren’t in Yerushalayim yet but they were already enjoying the Presence of the Shechinah.

Like Dovid describes in Shir Hama’alos (122:2):...suddenly we discovered that our feet were standing within your gates, Yerushalayim.

And the memunah in charge of the group said, “Halt. We’re already here.”

They were standing in the streets and Yerushalayim was mobbed.

There were millions in the city. We know this from the secular historians.

The city was jammed with Jews, and it was all in a festive mood.

Loss of Joy

Now that happiness of ancient Yerushalayim is a subject worth studying.

Oh, there were so many happy occasions when the nation gathered there.

You will eat there and rejoice before Hashem (Devarim 27:7).

They ate meat of korbanos which they roasted and they drank wine and they danced with simchah until the spirit of Hashem came upon them and many became prophets.

The nation was happy! What was the mark of the days of old? They were times of joy.

(Sukkah 50a) No matter what joy the world attempts to accomplish in its festivities, it doesn’t approach the simchah that our forefathers enjoyed when they gathered together with Hashem in Yerushalayim.

And so when we look back on the happy times of the days of old we mourn for that joy that we do not experience today.

You should think about that while you’re sitting on the floor on Tisha B’Av.

We look back with regret and we mourn the simchah that departed from our people.

We mourn for that song of joy which now became silent.

Loss of Pride

Now included in that happiness we possessed, was our pride in Hakodosh Boruch Hu. We knew who we were – the nation chosen by the King of the Universe.

And therefore another element of our weeping is the honor of Hakodosh Boruch Hu, al kevod shimcha hamechullal, His great Name that was profaned when the gentiles marched into the sanctuary and destroyed it.

They ridiculed us. “Where is your G-d?” they laughed.

They put a torch to the Mikdash and slew the sages, and the Name of Hashem was profaned in the world.

The pride of the Am Yisroel, our pride in Hashem, went lost to a very big extent.

After the Mikdash was destroyed, the false religions, the imitating religions, arose – Islam and Christianity – and they belittled our people; they mocked us and they said that we are living in darkness and error and that they have the truth; and they blamed us for persisting in our refusal to accept their new truths.

And because we were in golus now, so we had to be silent.

For generations, all over Europe, instead of living in the shadow of the Mikdash, we lived in the shadow of the cathedral, and we were considered subhumans, outcasts of society.

***

And so when we weep on Tisha B’Av we think about these things – there is so much to think about – and we look back on our glorious history and see what we once possessed and what went lost afterwards.

And we hope for the time when once again we’ll be zocheh to what went lost from us.

The Severity & Possible Impacts on Those Who Regularly Transgress the Torah Prohibition of Ona'at Devarim (Verbal & Emotional Abuse)

4/8/2022

This is a follow-up post to a previous post:
http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/a-painful-saga-with-2-lessons-for-mothers-in-law

Note: The topic here is NOT about vindictive parents who deny grandparents access to their own grandchildren.

It is also not about whether a parent is halachically allowed to do such a thing and if so, when.

Those are totally separate topics.

Yes, Rena was denied access to her own grandchildren, but that was a symptom of a greater problem.

This post focuses on Hashem's MESSAGE behind the actions and not the specific actions.

A Brief Analysis of What's Going on with Explosive People

In the previous post, we met wonderful & compassionate Rena, who also suffered from a tendency toward frequent & explosive outbursts throughout her entire life—but never considered it a serious problem.

And this is pretty common in such people.

They don't feel so bad about for 1 of 2 reasons (depending on the situation):

They don't mean anything bad by it, they don't mean it personally or with hatred; they experience each outburst as a release of unbearable tension.
They experience it as righteous anger. They explode only because they care so much about a particular issue or because it legitimately bothers them so much.

Furthermore, they consider their explosions equal to any other flaw, such as struggling with being organized, davening with kavanah, being shy, etc.

The problem with this attitude is that the Torah relates with extreme severity to any expression of anger or any words that cause pain—much more so than many other flaws.

Yissurim as Heavenly Messages (They aren't always just atonements.)

Not longer after Rena found herself banned from all her grandchildren—one of the worst things that could happen to her—she received a fatal diagnosis of a disease.

Though she managed to live much longer than her grossly insensitive doctor predicted, she succumbed to the disease a couple of years later.

Now, in certain well-meaning non-Jewish circles, they consider disease the result of stress & trauma, in addition to luck-of-the-draw and poor physical health habits.

And this certainly proves true at times.

However...

...Judaism tends to view disease as a Heavenly Hint to get one's act together.

Sefer Chareidim presents a long list of what sin disease or pain in each limb corresponds to.

A lot of references in Chazal to the meaning behind disease or pain in different areas can be found in English in Rav Shalom Arush's Garden of Healing.

Needless to say, other aspects influence health, such as rectifications necessary due to past-life behaviors, and so on.

We cannot know all the reasons for suffering.

However, this idea of using disease or pain to call attention to middot in need of improvement in an INNATE part of Torah Judaism.

How many times do we come across the idea stated in that in times of suffering we must examine our deeds?

This is a CORE TORAH VALUE.

A Discussion of a Fundamental (Yet Much Despised) Torah Ideal

Many people hate this idea because it sounds like it's blaming the victim.

But it often works!

Meaning, many times, people who work on the behaviors associated with the particular problematic body part find their pain or disease vanishes on its own.

Or if not on its own, it vanishes completely with normal treatment.

Furthermore, not always are diseases associated with a specific body part.

Fevers, flu, and the like affect the entire body.

Furthermore, like Chazal say, one should EXAMINE one's deeds; it could be more than meets the eye.

And many times, changing behaviors and thought patterns cure pain & disease.

Is this always true?

NO.

Hashem has His own reasons for things and doing things bibbity-bobbity-boo doesn't always work.

Just because working on that particular issue doesn't cure things 100% of the time doesn't mean it never works (when it definitely works a lot) and doesn't mean it isn't worth trying.

Also, because most people either don't know or find it too difficult to do this, it's hard to get enough data together to prove it efficacy.

But people who ignore this idea do themselves a disfavor.

As hard & painful as it is to accept pain or disease as a Heavenly Hint toward self-improvement, if it makes the pain go away or cures the disease, then why not at least TRY it?

The Purpose of Life

A prime idea in Judaism is that of "breaking" one's middot.

In fact, self-improvement is the reason we exist.

Hashem placed us in This World FOR THIS REASON.

If you ignore or justify your bad middot, you are not fulfilling your purpose in This World!

And you will either suffer even more here, come back in yet another lifetime to rectify even more of what you failed to do previously, or spend extra time getting cleaned up in Gehinnom.

I find this idea inspiring, but some people can't stand to hear the din/judgement aspect.

For me, it reassures me to know that as grueling and agonizing as it is to break certain poor middot, NOT doing so causes even more agony later.

So it makes me feel good to know I'm doing myself such a big favor and also that any pain I experience here is actually not as painful as later, plus Hashem loves you SO MUCH for even making the smallest baby-step in self-improvement.

You don't have to be perfect; you just have to try.

And I find that empowering, reassuring, and happy.

The Truth about "Breaking" Middot

Breaking problematic middot is HARD.

I've done it and know I need to do even more.

It takes courage (which is not my strong point).

And especially if part of your fear is the response of others, it takes a frightening amount of courage.

The first time can be the hardest.

If it's something in yourself only, it can be extremely painful.

No joke.

You can mamash cry & shake from the pressure of changing a deeply ingrained behavior or belief.

You can feel shattered temporarily.

For example, sincere converts to Judaism from church-based religion & bnei Noach often experience an agonizing transition in giving up their belief in their gospels and in a polytheistic-portrayed-as-monotheistic trinity.

But after the initial "break," they often describe incredible relief at embracing the Truth, plus clarity, meaning, and joy.

And how does breaking middot relate to Rena's ultimately fatal illness?

What Do AUTHENTIC Torah Sources Say about Causing Others Emotional Pain with Our Words or Behavior?

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm basing it on authentic Torah sources & hashkafah.

The prohibition of ona'at devarim is mid'Oreita—it's stated outright in black-and-white in the Torah (Parshat Behar, VaYikra 25, Verse 14:

אַל־תּוֹנ֖וּ אִ֥ישׁ אֶת־אָחִֽיו

...al tonu ish et achiv.

...you shall not wrong/aggrieve one another.

The Gemara Bava Metzia 58b even states:

"Onaat devarim [verbal abuse] is worse than monetary abuse [deceit]..."

That's a powerful statement.

In fact, it's so important, the Mesillat Yesharim included that statement within Chapter 11: B'Pirtei Middat Haneikyut/Concerning the Particulars of the Trait of Cleanliness.

Think about how the prohibition against stealing is so strong, Hashem placed it as a Universal Law and also in the Ten Commandments.

Yet ona'at devarim is WORSE than that?

Uh-oh...

And many people need to realize that ona'at devarim includes emotional abuse as well.

Toras Avigdor presented an impressive & gob-smacking transcript from Rav Avigdor Miller about ona'at devarim and everything that entails:
https://torasavigdor.org/parshas-behar-5-speak-with-care/

A Myrtle Rising post on that dvar Torah appears here:
http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/destructive-words-healing-words-rav-avigdor-miller-on-parshat-behar-bechukotai

The early 19th-century masterpiece Pele Yoetz, written by the great tzaddik and talmid chacham Rav Eliezer Papo, states:

The rule is that anyone who pains his fellow with his words — this is ona'at devarim.

And:

And he must not do and must not say anything for which there is even a one-in-a-thousand chance that it could cause pain to his fellow.

That's pretty clear.

Having said all that, it doesn't mean you must always be silent.

A person determined to run off a cliff may not like you telling them not to do it, but if it prevents them from dying, it's worth it.

Likewise, sometimes we see people continuously making bad decisions, halachically problematic decisions, hurting themselves...and even though they don't want to hear the truth—it even hurts them to hear the truth—it's sometimes a favor to tell them.

If they really won't listen, then the laws of speech generally recommend you NOT say anything, but some situations demand you say something.

It depends.

And even the best people can mess up with this.

We all misjudge situations sometimes.

All the truly great rabbanim are very careful with their speech, but if they need to say things people don't like, then they say them.

These same truly great rabbanim also DO things people don't like.

But if the mitzvah at hand holds more importance than people's feelings, so they do it anyway.

Judaism isn't about black-and-white thinking.

We should be complex thinkers, able to apply principles according to individual situations.

When we can't, we should consult with a knowledgeable Jew who can.

The Frightening Truth about Ona'at Devarim

Exactly HOW severe is ona'at devarim even when you DON'T mean it so badly?

Even when you mean well, aren't really so angry, or think you're kidding?

Here's Rav Avigdor Miller:

You should know that I consider ona’as devarim the most serious michshol in marriage.

For many years I’ve dealt with people coming to me.

Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I didn’t succeed, but I can tell you that most of the time the troubles began with ona’as devarim...

https://torasavigdor.org/parshas-behar-5-speak-with-care/

In a dvar Torah by Rav Miller (which I cannot find now), he mentioned that couples who speak impatiently to & shout at each other their entire marriage end up in trouble later.

Even though they don't mean it & completely forgive each other, even though they love each other underneath at all, even though they nurse each other through illness until the end with complete devotion...Rav Miller casts doubt on whether the Heavenly Beit Din will just pass it over.

After all, the behavior itself is wholly forbidden, whether it bothers the other person or not.

Like here:

So when husbands and wives are busy insulting each other all year long, and so they say “We don’t really mean it; we actually love each other, we’re living together so many years,” that won’t take off the severity of the sins.

Because it actually hurts at the time.

And they don’t have any regret!

They trample these sins underfoot, and those are the sins that will be m’subin lo l’yom hadin.

https://torasavigdor.org/the-easy-road-to-teshuva-tape-524/

We all know couples like that. Sometimes we even find them amusing.

But Hashem doesn't.

As another example of how severely Hashem looks upon ona'at devarim, Rav Miller even attributed certain early deaths to causing others emotional pain!

Here's just one example:

Once there was a girl – a young woman. And she was riding in a taxicab in Brooklyn. And the taxicab bumped into another car.

And together they bumped into a telephone pole. And the pole fell on her and she died.

Nebach, it killed that girl.

Now, I’m not capable of telling you anything but I’ll tell you something that happened with a girl. Maybe it was the same girl. I don’t want to say.

Once there was a poor teacher and she was trying to make a living.

You know that it’s not always easy making a living. So she was teaching a class of girls. And there were forty girls in the class.

One of the girls in the back of the class mimicked the teacher’s voice. And she did it all the time.

All the time!

And the teacher was very much embarrassed. Very embarrassed. Very hurt. But what could she do? It’s her parnasah. So she kept quiet.

She kept quiet but she was terribly hurt.

Now maybe this girl forgot about what she did.

And maybe the teacher forgot about her pain.

But Hakodosh Boruch Hu doesn’t forget. He might give you time to fix your mistake – to do teshuvah – but when you don’t, and instead you forget about it, He doesn’t forget.

You hear that?! Hakodosh Boruch Hu doesn’t forget!

In the above incident (which Rav Miller elaborated on even more later in a different Q&A), the girl was "just kidding."

Whether the teacher remembered or forgave later wasn't the main issue. The girl (who was around 21 at the time of the crash) never did teshuvah. She never apologized or fixed this middah.

She wasn't even engaged in what we consider conventional ona'at devarim, like shouting or insulting.

She didn't even SAY anything specific. Her behavior of mimicking did the job.

And her behavior HURT.

Here's what Rav Miller says about your view of the behavior and Hashem's view of the behavior:

You’re needling him, you’re saying a sharp word, that rips at his heart.

You might not even notice it, you expect everyone to just have thick skin and bear it, but just because you’re oblivious to other people’s feelings that will not be an excuse on the Day of Judgement.

***

Husbands and wives are going to be held accountable in the next world for very great wrongs, heaps, mountains of aveiros, mountains of unkind words, and glum faces that they showed to each other instead of being quiet.

***

But they’re constantly sticking daggers in each other, and these daggers are going to rise up on the yom hadin, and they’re going to be the most dangerous, fearful opponents, fearsome opponents.

A person will be amazed to find that he has enemies that are attacking him and accusing him and pointing a finger at him on the yom hadin [Day of Judgement].

All because of what husbands and wives said to each other.

All because of what neighbors say to one another.

Even what friends say to each other.

https://torasavigdor.org/the-easy-road-to-teshuva-tape-524/

How Does Hashem See Things?

So with all this in mind, what was the Heavenly view on Rena—despite all her other genuinely good qualities?

Here's another tidbit...

An organization responsible for helping children with learning disabilities dealt with Rena a lot.

And Rena, because she cared passionately about her learning disabled son and genuinely wanted the best for him, regularly shouted and raged at the people in the organization.

I don't know how often because I do not know how often they encountered Rena.

But when she dealt with them, she yet again suffered unbearable tension that demand release.

A person working in this organization genuinely cared about children and did everything she could to help them.

She even took a young Down syndrome student into her home for 2 years when an potential adoption fell through and the girl's foster home could no longer keep her.

She also took in 7 children from 2 different families at the same time when their mothers suffered post-partum depression.

This same woman also traveled to the former USSR to help fellow Jews.

She also experienced heartbreaking tragedies I'm not mentioning for reasons of privacy.

And she used to find Rena's tirades terribly difficult to deal with it.

So, in light of everything the Torah and its Sages say about ona'at devarim, how do you think Hashem "felt" about Rena's well-intentioned, yet terribly stressful behavior toward this woman?

Furthermore, rather than getting Rena's son what he needed, it made it more difficult for the staff because they dreaded dealing with her.

And how do you think Hashem viewed Rena's tirades toward this staff of her fellow Jews trying to help Jewish children succeed?

Again, setting aside our own bias, natures, and cultural attitudes...how does HASHEM view such behavior?

The Pain of Teshuvah can Cancel Out the Pain of Punishment

So here's the question that many people dislike:

What if, instead of barreling on with her explosive behavior even when denied access to her grandchildren, she decided to face the terribly painful & gruelingly difficult work of controlling her outbursts?

Do you know how difficult it is to put the lid on unbearable tension just boiling to burst out?

I do. I also have a temper. Not like Rena's, but it's definitely there. And I've definitely been in situations in which I felt like a roiling volcano about to erupt, and it HURTS to put a cap on it.

I don't always succeed.

And Rena wouldn't always succeed either, especially at the beginning.

But she would at least transition to the Heavenly category of TRYING.

And depending on the situation, self-control doesn't always bring the feelings of serenity, joy, and success that many self-help gurus claim it does.

In other words, BEING good doesn't always FEEL good...at least, maybe not in the beginning.

So if Rena had faced the grueling agony of control her temper after 50 years of letting it blow, would she still have gotten ill?

Would the long-term pain, stress, agony, and frustration of breaking such a difficult middah prevented her from experiencing the pain, stress, frustration, and agony of illness and chemo?

And would she have lived longer by showing Hashem she was doing the work He put her here to do?

Because Rena was so good in other ways, I assume the years of disease & suffering atoned for her lifetime of ona'at devarim and she is in a good place now.

(And the refined, sensitive daughter-in-law willingly named her own daughter after Rena. Plus I think Rena received access to her grandchildren again during her illness. If she didn't, it's because she was vulnerable to infections, and not because of her DILs.)

Can we know for certain the answer to the above question?

No, of course not.

But with everything I've ever read on the topic, the indications are definitely there.

As a popular frum song in Israel went:

"You need to go looking for Hashem before He comes looking for YOU."

And there's a good, healthy, hopeful lesson in that too.

Related posts:

A halachic discussion of ona'at devarim:
https://dinonline.org/2015/05/26/words-that-hurt-torah-laws-of-onaas-devarim/

http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/what-to-do-with-the-idea-of-hashem-doesnt-give-a-person-a-test-they-cannot-handle-when-you-feel-you-davka-cannot-handle-it-some-revolutionary-insights-from-the-bitachon-magazine

http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/what-to-do-with-the-idea-of-hashem-doesnt-give-a-person-a-test-they-cannot-handle-when-you-feel-you-davka-cannot-handle-it-some-revolutionary-insights-from-the-bitachon-magazine

http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/as-long-as-you-are-a-fighter-you-are-a-great-person

http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/what-if-you-lean-more-toward-esav-than-yaakov-avinu-the-perfect-mitzvah-for-imperfect-people

http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/one-of-the-most-powerful-acts-you-can-ever-achieve-remains-deceptively-invisible-silent-and-unacknowledged-in-this-world

http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/why-your-nasty-bad-habits-weaknesses-are-actually-your-best-friends

A Painful Saga with 2 Lessons for Mothers-in-Law

3/8/2022

Upon first facing the reality of becoming a mother-in-law to daughters-in-law, I decided to keep a certain saga in mind that occurred years ago.

And here it is:

Let's call my middle-aged friend "Rena."

Rena had a lot going for her.

She possessed a strong sense of tzedek (justice), generosity, energy, and fearlessness, combined with a strong sense of compassion—all of which enabled her to be a particularly giving person, including doing chessed others found too difficult.

She was completely loyal and would do absolutely anything for her friends, children, and husband.

She also had a very short and explosive fuse.

As her much younger friend, I found her fiery passion more amusing than threatening, usually because it wasn't directed at me personally and because she rarely seemed angry, but more letting off steam.

She calmed down as just quickly as she exploded. And her temper came in short bursts, not long fearsome tirades.

For example, we sat talking one day as her husband attempted to fix a broken alarm clock.

Naturally, the alarm clock kept going off as he fiddled with it.

At one point, with no warning, Rena jerked around & shouted, 'MOISHY, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, STOP IT WITH THE STUPID ALARM CLOCK!!!"

Moishy looked up startled, mumbled something good-naturedly and went to another room.

Rena, completely relaxed now, turned back to me, smiled, laughed, and rolled her eyes good-naturedly, then continued with the conversation.

I didn't think much of it, partly because Moishy seemed used to her outbursts & didn't take them personally, and partly because I'd seen enough marriages to know that many men accidently-on-purpose engaged in behaviors they well knew annoyed their wives because they take pleasure in seeing her lose control.

They either find it amusing or it makes them feel superior.

However, I did not think her outbursts were okay according to Torah.

On the other hand, she did so much good and her outbursts were so not intended as personal attacks, but just a sudden build-up of tension leading to a seemingly uncontrollable release of steam.

Her sons also seemed quite habituated to her personality, especially since, in addition to her explosiveness, she was openly affectionate with them and would do anything for them.

Then her two oldest boys got married.

Introducing the Daughters-in-Law

Initially, things went well...kind of.

One son stood out as an excellent student in yeshivah, with great middot and yirat Shamayim too.

He merited a charedi girl from a very frum & particularly refined family. She also exhibited excellent middot and, initially, she seemed quite fond of her mother-in-law and related to her with a lot of consideration and warmth.

The second son married a girl who'd lived with Rena & Moishy's family as a foster daughter since her mid teens.

This girl's mother suffered from mental illness and when Rena found out the children did not receive proper care in their home, she took them into her home. (They all lived in the same neighborhood.)

If I remember correctly, Rena and Moishy did this unofficially, so it's not like they even got foster care payments from the system.

(Like I said, she did chessed without fanfare that others found too difficult.)

While the girl's siblings turned out well, the girl herself developed a less healthy response to her upbringing (a response which reminded me of borderline personality disorder).

And because this girl and Rena's son started spending so much time together (living in the same home together), they became attracted to each other and got married.

No one (except the couple) seemed happy about this because the girl obviously had emotional problems.

But Rena's son seemed set on this choice and that was that.

And then grandchildren started coming into the world.

Trouble with DIL #2

It started with the baby of Rena's second son, married to the not-so-emotionally-healthy girl.

I noticed with concern that this young woman did not seem to be bonding with her baby.

Then I discovered that during a fast day, she left her 8-month-old in the care of Rena's youngest son—a particularly immature and rough 12-year-old boy.

This 12-year-old loved his baby nephew, but it's like leaving your baby with a well-intentioned oaf.

He simply lacks the emotional maturity, discretion, and sensitivity to deal with such a young child unsupervised for such a long amount of time...

...which is why I felt sick when I heard he'd taken the baby to a local park for 4 hours.

There's no way this kid could properly keep this baby out of the sun, hydrated and fed properly, and play safely on the slides, swings, and carousel.

Expectedly, the baby fell off the carousel onto his head.

(As all of us know, a baby should not be on a carousel. And certainly not by himself without being held properly.)

Many of us, upon hearing the story, felt surprised injury hadn't happened much earlier, but only after 4 hours.

Rena told me that her daughters-in-law blamed her for the incident.

It's true Rena should not have allowed her son take on this responsibility.

But ultimately, it was the daughter-in-law who—stupidly & irresponsibly, in my not-so-humble opinion—actively placed her baby in this boy's custody. And Rena wasn't even there, so why would she be at fault?

And in a pained voice, Rena said her daughter-in-law refused to allow her or the boy any more contact with the baby.

Rena felt stabbed in the heart. She liked children and loved her grandchildren. This was one of the worst things her daughter-in-law could do to her.

What Really Happened to Cause the Rift?

Naturally, a lot was left unsaid.

However, having personally known this daughter-in-law married to son #2 and knowing people like her, I know these types resist ever taking responsibility for their choices & behavior.

So of course, she needed to blame anyone but herself.

And what else wasn't said, but can be inferred?

I can't imagine Rena handled this calmly.

Yes, she would take perfect and loving care of her injured grandson. Yes, she realized her 12-year-old did not do this on purpose.

But she NEVER responded to crisis situations with calm!

I can only imagine there was yelling on Rena's part, including at her daughter-in-law.

Remember: Her daughter-in-law lived with her as a foster child. They were comfortable with each other and the daughter-in-law was quite familiar with Rena's explosive personality.

So as this scenario played out, one can imagine the back-and-forth between the two women.

My assumption is that when the daughter-in-law initially blamed the 12-year-old, Rena exploded, and the daughter-in-law (who cannot handle feeling flawed in the best of circumstances) protected her own feelings of toxic shame by going no-contact.

Or maybe it didn't play out exactly like that, but some version similar to it.

Problems with DIL #1

A couple of years after that, Rena confided that DIL #1 no longer wanted contact with her.

DIL #1 had several children at that point.

Rena claimed DIL #1 simply could no longer tolerate being around Rena and didn't want the children around Rena either.

"My son said she feels physically ill around me," Rena claimed in obvious pain.

Now whether her son said it exactly like that—and it's questionable whether he should have said it like that IF he really did—that's how Rena heard it.

Her shoulders sagging, Rena said, "I really wish I had daughters too. I wish for every mother of boys to also have daughters because dealing with daughters-in-law is really hard. It's just not working out."

Rena's pain and distress were evident. She was heartbroken over being denied access to any grandchildren at this point.

And my own heart went out to her.

But at the same time, I knew DIL #1 and her family, and I had a sense of what went wrong (when it all started out so right...).

As mentioned above, DIL #1 grew up in a very refined family.

I once met her 10 sisters and they made me realize, "THIS is what a bat Melech looks like!"

They're not clones of each other, but they all share the characteristics of warmth, lovely manners, genuine thoughtfulness & consideration of others, graciousness, etc.

I loved being around them (they make sure you feel good and accepted around them) and was thrilled to see real bnot Melech in action.

I can only imagine, despite her good-willed start, how stressful this DIL #1 eventually found the constant explosive outbursts after having been raised in such a refined environment, with the DIL herself possessing a more sensitive nature.

Not to mention, she clearly felt concern for her children regarding Rena's explosive temper around them.

And despite my compassion for Rena's deep pain, it was equally clear there were 2 sides to this story.

2 Big Lessons

Why did this saga stick in my mind as a huge lesson?

I'm not going to address the issue of whether the daughters-in-law were correct to deny their children's paternal grandmother access to her grandchildren.

To me, it's pretty clear that DIL #2 acted out of spite and toxic shame.

But DIL #1 clearly experienced ongoing stress from her mother-in-law's explosive personality, though she tried to focus on her virtues at the beginning. She is the type of person to ask a rav before taking such a step, but I don't know whether she actually did.

So that aside, what are the big lessons here?

#1 A Parent-in-Law May Have to Just Bite the Bullet for the Sake of the Relationships Involved

Rav Avigdor Miller addressed this a lot.

Some children-in-law have poor middos, hypersensitivity, mental issues, lack of tact, and so on.

Some may be wonderful, but lack certain emphases on areas you find important.

For example, a fastidiously neat & clean mother-in-law often struggles with a daughter-in-law who prioritizes everything else over orderliness & cleanliness.

There's nothing wrong with the daughter-in-law; it's just that she'll prioritize everything else first (take a nap, cook, care for the children, do a chessed, spend quality time with the children, work, etc.) before she'll invest time & energy in clean-up—which are different priorities than the mother-in-law's.

And that's normal.

But either way, in-laws may have to use superhuman strength not to say, hint, nothing in order to preserve the relationships.

In Rena's case with DIL #2, anyone would struggle with such a daughter-in-law.

It's terribly painful to see your son and your grandchildren treated this way.

Nonetheless, Rena didn't have much choice once the knot was tied.

#2 What You Need to Do to Keep the Peace Might be What Hashem Wants You to Do to Break Your Middot—and It's Worth It

Did Rena possess many wonderful qualities?

Yes.

Are you allowed to constantly explode throughout the day?

No.

All mussar speaks against expressions of anger, including when you don't consider it anger, but just letting off steam or if you think "That's just how I am/That's just how we are in our family."

Most people I know who get angry a lot either don't consider it anger:

"Just blowing off steam..."
"It was just a momentary burst of emotion."
"We're yellers in our family; that's just how we are, we don't really mean any harm by it."
"This is just how I am."

Or they consider it unavoidable—even righteous:

"I had every right..."
"Well, how else was I supposed to respond to...?!"
"It was just so infuriating..."
"It's because I care so much, I cannot just stand there and do nothing."
"There was no other way to handle it."
"I didn't have a choice; no one would ___ until I started shouting."
"They deserved to be yelled at. At least now they'll know."

The thing is, we're really not allowed to act like this.

We're not supposed to indulge explosive bursts all throughout the day or go on regular tirades.

And even when something goes very wrong, we aren't so supposed to lose our cool.

Rare exceptions exist when anger is the best response.

But they're rare.

In Rena's situation, all she needed to do to avoid the no-contact result was...stop shouting.

Stop exploding.

Stop getting angry.

Yes, it's a big challenge for someone like her, especially after a lifetime of this behavior, and especially because she is so good in other ways.

But DIL #1 lacked the emotional fortitude to deal with it. She's a refined, sensitive soul and these explosions of negative intensity affected her harshly, despite her best efforts to stand strong.

Furthermore, she understandably did not want her children around this behavior.

DIL #2 is easily offended & refuses to take responsibility for her behavior even in the best of times.

All the more so, when she actually made an obviously irresponsible & unintelligent decision, which DID injure her baby, and she's dealing with all that stress.

She's not going to respond well to being shouted at or even Rena shouting about the baby's injuring without attacking the mother for it.

But Rena never considered herself as doing something so bad.

A lot of these people consider their frequent outbursts as quirk or innate nature, similar to how some people hyper, some are messy, some are shy, etc.

They don't stop to consider how severely the Torah frowns this particular behavior.

Shyness, messiness, hyperactivity, etc. don't receive nearly the censure that expressions of anger receive.

Using the In-Law Relationship as Hashem Intended

I'm not saying mothers-in-law are always at fault.

Sometimes a problem results from both of them.

Sometimes, it's just the daughter-in-law.

But when I see mothers-in-law who don't get what they want from their daughter-in-law and I see it's because the mother-in-law has bad middot in some way, whether she's angry, slanders her children and children-in-law to others, causes machloket between them, or a host of other issues, it would be much better for them to take the hint from Hashem and stop that forbidden behavior.

One thing brought out by an in-law relationship is can force a person to work on a middah they never needed to work on before.

A daughter-in-law might be the one person who cannot tolerate a certain middah tolerated by everyone else in the mother-in-law's circle.

Like Rena above, whose friends, family, co-workers, employers, neighbors, etc. tolerated her frequent outbursts, but only her daughters-in-law could not.

So as I go on this new leg of life's journey, I'm trying to keep the above in mind.

The follow-up post is here:
http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/the-severity-possible-impacts-on-those-who-regularly-transgress-the-torah-prohibition-of-onaat-devarim-verbal-emotional-abuse

Related posts:
https://torasavigdor.org/rav-avigdor-miller-on-the-mother-in-law-with-sage-advice/

https://torasavigdor.org/rav-avigdor-miller-on-mother-in-laws/

https://torasavigdor.org/rav-avigdor-miller-on-the-wife-vs-the-mother/

torasavigdor.org/rav-avigdor-miller-on-loyalty-to-your-wife/

Part II: When Honesty Stops Being a Virtue (Please scroll down to get to the parts on in-laws.)

What being a mother-in-law can sometimes feel like...

Sephardi Charedi-Lite (Patuach) Teens Getting Married: How It Started and Why It's Not Only Gaining Popularity, But Also Working Well

2/8/2022

Over the past couple of years, a new trend developed among young charedi (or to be more exact, charedi-lite) Sephardim: teen marriage.

Teen marriage isn't such a big deal in the charedi world and most Chassidish groups marry off both girls and boys between the ages of 18-20—occasionally, a girl might be even younger.

(Teen marriage in the Western non-Jewish world is considered one of the most destructive & dumbest acts a person can do. But the factors making teen marriage so difficult to succeed among modernized non-Jews are either not present or much less among frum Jews.)

Furthermore, a lot of American Chalabim (Syrian) Jews traditionally married off their daughters right after high school, and the boys a couple of years later after they learned the family business. (Don't know if this is still true, but it was true at one point.)

Despite all this, Litvish Ashkenazim and a lot of Sephardim in the charedi world wait until their early twenties. This gives the girls time to earn a degree to support a kollel husband & both extra time to mature emotionally.

Some of the greatest rabbanim recommended the early twenties rather than the late teens.

But all the sudden, tons of teen marriages started occurring among the more "open" charedi Sephardim here.

Many were 18-19, with sometimes both the boy and the girl married at 18. In one case, a 17-year-old girl married a 19-year-old boy.

More recently, a 17-year-old boy proposed to an 18-year-old girl a week before his 18th birthday.

Intrigued, I decided to learn more.

What are the Common Factor in This New Trend?

What do all these couples have in common?

Nearly all of them are charedi-lite or what's now called patuach (open)...but NOT off-the-derech (nor do they want to be).

They own cell phones (some filtered, some not) and dress modern.

Nearly all the boys either did not continue to yeshivah gedolah (post-high school yeshivah) or they did, but did not stay for more than a year or two.

Instead, they headed straight into full-time employment.

And while they push the boundaries with their clothing styles, associating with the opposite gender, Internet usage, etc., no one seems to want to stop being frum or even leave the charedi community.

They're not going to the army either.

In fact, these young couples even choose to continue living in the same charedi community in which they grew up.

So I think it's interesting that they feel friendly toward their upbringing and community (even if they sometimes had negative experiences).

They're not hostile or bitter toward their communities or parents.

They want to stay within the charedi framework and send their children to charedi schools.

But they want to do it on their terms.

The vast majority did not meet on shidduchim; they met at work or at a friend's house or on the street.

Along with their more open tendencies (with which I don't agree, but nonetheless admire them for wanting to remain within the basic framework)

One exception to that went like this:

The parents of a 17-year-old boy divorced & both married other people within a few months.

One of the youngest in his family, most of his siblings were married in homes of their own.

He dormed in yeshivah, coming home only twice a month, but no longer felt he had a home to come home to.

Though his step-parents were nice to him, he understandably no longer experienced the same feeling of being at "home" that he felt when his parents were still married to each other.

Because there was no remedy to this problem, he didn't feel comfortable confiding in either of his parents.

After all, there was no way to switch the situation back, plus both his parents and step-parents were being nice and doing what they could to make him feel comfortable.

But tachlis, once you have parents focused on a new marriage in a new home, with a new authority figure around, plus step-siblings, it's just no longer as comfortable as before.

So he came home from yeshivah, but never felt "at home."

Parents can try and make this work as much as possible, but his feelings are completely normal and understandable.

So he began confiding in a big-brother figure at his shul. This big-brother figure was close to thirty & married with children.

He understood and felt for the young bachur.

After listening and empathizing for a few months, the big-brother figure said something like, "Listen, I don't see any way in this situation to get back that feeling of being home. In fact, I see only one solution for you. How do you feel about getting married and creating a home of your own that way?"

The boy was open to the idea.

So the big-brother figure continued, "Great. Because my wife's best friend has a younger sister who we think would be a good match for you."

The teenagers met and it indeed ended up being a match. They married at 18 and are very happy together.

Covid regulations had a significant impact on creating this phenomenon.

As mentioned above, many couples met in non-traditional ways.

It started before covid, but the erratic covid lockdowns put this trend on steroids.

Covid regulations caused the following:

Educational institutions closed or on unpredicatable schedules
Bus lines operated erratically (meaning, a yeshivah student could wait 90 minutes for a bus meant to come every 15 minutes, and when it finally arrived, the bus wouldn't even stop because it was full)
Israeli apartments are too small to confine a large family (or even a small family!) comfortably for extended periods of time

So many frum youth ended up gathering together on the streets, the parks, or wherever.

This led to boy-girl mingling.

In another case, an 18-year-old yeshivah bachur traveled far outside his hometown to get to yeshivah. But with the above-mentioned issues, he often found himself hanging out at a friend's home near the yeshivah.

(Again, he did this because the yeshivah would suddenly close then re-open or because the buses weren't operating in a normal way. So he needed somewhere to go in the meantime.)

And that friend had a 16-year-old sister.

And that 16-year-old sister had a friend who liked to come over and hang out at their apartment.

And the friend of the brother noticed the friend of the sister and found her very appealing.

Anyway, after his parents found out about their relationship, his father said, "Having a girl friend isn't healthy. Either break up or get married."

And they did. By the time the wedding came about, she was 17 and he was 19.

That happened frequently, BTW. The parents discovered the relationship and didn't oppose it outright; they understood. But commonly, the parents told the couple what the father said above.

And these are frum youth. They understood exactly what their parents meant.

The boys and girls tend to be fairly clean-cut and responsible.

The boys all hold down jobs.

(And it's much easier to live in Eretz Yisrael on a lower salary than it is in the USA.)

Some boys were doing phenomenally well from a young age. For example, the boy from the above example was managing an optometry store from age 18.

Another made money hand-over-fist as an excellent barber.

Another worked as a tailor since he was 15. He started off doing excellent work for friends in yeshivah, then he found steady part-time work tailoring in a mens clothing factory while learning part-time. (He and his wife were 18 when they married.)

And so on.

Some of the boys smoked, but none of them were doing drugs or drinking (either not at all or only sporadically). The girl they married ended up being the only girl they'd ever met or dated. (In other words, they hadn't been seeking out girls prior to that.) They hadn't gotten in trouble with the police. They weren't getting rowdy or openly rebellious when they hung out together.

The girls too had finished school and were working or completed a degree or in the middle of completing a degree.

If you saw any of them, you'd think they were modern and patuach and somewhat week spiritually.

But no one is looking to reject frumkeit outright.

And while they own Internet-connected cell phones (which is admittedly a huge problem), they aren't looking to rebel or reject. They're not cynical. They don't sit around kvetching about all the defects in the charedi community, etc.

And yes, they've had negative experiences. (Haven't we all?)

But they don't allow those negative experiences to blackout all the positive they experienced.

They have rabbis, rebbetzins, teacher, and/or frum adult family members with whom they maintain a positive relationship.

They more or less get along with their families of origin, even if they don't like certain aspects of their families.

They seem happy, encourage marriage, and generally create a positive peer pressure to do it.

The boys seem content in their married lives (including those with children), which presents a positive example.

It makes marriage and establishing a home attractive.

In one case, one of the married youth at an engagement celebration turned to a good friend (who'd gone off the derech and was shacking up with a girl) and said, "B'ezrat Hashem, we'll be dancing at YOUR irusin and wedding this year!"

In other words, they're very confident in their decision to live life right.

And they're not afraid to say it, including to the off-the-derech youth who often get offended and upset when people press them to do anything frum.

Being confident, strong, capable, and responsible are positive masculine qualities.

And seeing these young married men with such manly qualities presents a very compelling example for other boys.

They're good at relationships.

As mentioned above, these youths tend to get along with their families of origin, even when they're not the best.

They also proved themselves able to make friends and keep them.

They're good-hearted, loyal, and giving...the very qualities people need for marriage.

In other words, they come into marriage with the skills and experience of how to make relationships work.

They want to establish their own Jewish home.

These couples don't just want to shack up together.

Despite their young age, they have solid ideas on what it takes to make relationships and a home

Especially with the girls, the girls REALLY seek to make a home and marriage according to their ideals.

They're very idealistic.

And the boys are too, depending. (Usually, boys aren't as idealistic as girls regarding parenthood and marriage.)

But they all expect to work for their relationship, work for their parnasa, and work at raising their children.

And while they may get along with their families of origin, it's true that most seem to be seeking a way to create the home they would have preferred, but their own parents weren't able to give them.

And I see this as a good thing.

People want to better themselves and make course-corrections without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Both the boys and the girls receive Torah hashkafah on marriage.

This means a lot more than just taharas mishpacha laws.

In fact, one rabbi in our area opened a weekly class for these young soon-to-be-married or just-got-married young men. He also teaches them privately before the wedding.

They like him a lot & really listen to him.

They have support from their families.

Their parents accept their child's chatan or kallah, despite not having been found in the conventional way of shidduchim.

They pay for much of the wedding expenses and continue to provide financial and practical support in the way frum parents do for any married child.

In one case, this meant the teenage daughter-in-law moving in with her parents-in-law when her second pregnancy demanded bedrest and extra care.

Sweet Story

At a vort for one of these teen engagements, an 18-and-a-half-year-old friend of the chatan stood up to give a dvar Torah.

Married for all of 6 months so far, he spoke from the heart about how important it is to understand the different natures between men and women, and, referencing verse from Chazal, he darshaned that if only the husband does his best to understood, accept, and be mevater to his wife, then it builds both him and his shalom bayit.

Everyone loved it.

In fact, looking around, everyone felt amused by this teenager married for 6 months speaking like an experienced madrich chatanim...and we all felt impressed too by his sincerity and maturity.

Later, we all commented on how moved we were by his short by heartfelt drasha.

One person said, "It's because he spoke from the heart. 'Words from the heart enter the heart'."

Watching them, they seemed emotionally mature and very connected to each other. The young wife also dressed with exceptional tsniyut while still looking contemporary.

I found out later how well he supported her through an early miscarriage and she's pregnant again, but going strong this time, baruch Hashem.

Final Thoughts

It's impossible to foretell now how it will all pan out.

But I'm optimistic.

To date, I know of only one divorce among these young couples and it's because the girl suffers severe immaturity. She's sweet, but very immature due to extreme abuse suffered in her youth, combined with the influence of non-Jewish movies & social media, and the increasing social acceptability of divorce, etc.

The guy was and is such a good sweet person and everyone (including the girl's mother, siblings, BFFs, etc.) think she made a big mistake by pushing for the divorce.

(I think she's worse off for it too, as is their little daughter.)

But everyone else seems to be going strong.

Despite being brought up to disdain young marriage (and experienced disdain myself from secular relatives when I married at age 24—considered unusually young by modern American standards), I realized how good young marriage is for people and society.

Also, I noticed while still an extremely secular person in high school how malleable teenage girl are.

Meaning, they have this profound ability to completely absorb themselves into a relationship with absolute commitment & dedication.

Unfortunately, due to the mores of the surrounding liberal society, these girls wasted their dedication and faithfulness in non-marital relationships with teenage boys who weren't up to the task.

But channeled in a healthy way, I saw this ability as a very powerful thing.

I actually had a married friend in high school who'd gotten married the summer between 11th and 12th grade, and she clearly reaped the benefits of this decision, even though some of the teachers looked down on her for it. But she didn't care because she genuinely loved her husband and her life.

It's true that some aren't ready.

And though people for whom a young marriage did not work out will proclaim they were too young at the time, that's not usually the real factor.

It's not only because they were eighteen or nineteen, but because of their middot or their young spouse's middot, poor relationship skills, unrealistic expectations, unwillingness to do what it takes, overlooking abuse & addiction (something that even well-educated thirtysomethings do), lack of resources, interfering friends & relatives, lack of support, and so on.

But they'll usually claim, "Oh, it's because I was so young when I first married"—even though that's rarely the real reason.

And in today's world, with emotional immaturity and self-indulgence all the rage in Western culture, it's very hard to make marriage work at any age.

50% of American marriages end in divorce. In England, 42% end in divorce & decreasing, but divorce within the first year of marriage is increasing.

(How does that work? Well, England's Muslim population hovers around 7%. Muslims divorce less, so that's probably what's bringing the divorce rate down, plus other people get married less. Also, England hosts a large Indian population, which also divorces less than other Brits.)

But here, I'm seeing these very young couples starting off on the right foot. Some of them reached their twenties, have a few children, and are still going strong.

So that's an interesting sociological trend happening here.

B'ezrat Hashem, it will continue to be a good thing.

Some Torah hashkafah on the topic:

Inspirational Quote from Bilvavi

1/8/2022

The Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Eretz Yisrael by Tel Aviv

"The influences in this world are very strong.

The values are all wrong and our thinking can become distorted.

The proper way is to discover the truth on your own.

Then you will receive your own life from your own neshamah.

Then you will merit being like Adam before the sin.

He had no one to emulate other than Hashem.

The Geulah will come when we don't copy others,

but live from our own discovered truth."

bilvavi.net/english/be-yourself-0

When Torah-Oriented Therapy Worked, How It Worked, and WHY

31/7/2022

UPDATE: A vital second part to this post, containing a third factor not covered here, can be found at this link:
www.myrtlerising.com/blog/the-third-factor-contributing-to-torah-oriented-therapy-that-works

I've criticized secular psychology in the past, including methods & philosophies promoted by frum professionals as Torah-based (when in reality, they simply looked for a verse to support their secular theories, even taking it out of context—rather than the other way around).

And, as described in past posts, there are good reasons for that.

As Rav Itamar Schwartz notes, any psychology NOT derived from Torah sources only addresses:

the surface of the soul
only the nefesh habehameit of either the Jewish or non-Jewish soul
not the Jewish soul according to its true needs

But sometimes, therapy really does help.

So to be fair, I want to speak about that today and WHY it helped in this particular case.

What Was Wrong in the First Place (A Big Mess)

A frum girl was the youngest child born into to a small but extremely dysfunctional family.

The children enjoyed a genuinely loving & dedicated mother who brimmed with energy & drive.

However, the father was extremely abusive in every way, and the parents divorced when she was one.

Initially, the father was allowed contact with the children, but he's mamash dangerous, so age 5 was the last time she saw him (and she's lucky that during that visit, he didn't to her what he did to the oldest sibling, which is what terminated his rights).

She grew up in a charedi community, but her immediate neighborhood ended up being a lot more "open" than typical charedi standards.

For example, there was a lot of boy-girl hanging-out-together, which started out innocently enough at a young age, but never established halachic boundaries once everyone got older.

(Meaning, all the buddy-buddy feelings and relationships felt so good and so familial, they never stopped hanging out together...with the resultant pritzus and off-the-derech behavior any thinking Torah-aware person could foresee from this.)

At her charedi girls school, she learned what a bat Yisrael should be, but she didn't experience those standards in her home or street environment.

Only maybe one friend really dressed tsniusly, not all the mothers even did, and everyone on her block had smartphones & Internet when it was still considered both unacceptable and unusual in the rest of the charedi community.

In an effort to make life more pleasant for the children, the mother installed a LCD screen to the kitchen, where she rewarded her children with Disney movies for finishing their homework and chores. (This, and not even frum children's movies.)

At one point, I saw her on an occasion for which nearly everyone dresses to impress.

Not in a superficial way, but because most understand the importance of a good, solid first impression for this kind of occasion.

Yet this girl showed up looking not only immodest, but slovenly.

That struck me as particularly strange because even the girls disillusioned with tsniyus tend to maintain perfect standards of hygiene and well-coiffed neatness.

Yet this girl looked like she hadn't even brushed her hair and her eyeliner smudged in pouches beneath her eyes...in addition to her immodest clothes and her shirt looking like she hadn't even bothered to straighten it after she put it on.

Another time, a friend needed to encourage this girl to brush her teeth at the beginning of each day, and not just before bedtime.

Some people insist on this extreme come-as-you-are appearance (or, as in her case, come-as-are-after-you-just—woke-up-after-a-late-night-without-having-washed-your-face) as a way of testing others, to see if they'll be liked for who they "really" are.

But the truth is, a slovenly & immodest appearance with bad breath is not who any bat Yisrael REALLY is.

And it's okay for others to find you not-so-appealing in that state.

Having said all that, it's important to know the girl always spoke nicely and quietly to people, even during her most stressful moments at work with the most difficult customers.

Also, she was very into davening 3 times a day (even on a non-shomer-negiah date with a boy, she insisted on breaking for Maariv, encouraging him to do so too), and including Slichot during Elul.

So there was some very real potential here.

How Therapy Helped the Girl Change for the Better

When she was 18, a series of events led her to seek a program of self-improvement.

She contacted a frum female therapist who specialized in teenage girls and just laid out on the table her whole life history and current challenges.

And she made terrific progress within only a few months!

The girl stopped flirting with boys and, in fact, stopped talking to them at all, except for business-only brief exchanges at work.

Certainly, there was no touching.

And while the frum therapist did not succeed in getting the girl to switch from a smartphone to an Internet-free cell phone, the girl left the chat sites and social media, only staying on those directly associated with her employment.

Furthermore, the girl previously responded flirtatiously to messages from strange boys.

But now, any attempt by a strange boy to contact her for anything other than business was met with a short yet scathing response—and always halted that attempt while preventing others.

Also, she looked for support from peers to improve her modesty. (She only found 2 or 3 in her immediate environment.)

"Let's wear longer skirts even if the others will make fun of us," she and her best friend encouraged each other.

(Note: Needless to say, real friends don't make fun of friends who decide to dress according to the fundamentals of halacha.)

In addition to the improvement in tsniyus (which could still use some improvement, but definitely shows stunning progress so far, baruch Hashem), she now looks well-kempt and clean.

She also kept up her great davening habits. And her sweet way of dealing with people became even sweeter.

For example, she previously sometimes made inappropriate or immature comments in her sweet, quiet voice. Accompanying these comments would be an oh-so innocent "Aren't I cute?" or "I don't really know what I'm saying" facial expression.

It seemed her way of not needing to take responsibility for what she said because she didn't mean it like that or didn't realize was she was saying—at least, that was the impression she gave.

Some of these comments bordered on chutzpah & caused discomfort with figuring out how to respond. It was downright embarrassing in a public situation.

And she totally stopped this.

And THAT change signals a change from emotional immaturity to emotional maturity.

When Therapy Doesn't Work

In previous posts, I criticized the therapy methods for not improving emotional maturity or morality in others.

Certainly in the non-Jewish world, most (maybe all?) people I know who went through therapy ended up more selfish, more set in their ways, more assertive about making sure THEIR needs were met at the expense of others, and so on.

And to prove that I ain't just whistling Dixie, here's a new study showing how "mindfulness" (all the rage in therapeutic circles now) makes people in independent cultures (i.e. North America & Europe) MORE selfish:
Mindfulness meditation can reduce guilt, leading to unintended negative social consequences, study finds -- ScienceDaily

Or there's this:
When Therapy Does More Harm Than Good (Article) | Therapist Aid

Even newly adopted positive behavior revealed a downside, like when their refusal to get angry (a good thing) came with an attitude of apathy, sullenness, and passive-aggression.

In fact, their newfound insistence of making sure they get what they want and that others treat them (regardless of how offensive or wrong they are, or how innocent the intentions of the others are) how they want often leads to automatic defensiveness and bristling hostility toward others for not kowtowing or reading their mind quickly enough.

Also, within the frum community, some of the people I make sure to either avoid completely (without being mean) or to keep interactions as brief and superficial as possible (while remaining pleasant for the duration) are people who went through therapy.

One such person even told me how much more emotionally mature she was now because of her therapist.

Maybe it's true. Maybe, as immature as she is now, she was even worse before.

However, while I don't hate her (she endures some very sympathetic challenges, both from her childhood and in her marriage), I can't stand talking to her for more than a minute because she often plays subtle mind games, which I find completely disorienting. I usually come away from an interaction with her feeling like I've said or done something wrong, no matter what I say, because even if you empathize with her, she immediately does an about-face, and argues with you.

But if you don't empathize with her, she either get offended or acts like she is too deep & sensitive to be understood properly.

And that's AFTER her months-long stint in therapy with a frum therapist.

So that's why I'm not into therapy as the cure-all it's reputed to be.

But in the above example of the girl who made such a turnaround between the ages of 18 and 19...why did that work?

Why Therapy Worked with This Girl

I don't know all the details of the girl and her therapy experience.

But I do know this:

Ratzon (desire, motivation)

First of all, the girl felt VERY motivated to change herself and her life.

In her heart of hearts, she WANTED to change & was ready to DO what it takes to change.

She looked at the decisions her mother had made, decisions her older sister had made, and the problems in her own life, and decided a course-correction must occur.

And she was willing to do the work necessary to achieve that course-correction.

The power of a person's own ratzon cannot be underestimated.

The best therapist cannot change a person in ways the person lacks ratzon to change.

Even tzaddikim do not manage this.

For example, the great and holy Chafetz Chaim spoke with a Jew about closing his factory on Shabbos.

How much would you pay now for such a conversation with the Chafetz Chaim?

Yet the man did not change.

The Chafetz Chaim, with all his holiness and siyata d'Shmaya, could not convince the man to even make this ONE change.

Not just keeping Shabbat in full, but simply taking ONE step: to close the factory one day a week.

You can imagine the Chafetz Chaim prayed for this to work and spoke to the man in the best way possible.

And yet...nothing.

Tremendous rabbanim like Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, Rav Aryeh Levine, Rav Shmuel Salant, Rav Meir Shapiro—all of whom proved a tremendous positive impact on the world—still did not merit influencing everyone they met.

How many times did anti-Torah politicians meet (and even debate) with Rav Sonnenfeld or the Chazon Ish and remained untouched by the experience?

So that's a huge point: The girl was READY to change. She really wanted it.

And the fact she's willing to go against peer pressure (including the personal standards of her mother and sister at home) shows how much she wanted this change.

And it says something wonderful about her that she did it despite the currents coursing against her.

Correct Moral Guidance according to Halacha

This is where the therapist comes in.

Now, I do not know what techniques this therapist used. Maybe they're gleaned from the non-Jewish world (as most therapy techniques are).

However, the therapist knew the morally correct direction:

Don't get bogged down in the external reasons for the problems; move forward.

Yes, the girl's father was much more dysfunctional than even other extremely dysfunctional fathers.

And yes, her surrounding environment was not the most conducive.

People need to engage in "turn from evil and do good" no matter what their issues are.

Yes, the therapist needed to understand the girl's background. She also needed to allow the girl to pour out her heart. The therapist needed to listen to that outpouring with empathy and validation.

But along with that, the therapist needed to help the girl make some very real (and hard) changes.

And she did.

Emotional maturity (this includes speaking to others in a way that does not discomfit or embarrass them; you look to see how YOU can make them feel BETTER, not worse)

Tsniyus in both behavior & dress (Therapy that makes a person feel free to indulge their halachically forbidden tendencies is NOT therapeutic for the human soul).

Self-respect (Goes hand-in-hand with the above. No more slovenly dress, unwashed face, unbrushed hair, or halitosis.)

The therapist kept in mind the girl's Olam Haba and ultimate soul needs, not just feel-good Olam Hazeh stuff.

A secular or even modern Orthodox therapist would not encourage a girl to be FULLY shomer negiah; the therapist would just make sure her young frum client was only doing what she wanted to do, regardless of halacha.

And please notice how the therapist helped the girl set up truly healthy boundaries:

Rather than becoming ruder and more stubborn with others, the girl became more tactful and reassuring...HOWEVER, with boys? She put on the brakes full-stop.

So she acted rude & assertive to put off predatory boys while being more sensitive toward everyone else.

And THIS is the correct way to behave. THESE are truly healthy boundaries.

Truly good therapy should make a person MORE MORAL & KINDER, not less.

A Few Final Words on Torah & Psychological Treatment

Is this girl perfect now?

Nope.

She still has her lifetime of inner work ahead of her just like the rest of us.

But the amount of spiritual & emotional progress she achieved in such a short amount of time is stunning and a real inspiration.

And she's not someone you meet and think, "If this is what you're like AFTER therapy, then just how bad were you BEFORE?"

Everyone who knows her considers her a nice person with good middot.

So a sense of fairness compelled me to write about when therapy DOES work after all I wrote against it.

(Having said all that, I will continue to write against much of secular psychology because aspects of it are indeed problematic and make people worse—even when they FEEL better—like with the whole mindfulness method, which eliminated healthy guilt & regret in so many people, making them FEEL better while BEHAVING WORSE).

Big rabbanim like Rav Avigdor Miller & Rav Itamar Schwartz did not hold by secular psychology (including secular-based psychology utilized by frum psychologists), but both believed that guidance based on authentic Torah ideas were helpful.

Please see here:
https://torasavigdor.org/rav-avigdor-miller-on-choosing-the-right-psychologist/

And here:
https://torasavigdor.org/rav-avigdor-miller-on-yoga-or-the-rabbi/

And here:
question.bilvavi.net/blog/2022/06/20/how-should-we-view-psychology/

And here:
question.bilvavi.net/blog/2018/05/13/seeking-help-torah-based-therapy/

Plus here too:
bilvavi.net/english/tefillah-094-seeking-advice:

The words here are not meant to attack the entire world of therapy, but it certainly concerns most of the therapy going on today.

There are of course individual Jews who practice therapy that is line with the holy Torah, and they do not use any of the non-Jewish ideas.

But they are only individuals.

Plus Shiffy Friedman of H.E.A.R.T. Initiative mentioned how she started basing her nefesh-treatment on the teachings of Rav Eliyahu Dessler's Michtav M'Eliyahu/Strive for Truth!

Intrigued by that revelation, I read the first 4 volumes and came away stunned by the realization that you could base an entire treatment method of Strive for Truth only!

Of course, you'd need to be upfront about your lack of degree and also charge less (because by utilizing only Rav Dessler's mussar material, your clients are not paying for your massive college loan debts).

Yes, I'd read a volume of Strive for Truth years ago and liked it, but for some reason, re-reading that volume (plus additional volumes) more recently affected me more powerfully & deeply.

Anyway, I wanted to be fair & tell this story of how Torah-oriented psychological treatment can work.

And there you have it.

Hashem Wanted to Show Me My Big Blind Spot, So He Showed Me the Big Blind Spots of Others First

29/7/2022

Over the past several months, Hashem kept showing me people who felt trapped in circumstances in which they saw no alternative or escape — yet alternatives existed, only they weren't palatable.

Furthermore, all these people could've utilized those same alternatives years ago — and while challenging & painful then, those same alternatives demand much more pain & effort now.

But they do exist and always existed.

And I saw all different examples of this, whether relationships, health, location, work, and much more.

Hashem also showed me a couple of examples of people utilizing their alternatives early on, when it was a steep hill but not yet a craggy mountain.

But mostly I saw people dealing with hills that had turned into mountains over time — mountains that really needed to be climbed in order to solve their issues and go on to their next step in life...but seemed too formidable to be a realistic option.

It was only after the most recent (and most baffling) interaction that I realized Hashem wanted to send me a very important message.

Too Hot and Too Far...Huh?

I was chatting with a woman visiting family in Eretz Yisrael.

She spoke about her desire to move to Eretz Yisrael with her husband and children.

A lot of factors lay in her favor: her Hebrew was already pretty good for someone who didn't live in Eretz Yisrael, she had a degree & copious experience with a profession in tremendous demand in Eretz Yisrael (a job she also loved & excelled in), her husband was fluent in Hebrew and also had a transferrable job.

Their kids were still young and flexible, already knew some Hebrew, and they had family here—family they liked and got along with well.

And with their strong finances, they could pick their city of choice with a very comfortable home.

I mentioned a city here known for its thriving Anglo population, plus its schools and services catered to English-speakers, plus the Anglo community always impressed me as warm, welcoming, and supportive.

"The thing is," she said, "that city is really far from our family here."

"Really?" I said, puzzled.

You see, Israel is smaller than the state of New Jersey, so nothing seems THAT far...unless you're driving from Eilat in the South to Kiryat Shemoneh in the North, or something extreme like that.

"Yeah," she said. "That city you mentioned is a NINETY-MINUTE drive to our Israeli relatives. Ninety!"

I stared at her speechless for a moment.

She leaned forward and said, "We did it. It was a looooong drive."

"Yeah, uh, wow," I said. "Um, I guess I'm just surprised to hear that because I always thought that in America, really long commutes to work and school are the norm. I guess I didn't think about a 90-minute drive to spend Shabbos somewhere as...long."

So she explained that where she lived, their commutes were pretty short. Even their shul was just down the street.

"Okay," I said pleasantly. Then, knowing she only saw her Israeli family every 5 years or so, I added in a good-humored way, "That's still better than a 15-hour flight, right? Ha, ha, ha..."

"Yeah, that's what everyone tells me," she admitted. "And it's true...but still."

I gave her an understanding nod and suggested, "There may be other suitable communities closer to your Israeli family."

She gave me a skeptical smile before continuing.

"Also, it's really HOT here," she added. "I don't know if I could handle it."

I stared at her, again lost for words.

What she said made no sense because she lived in one of the most unpleasantly hottest places in the USA.

How could Israel be considered unbearably hot to someone like her? It didn't make sense.

"Oh," I finally managed to say. "Um...I remember living where you live and I found going outdoors just unbearable...and that was in the winter."

"Oh," she said, laughing, "you're always in air-conditioning! You never really feel it."

I knew this was not true.

People in her area go to outdoor restaurants, use their backyards, go to the beach (which is still unbearably hot despite the ocean winds), and host outdoor parties.

However, she honestly perceived Israel as being "too hot" to live comfortably.

Furthermore, where she is from, people think they need to take a sweater with them when the temperature his 60F/15C.

In parts of America, Canada, and Great Britain, everyone heads to the beach at that same temperature.

Yet people come in droves from those areas to live in Eretz Yisrael.

Furthermore, I even knew a person from Norway who happily lived in hot 'n' humid Tel Aviv.

So altogether, the above reasons made no sense (especially since solutions to these issues exist).

Even given the difference between different kinds of heat (i.e., a person used to humid heat often finds dry heat difficult, and vice-versa), but Israel hosts popular cities in both kinds of heat (eg., Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak are humid; Jerusalem is dry; Beit Shemesh in in-between).

Was she lying?

No.

Other than this, she proved herself to be a refreshingly honest & straightforward person throughout our time together.

So what was going on?

Our unconscious mind often brings "fake" or minor issues to the forefront, convincing us these are our real issues & reasons...while the true issues remain tucked away underneath.

So what I think she really meant is that while she feels she should come to live in Eretz Yisrael, her Diaspora life is so comfortable and fulfilling, she doesn't want to leave it.

And I understand that. Really, it's so understandable.

FYI Note: I was not pressuring her to make aliyah. SHE brought it up, not me. Also, who knows if she's really even Jewish? So I'm talking about her ideals and her reasoning, not mine.

It would have been easier to make aliyah at the beginning of her marriage.

So here was this extremely likeable, intelligent, and positive person offering insensible reasons for not fulfilling a beneficial ideal.

In other words, she could do it. It would probably be better for them if they did. (Again, I don't know all their ins-and-outs, but it looked like it would be a good move.)

But it seemed too big. It demanded too much sacrifice. The transition period would likely be long and grueling...though worth it in the end.

And therein lay the lesson for me.

It's Significantly Harder Now, But Still Possible

Let's say a person was somewhat overweight in their younger years.

A decent gym stood nearby, as did good paths for power-walking in the abundant good weather.

Combined with a healthy diet, this person could have lost the necessary weight within a short amount of time.

But the person only made brief stabs at losing weight without ever confronting or dealing deeply with the issues behind the overeating.

At 50, she finds herself vastly more overweight with fat that's not easy to lose at her age.

Because of both age and the sheer amount of pounds necessary to shed, a weight-loss program will be much more grueling and take a long time.

However, though much easier when younger, it IS still possible to lose the copious weight and to do so at her age.

The alternative, though significantly more formidable, always existed and STILL exists.

It's still possible.

Much harder? Yes.

But still possible.

Yet Again: It's Not about Their Issues, But My Own

So I was running across all these different kinds of situation with this same theme running through them:

Alternatives & solutions to their problems existed, but because they never pushed themselves to take full advantage, those same alternatives proved much more formidable and grueling as time passed.

Over time, their steep hill turned into a craggy mountain.

The alternatives now demanded much more determination, courage, sacrifice, and a much longer and more grueling transition period.

And I knew Hashem wanted me to look in my own life for those hard alternatives that seemed closed, but are really open...just a LOT more demanding and formidable than they would've been had I utilized them years ago.

And I found some.

And I'm still wrestling with exactly how to deal with them.

But at least I got the message.

That's better than nothing.

You're My Inspiration

Initially, this post could've been written completely differently.

It could've been a superior self-righteous post (or a contemplative lecturing post) about the oh-so pathetic state of the world and how OTHER people (not moi, of course—sarc!) are SO messed up.

And how "people" are soooooo in denial and need to get in touch with THEMselves, and develop more self-awareness...blah, blah, blah. (As if I am not a "people" myself, but something more superior, ha-ha.)

I could rant about how people make excuses rather than getting down to business and doing the hard work.

And that would be missing the point.

Hashem was not showing me all this to increase my feelings of superiority or enable me to take pride in the powers of observation, or to turn it all into a lecture on the faults of others.

He wanted me to know about my own hill-turned-mountain.

Or, rather, hills-turned-mountains.

(Yep. There's more than one...gulp! Wish me luck...)

Does an Unwinnable & Unrecoverable War Justify Massive Destruction, Displacement, Trauma, and Loss? Why Does So Much of the Media Insist All This Chaos is Such a Positive & Unavoidable Turn of Events?

28/7/2022

UPDATE: New information, quotes and links below.

The refugee crisis and terrible loss of life and property in the Ukraine stands out as a terrible concern.

While the mainstream media (and most Jewish media, unfortunately) casts the entire blame on Russia, the truth is that the Ukraine did not have to respond as it did.

Any economy and society finds it difficult to recover after such destruction (Bosnia still hasn't recovered from its wars of the 1990s), a country already ranked as the poorest and one of the most corrupt in its region will struggle even more to right itself (because it never stood straight in the first place).

Furthermore, regarding the Ukrainians who found themselves bombed out of their lives and forced to flee in destitution and panic — did anyone ask them if that was okay with them?

Did anyone ask them whether they preferred to endure Russian control again while remaining in their homes, communities, jobs, and lives...or whether they wanted to lose everything (including lives in some cases), make themselves & their children vulnerable to abuse & crime while fleeing and residing unprotected in mass shelters?

Did anyone ask them whether they wanted to be undesirable refugees in Poland or remain in their own society under Russian control?

Did anyone ask the elderly or people confined to hospital wards or the Holocaust survivors (who found it all particularly traumatic)?

Who is the Zelensky government to decide that fighting an unwinnable war and destroying lives and huge swathes of the Ukraine is better for the Ukrainians than Russian governance?

Please remember: The losses and destruction are not realistically recoverable.

So while much of the media is like, "The Ukraine had NO choice! They had to fight back! Whaddaya except them to do, just roll over and let Russia conquer them?"

Well...yes.

I'm not saying Russia was right to invade. I don't think it was right. I don't think Russian greed justifies war.

But in an unwinnable war and an unrecoverable situation (because the Ukraine was already doing so badly before Russia's invasion), there is no logical case that can be made for fighting back.

A Look at the Nordic Countries (Or, "How the Ukraine isn't Finland")

Look, if Russia wanted to invade Finland or any other Nordic country, we could easily understand why they might fight back.

While their handling of immigration has harmed their society, they still remain some of the most highly functional societies in the world.

In fact, Finland is the type of place where, if you forget your purse on a park bench, there is a good chance it will still be there when you come back 20 minutes later to find it.

They could also recover from a war.

Having said that, I don't think that, even banded together, the Nordic countries could win a war with the massive nuclear-armed Russian military.

So if Russia moved on them, maybe they should try negotiating whatever they can (which is how Finland gained its independence from Russia in the first place; not by war, but via diplomacy and patience).

But it would make a lot more sense that they want to preserve their independence and society because, well, they have what to preserve.

And probably at some point, Russia will try to invade the Nordic countries.

After all, their liberal policies of same-gender marriage, being soft on crime, abortion, alcoholic weekends, and loose behavior (like how most Swedes don't even bother getting married & when they do, it's only in their thirties, plus 54.4% of births occur out of wedlock) eventually bring out the disintegration of a society because Hashem really doesn't like that stuff.

In fact, the downfall of their societies has already started via the acceptance massive amounts of immigrants who not only don't share their liberal values, but fervently oppose those values.

But from a purely materialistic point of view, it's understandable if any Nordic country wished to resist Russian occupation with all its might because the quality of life would certainly plummet.

This is not true of Russian occupation of the Ukraine.

Both Share the Guilt

The point is that of course the Ukraine had another option rather than fighting an unwinnable war with its vastly larger, more powerful, and determined neighbor.

Yes, the media is acting like, "Heavens to Betsy! What else could the Ukrainian government possibly have done? They had no other option!"

But it's simply not true.

Of course most Ukrainians (though not all) do not want to live under Russian control.

That's understandable.

But what's happening now is so much worse.

And again...it's UNrecoverable.

Contrary to popular propaganda, the Ukraine was a mess before the invasion. They never had their act together.

How could they possibly recover after this?

And what kind of society do they have to return to? A society in which you may not even receive proper medical care without handing over a bribe? A society with a 42% divorce rate? A society which ranks as one of the worst for corruption and the absolutely lowest in Europe for a poor economy?

A country about which the WHO states: "Ukraine falls in the highest WHO category of 'years of life lost' due to alcohol use, with an average alcohol consumption of 13.8 liters of pure alcohol per person per year (WHO, 2018).

In fact, Ukrainian independence from Russia caused the following:

Independence in 1991 was according to community leaders the end of a country that some had not anticipated, because they thought the USSR was the “mightiest” in the world.

Following the end of the USSR, in Ukraine several collapses of financial systems ensued accompanied by significant losses of jobs, savings and pensions.

Only a few of the respondents mentioned to have anticipated the independence and ensuing chaos and to have redirected their money. Local economies also collapsed resulting in an increased need to become self-sustainable while more people worked on their home farm due to a lack of jobs.

Three health workers (males, 35–55 years old) reported this was not full-time work and that:
“… people would drink alcohol the rest of the day … They cannot imagine that they can have a better life.”
Respondents remarked that outdated and still centrally organized political-economic structures affect all citizens in their daily lives from the state of roads, and public transport, to access to medical supplies and the approach to work.

According to community leaders some individuals longed for the old days when work and medical aid was certain for everyone and that people in their communities who still work according to communist norms struggle to understand that their work lacks standards in quality and quantity.

You can read the rest of the article here (including the bit about the Ukrainian grandmother recalling how she regularly drank wine by the glassful at age 5):
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10826084.2020.1735436

If you read the entire article, you see that Ukrainian independence did not bring an overall benefit to society. They have a lot of problems.

A lot of problems that "nice, normal, civilized" societies do not suffer.

Again, Ukraine is MUCH worse off now under Russian attack than under Russian occupation.

And they won't be able to recover because they were NEVER doing so well to start with.

Like this eye-opening tidbit here:

This same female AD [alcohol dependence] survivor reported to start misusing alcohol from 9 years old, telling how her whole room would reek of alcohol the next morning.

She said her parents would not investigate after her reply that it was “just beer.”

Negligent parenting was in about one third of the youths’ responses linked to parental AD...

We have problems in the frum community, but does anyone have a 9-year-old girl whose bedroom reeks of alcohol?

And I guess you have to be a pretty committed vodka-drinker to consider a 9-year-old's alcohol-saturated bedroom as okay as long as it's "just beer."

Can you picture little Shaindy in her Beis Yaakov uniform of light blue buttoned shirt and navy pleated skirt downing a 6-pack?

Do nice, normal, civilized societies feature such a huge percentage (1 in every 3 children) of negligent parenting due to alcoholism?

In fact, the Ukraine hosts one of the world's highest incidences of children's alcoholism:
www.promoteukraine.org/ukraine-is-a-childs-alcoholism-leader/

That is really not normal.

As stated in previous posts, of course there are decent Ukrainians of integrity, compassion, and goodness.

But here, we are discussing the Ukraine as a general society, and not the wonderful individuals who exist within.

The Ukrainian government could have entered into some kind negotiations to prevent the destruction, displacement, trauma, poverty, severe losses, and chaos millions of people are experiencing now.

So please remember that next time you see a compelling photo of a little blonde Ukrainian toddler in her fuzzy pink coat standing outdoors near an evacuation bus (whose parents are probably impoverished drunks).

She didn't have to be there outside, exposed, and on the run.

There WAS another option. Not a palatable or ego-stroking option. But a better one than this.

And let's hope that as the Ukrainians tire of the constant war, poverty, displacement, and death, that they don't wake up to the fact that the man who helped wreck their lives is a Jew.

Sure, I don't see that mumar and possible meshumad as a fellow Jew. (The Rambam says I do not need to consider him my brother due to his lack of any connection to Torah.) I don't believe he even has a Yisrael soul.

But that's not how he'll be seen in his part of the world once all the smoke clears.

Let's hope he stops crowing about his Jewish roots and that the Ukrainians also forget about those roots.

Outside posts on this topic:

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