Following on the heels of the previous post, I wanted to look at another idea of Rav Dessler: one's personal choice box.

In the previous post, we saw how Mrs. Kanner avoided being completely crushed by the He'der Gehinnom on Earth due to the inner resources imbued from her commitment to Torah & mitzvot.

However, every person has a limit.

Note: Mrs. Kanner's Holocaust autobiography is available for free legal download here:
http://www.shatteredcrystals.net/files/SHATTERED-CRYSTALS.pdf

Within that same timeframe at the awful Nexon transit camp, Mrs. Kanner meets Rebbetzin Kremer, a profoundly religious woman who, with her husband, devotes herself to her people in the camp.

Rebbetzin Kremer took upon herself to attend to the purification ritual of the increasing number of dead Jews in the camp.

But being a one-woman chevra kadisha soon overwhelmed her and she turned to Mrs. Kanner for help.

Despite any prior experience in such a task, Mrs. Kanner agreed.

But ultimately, she couldn't tolerate it.

The first time Mrs. Kanner assisted the rebbetzin in this chessed shel emet, she needed to run outside to vomit.

Then, biting her lip, she forced herself to work for another hour, fighting nausea the whole time until she ran out to vomit again.

Two days later, Mrs. Kanner forced herself to return to help the rebbetzin, but again, found herself rushing outside to vomit.

In Mrs. Kanner's words (page 175):

In her sincerity, Mrs. Kanner looked for a replacement, but never found one.

The last time she saw Rebbetzin Kremer, the rebbetzin was helping two elderly ladies walk to the train deporting Jews out (which prevented these ladies from being maltreated by impatient Nazis).

Now.

Do you think that anyone should compare Mrs. Kanner to the rebbetzin?

No.

Do you think that in Shamayim, there's judgement on Mrs. Kanner for not being able to do what the rebbetzin did in those circumstances?

No.

You can't compare the two at all.

For Rebbetzin Kremer, attending to the needs of the dead lay in her personal choice box.

It was difficult in such awful circumstances, but she was able to do it. She was able to choose to do it.

And while Mrs. Kanner behaved heroically when she volunteered to assist the Red Cross nurse in her rounds, helping with the taharah ritual was simply outside Mrs. Kanner's choice box.

As Rav Dessler notes, we aren't judged for that which lays outside our choice box.

Some things really are beyond our present level & are simply not realistic for us where we stand now.

As the book Shattered Crystals shows, Mrs. Kanner was a devoted, courageous, resourceful, and heroic Jewish woman.

Her inability to help with this particular mitzvah doesn't minimize her personal greatness.

And the above is only one example of why you can't batter others with comparisons.

Yes, something might be important. It might be a big mitzvah.

But what if you simply CAN'T?

We can only achieve what lies within our choice box.

And, through our inner growth, we can expand our choice box over time.

But we can't accomplish what lies outside the range of realistic choices available to us.

You can break a person by pressuring them to perform what lies outside their personal choice box.

​Real chizuk means encouraging a person to choose correctly according to his or her unique level & personality.

May we merit to always make choices that elevate us.

​Years ago, I started going through the Me'am Loez by borrowing volumes from a friend who owned the entire set in English translation.

The Me'am Loez is an astonishing masterpiece of Torah scholarship—written completely in Ladino.

​Initiated by Rav Yaakov Culi & first published in 1730 in Turkey, it sparked a revolution amid the deteriorating spiritual situation of Sephardi Jewry in the Mediterranean countries.

Reportedly, tens of thousands of families who'd neglected religious observance embraced full religious adherence after reading just the first volume of Me'am Lo'ez.

With the heartfelt goal of giving his fellow Jews a positive answer for the Heavenly Court on the day of death, Rav Culi reassured them that as long as they studied the Me'am Lo'ez every day, they could claim before Heaven that they had learned the whole Torah because the Me'am Lo'ez covers all aspects of Torah.

Its English translator, Rav Aryeh Kaplan, likens its restorative influence to that of Chassidus on Ashkenazi Jewry.

What is the Me'am Lo'ez and what was its power?

First of all, Rav Culi decided to write in the vernacular of those times—Ladino (Judeo-Spanish).

Many Sephardi Jews of that time either did not understand Hebrew or did not understand it well, making much of Jewish scholarship inaccessible to them.

The best way to provide them with knowledge was via their spoken language of Ladino.

With a development similar to that of Yiddish, Ladino consists of a strong Spanish base with many Hebrew words mixed in & Hebrew also influences Ladino's syntax. Aramaic, Arabic, Portuguese, Turkish, and Greek loanwords also appear in Ladino.

For centuries, Ladino remained the common language for Jews of Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, the Middle East, and North Africa.

The wife of my husband's brother grew up speaking Ladino because her mother never learned Hebrew well, and Ladino was what she spoke in Spanish Morocco (Tangier). A Moroccan cousin of my husband also attended a school for religious Jewish girls in Tangier, and Ladino was the language of instruction.

Hardly anyone speaks Ladino today and the few who know Ladino or learn it do not use it as their primary language of communication.

However, a Ladino song with a wonderful melody about Avraham Avinu remains popular even today: El Rey Nimrod — King Nimrod. 

This song (including an English translation) is easily found today, and several modern singers have recorded it. I first encountered it years ago on a cassette of songs by Yehoram Gaon, and immediately fell in love with it.

A deeply religious song, it's one of the last vestiges of Ladino in popular culture.

The Me'am Lo'ez is commonly referred to as a commentary on the Torah.

And it is.

But it's also much more than that.

Though written according to the chronology of the verses of Torah, the Me'am Lo'ez reads much like a novel.

And therein lies part of its great power of influence: The Me'am Lo'ez provides enjoyable & fascinating reading.

Throughout the masterpiece, Rav Culi (and the Sages who continued the Me'am Lo'ez after him; Rav Culi passed away after completing all of Beresheit & two-thirds of Shemot) brings a wealth of Torah scholarship written in a conversational manner.

In fact, reading an English translation of the Me'am Lo'ez, it's astonishing to see the breadth & depth of Rav Culi's knowledge.

Even if one studied copiously for 200 years, how could one know so much, both of well-known & copiously studied works and also little-known midrashim?

Tanach, Talmud, mussar, halacha, midrashim, Zohar — Rav Culi not only knew these works with amazing familiarity, but also knew all the commentaries associated with these works.

And although it's thought of a Sephardi work, only its halacha is specifically Sephardi (although in translation, scholars added the Ashkenazi variations in brackets).

The rest of the Me'am Lo'ez reaps from a wealth of universal scholarship: Talmud, Zohar, Midrash Rabbah, Kli Yakar, Yalkut Shimoni, Rashi, Rambam, Ramban, Ralbag, Magen Avraham, Abarbanel, Pri Chadash, and much more.

If you read the Me'am Lo'ez on any parsha or book (like, say, Shoftim/Judges), you will not only end up knowing that parsha or book well, but you will learn a lot of halacha, mussar, kabbalah, and just plain fascinating information.

In its heyday, a bride's family purchased a set of the Me'am Lo'ez for the groom, much like the bride's side purchases a set of the Talmud for the groom today.

And much like today's Jewish man commits himself the the program of Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud per day), Jewish men were also expected to learn a portion of the Me'am Lo'ez every day.

Those who could not afford a set of their own or who could not read attended public readings in synagogues.

(Readings, both public & private, plus discussions, enabled women to also learn the content of the Me'am Lo'ez.)

And the reading of the original Me'am Lo'ez is where we struggle today.

The Me'am Lo'ez was originally printed using Hebrew letters.

Like Yiddish, Ladino was originally written with Hebrew letters.

And the script used was similar to Rashi-script.

Who knows Rashi-script today?

Only frum people, and not all frum people can read it. And it's not as easy to read as regular Hebrew script.

Furthermore, as noted above, hardly any Ladino-speakers remain to understand, let alone translate the Me'am Lo'ez.

You also need to be a real Torah scholar in order to both understand & explain the concepts elucidated in the Me'am Lo'ez.

​Fortunately, such a person was found in Yerushalayim in the late Sixties: Rav Shmuel Yerushalmi.

Interestingly, it was an Ashkenazi Jew, Rav Chanoch Eliezer Wagshal, who initiated the first Hebrew translation project.

After hearing Sephardi Sages discuss the Me'am Lo'ez & seeing Sephardi shopkeepers learn from it during pauses in sales, Rav Wagshal decided (with the support of another Ashkenazi Jew, Rav Asher Zelig Margolius) to seek its translation into Hebrew.

Actually, even before these Ashkenazi rabbanim sought to produce a Hebrew translation, the greatest Sephardi Sages of that time already spoke with Rav Margolius about a Hebrew translation to prevent the Me'am Lo'ez from being completely lost to the Jewish people.

A decade later, Rav Wagshal approached Rav Aryeh Kaplan with the goal of translating it into English.

Despite Rav Kaplan's Ashkenazi-sounding surname, Rav Kaplan's family originates from the Spanish city of Carmona and Rav Kaplan's grandfather was fluent in Ladino. Though he taught Ladino to Rav Aryeh Kaplan, it happened early in his youth and much had been forgotten.

Not to mention, many Ladino words known among Sephardi Jews of the 18th Century failed to remain in use over the centuries.

​For these reasons, Rav Kaplan reluctantly conceded to utilizing Rav Shmuel Yerushalmi's excellent Hebrew translation (rather than translating exclusively & directly from the original Ladino), though his English translation also follows & utilizes the original Ladino. 

(The above information is found in the Translator's Preface to the English translation of Beresheit-Noach in Volume 1 of the Me'am Lo'ez.)

However...

Neither the Hebrew nor the English translations reflect a complete translation of the Me'am Lo'ez.

Especially in the books following the Chumash, it's questionable how closely the Hebrew translation follows the original Ladino.

Certainly, both translations are fascinating & enriching masterpieces, which retain much of the original content of the Ladino Me'am Lo'ez.

However, the Hebrew translation of Beresheit/Genesis omits several paragraphs dealing with Kabbalistic interpretations.

However, Rav Kaplan restored some of them into the English translation.

On the other hand, the English translation omits some scientific discussion.

​Rav Culi made those scientific interpretations according to the most brilliant knowledge of the 18th Century, but at the time of Rav Kaplan's translation, those same interpretations were outdated and Rav Kaplan feared they might diminish appreciation of the Me'am Lo'ez in full.

(I couldn't help wondering about this, knowing how science ebbs & flows throughout time. I remember reading another translation of a book about Jews in Yemen, with the translator's apologetic disclaimer regarding certain natural medical practices of that time as being what they considered helpful back then — only for such techniques to make a comeback in our times, with evidence to back up their efficacy.)

Note: Like Rav Yaakov Culi, Rav Aryeh Kaplan passed away before completing the English translation, and so the English translation was completed by others.

Reading the above brought me to the sad realization that the best a non-Ladino speaker could do is read both the English & the Hebrew translation, but even then, you still won't get the full original, whether the supposedly outdated science or the deep Kabbalistic interpretations or other deviations.

(Also, I found it intriguing that Rav Culi had no problem including certain Kabbalistic interpretations for the most ignorant of his time, but both Rav Yerushalmi & Rav Kaplan concluded that at least some of them are not appropriate for us, even we frummies. How times have changed...the 18-century am haaretz could apparently handle what the the 20th-century educated frummie could not)

However, with all the Spanish comprising Ladino, couldn't one of the many frum Spanish-Hebrew-speaking rabbis of today produce at least a full Hebrew translation—and really, there are even rabbis who know Spanish, Hebrew, and English too.

Can't we have a complete translation of the original in both Hebrew & English?

Furthermore, how about a transliteration of the original Rashi-script to the Latin-based script used by all Spanish-speakers today? Wouldn't that make the original Me'am Lo'ez accessible to at least Spanish-speaking Jewry today (plus make it a lot easier for non-native-Spanish-speakers to work it out)?

As stated above, you really need a full-fledged Torah scholar to translate the 3 million words of the Me'am Lo'ez. 

While this whittles down quite a bit the number of available candidates for the task, they certainly exist.

The problem is that with Rav Yerushalmi's skillful translation, there isn't much impetus to re-invent the wheel.

Just to figure out the omitted sections—sections which really might not be appropriate for the average reader today—and other deviations from the original?

No, it's an overwhelming task for such minor reasons.

Ditto with an English translation, even though we have rabbis knowledgeable in Spanish & English.

And what about a transliteration? Shouldn't that be easy enough if Ladino is anyway based on Spanish?

Well, actually, no...

Why not?

Because...

Disclaimer: Different regions of Spanish-speakers pronounce the same words differently. I chose one & lack the knowledge to include all the variations. In fact, I never learned Spanish; I only tried to learn some to understand the original Ladino of the Me'am Lo'ez. Anyway, please keep the above in mind if you're used to a different pronunciation.

It seems that Ladino adopted a—let's call it phonetic, maybe?—pronunciation of Spanish words.

For example, the Spanish word for "people" is gente.

Gente is pronounced "hen-teh."

However, in the original Me'am Lo'ez, gente is spelled:

In English transliteration, that's probably pronounced "zheenty" — which is how one might pronounce gente without knowing the rules of Spanish.

(Imagine the "zh" pronounced like the "s" in "pleasure." It's a j-z sound not found in English, but common in European languages.)

​On the other hand, it depends how the tet-yud ending are voweled. Is there a chirik (ee) under the yud or a tzereh (eh)? It doesn't say.

But even if the Ladino-speakers pronounced it with a tzereh under the yud, making the pronunciation "zheenteh," it still isn't how the Spanish gente is pronounced. 

Yet it would make sense to transliterate ג'ינטי as gente.

But in doing so, you would lose the original Ladino pronunciation.

Once you do that (and if you do that throughout), it's not really Ladino anymore.

Likewise, the Spanish que (than, that) is pronounced "keh."

Ladino spells it קי.

Is that pronounced "keh" or "kee"?

I'm not sure, but if it's "kee," then you couldn't spell it que, right?

Other words like ella (her), which is pronounced "eyah" or "ayah," are spelled phonetically in Hebrew-scripted Ladino: אייא

​Likewise, there are words like:

This was likely pronounced "pro-vee-zho."

It only takes a bit of research & guessing to figure out this is the Spanish provencho — pronounced "pro-beh-cho." (It means "advantage" or "benefit.")

​But again, how would you spell it according to the Spanish alphabet?

So that's a major complication in coming up with a good Spanish transliteration.

And just for kicks, here is a phrase from the original Ladino Me'am Lo'ez:

And here in Spanish-English transliteration:
"...no tienen hatzlacha keh plantan arvolis e no tienen proveezho de eyos..."

In real Spanish, it would go something like this:
"...no tienen hatslaja que plantan arboles y no tienen provencho de ellos..."

If you know Hebrew, you probably caught the insertion of hatzlacha/success.

(I'm not sure how you transliterate hatzlacha in Spanish; thanks to Hava for her suggestion in the comments.)
​
In English translation:
"...they don't have success with planting trees and they don't benefit from them..."

If you know Spanish & Hebrew, plus you can read Rashi-script, then feel free to try reading the original Me'am Lo'ez here:
https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22704&st=&pgnum=1&hilite=

Anyway, I came to the heart-sinking realization that the original Me'am Lo'ez will never be realized in complete translation.

As a complete body of work and one of the most brilliant & encompassing works of Torah scholarship since the Talmud, it's lost to us (though in translation, we retain the majority of it).​

I mourned that fact for a bit, then realized that if Hashem wished us to have a complete translation of the Me'am Lo'ez in at least Hebrew, then we would have it.

Ladino-proficient Torah Sages with the skill necessary to translate into Hebrew existed in the centuries since the publication of the Me'am Lo'ez.

Yet it never happened until 1967.

​And whether it was for the English-speaking audience or the Hebrew-speaking audience, knowledgeable rabbis agreed that at least some parts of it must be omitted.

So I took comfort in the fact that we received exactly what Hashem wanted us to receive from the Me'am Lo'ez.

And regardless of any omissions, the translations of the Me'am Lo'ez provide us with a wealth of Torah knowledge & compelling reading for our times—and refreshing sustenance for our souls.

Another way to chart the downward spiral of Western society is to look at the blatant hypocrisy taking hold.

And I don't just mean how rioting about the accidental death of a womanizing, thieving, formerly violent drug-addicted irresponsible father at the hands of a police officer who was clearly power-tripping his sadistic streak...when some American cities have recently had their largest number of shootings EVER in a 24-hour period and nearly all the victims are black and you don't hear a word about it from BLM.

(In fact, because police are now reluctant to patrol dangerous neighborhoods properly, these same neighborhoods are seeing higher-than-ever numbers of shootings & murders, including the shooting-murder of a 7-year-old black girl...who might've been protected if a police officer of any color had been in the vicinity.)

Nor do I mean the whole narrative of hating whites and demanding reparations over Southern slavery from 2 centuries ago, when black Africans fully cooperated with white slave traders to capture other black Africans, and the first official slave-holder in America was NOT A WHITE MAN, but a black man named Anthony Johnson in 1655 (and even then slave laws were only passed in 1661, so Johnson was quite the early adopter), and that there were also black slave-owners in the American South and that, on average, they were considered much harsher & stingier (by the black slaves themselves) toward their slaves than the white slave-owners were.

​(And also that black slavery with black masters is still part of Africa today, while the overwhelming majority of white Americans think slavery is atrocious and never want it to return.)

And hardly any of the people who say they care about human rights & slavery care or even know about the above.

But I don't mean those examples of hypocrisy.

Another blatant hypocrisy exists.

And that's the hypocrisy regarding evil and not. 
​
One example of this hypocrisy is that of the decades-long best-selling fantasy author from the 70s-80s (let's call her Heinous Monster) whose daughter worked up the courage to reveal the truth about her astoundingly successful mother and her father.

Though I never read Heinous Monster's books, I remember this author well because I always saw her name featured more prominently than her titles on her novels in the promotional displays in every book store, in addition to seeing her books in many homes.

One of her fantasy series has remained a best-seller since the Seventies and she created a popular fantasy magazine that gave many successful fantasy writers their start.

Yet this same author was attracted to her own gender, yet oddly chose to marry a man attracted to his own gender. (And in their circles, this guarantees infidelity.)

Furthermore, the author's husband already had a court conviction of abusing boys.

Also, this author copyedited her husband's book, which glorified the abuse of boys by men.

These are the objective facts outside the daughter's accusations.

Their daughter also recalls terrible abuse at the hands of her mother, plus being trafficked for abuse by her mother's "friends"!

With her mother's full knowledge, her father founded an infamous organization dedicated to the abuse of boys, and also abused a series of boys until the daughter called the police and ultimately put her father in prison, where he later died.

(Her mother also abused children, but I'm not sure whether she was convicted of it.)

Her brother corroborates her stories of abuse and their parents' depravity.

Court evidence shows that the mother knew of her husband's abuse of children (how could she not when she helped copyedit his book about it?), but did nothing about it. (She wouldn't because she was the same. Actually, her daughter says she was even worse.)

Reviews of her stories include remarks of disgust at the glorified exploitation of children featured within these best-selling novels. Many comment along the lines of: What kind of person would write something like that?

The glorification of depravity was blatant enough that some fans stopped reading her books because they found the author's positive attitude toward the content so disturbing.

The radical feminism & toeva were also blatant enough that some readers described those aspects of the series as "preachy."

On a personal level, both fans & newbie writers sometimes ended up verbally attacked by Heinous Monster when they approached her at conventions (when it is appropriate to approach a writer because that's why they're there).

In short, there is a lot of corroboration to back up the daughter's revelations.

Yet who has heard of this scandal?

Was there any widespread movement to boycott the books or condemn the author?

There was a very brief blitz in the media (particularly among sci-fi/fantasy writers) that passed by mostly unnoticed by the public (as far as I could tell).

Some readers vowed never to read her books again. A couple of fellow sci-fi & fantasy authors also resolved never to read the books again or support anything to do with the author.

But much of the condemnation came with tiptoe-through-the-tulips terms like calling the revelations "tragic" or emphasizing the need to "separate the art from the artist" or philosophizing that "talented doesn't mean good" (as if we didn't know that already) along with expressing gratitude toward the author's professional deeds while expressing tepid disapproval of the author, referring to her as a "flawed creator."

I would say she's heinous, monstrous, and utterly corrupt — not merely "flawed." 

Heinous Monster's former literary super-agent responded by saying they're "aware of allegations," yet lacked "personal knowledge" of the allegations, saying that the author was "an enormously kind person."

This was clearly not true because in addition to her depraved writing, it is easy to find reports of very bad behavior. She lashed out at both fans & novice writers.

Also, like I said, some of her books were so sick that readers questioned what kind of person who could write and promote such sick things. And that was before the allegations came out.

The literary agency (one of the stars in that field) knew her work.

They knew she wrote & promoted really sick things — exactly the things her daughter accused her of doing.

There was obviously a real disconnect going on.

​One author/editor who'd worked with the depraved fantasy writer even warned the public not to believe "sensationalist rumors." (Bet she wasn't nearly as circumspect regarding #metoo.)

Oh, but she took it back later, claiming her words were "ill-considered."

("Ill-considered," eh? How about "really cruel and flippant"? I guess that's because she can't admit that her value system is what's really "ill-considered.")

To be fair, this same author-editor later offered a big apology & even assisted the police on behalf of the daughter, but made a weird statement saying that her mistake was that she thought that the depraved author's husband "had not acted on his proclivities."

Seriously?

Does she mean to say that she knew he was depraved about young boys, but was okay with it as long as he didn't act on it?

​And these are the people deciding what society reads.​

​Yet let's look at a different best-selling fantasy author (NOT Heinous Monster): JK Rowling.

JK Rowling is liberal-bordering-on-Leftist & globally adored. She is no monster, but she supports & sympathizes with agendas & values Judaism calls immoral.

Yet when the extremely liberal-bordering-on-Leftist & beloved J.K. Rowling made a little tweet saying something completely sensible & obvious about gender (while expressing sympathy for people who think they are the gender they aren't)...society exploded.

She came under attack from social media harassment, baseless accusations, cancellation, nasty slurs, threats of violence against her, and calls for her books to be burned. 

​All because of a very innocent & sensible little tweet.

Staff at her publishing company refused to work on JK Rowling's new book in protest and several authors even left their literary agency because it also represents J.K. Rowling.

This particularly revolts me because, in contrast, no one refused to work on the Heinous Monster's books which promoted her really horrific agenda.

And while I know one author did leave Heinous Monster's agency without saying why (possibly because of that), no one else did even though the agency peddled the actual books that promoted this agenda (as opposed to J.K. Rowling's tweet, which has nothing to do with her literary agency). 

So authors had a very good reason to leave the Heinous Monster's agency, seeing as the agency showed an appalling lack of morals, but authors didn't leave (except for possibly one).

In contrast, authors had absolutely no reason to leave J.K. Rowling's agency (literary agents don't manage or even necessarily see their authors' tweets), yet they stormed off anyway.

(I admit that this type of "progressive" response to the issue makes me want to crawl into a shell and never come out. Then I remember where I live & that I am actually already IN a shell! Phew!)

​What's bizarre is that J.K. Rowling has expressed empathy for gender-dysphoric people, has befriended them, and even supports gender-reassignment surgery in a minority of cases!

So she's definitely on the extreme liberal side of things & very sympathetic to them.

Yet they turned on her with vicious passion.

Because JK Rowling doesn't deny basic obvious biological FACT, she has been shlepped across the coals & been accused of hating such people, along with a lot of other blah-blah-blah.

So you see very clearly the values of society and what's important to people.

Thus, we have a society in which a person (Heinous Monster) who indulges in & supports the severe abuse & exploitation of children, who is accused of nearly murdering her own daughter and trafficking her out to friends — such a person is "flawed" and "tragic."

We are advised to "separate the art from the artist!"

But a person (JK Rowling) who says that physical biological gender exists is labeled as "phobic" and "hating" to the point that staff refuses to work on her book, she's boycotted and cancelled, and slammed across the globe?

This clearly demonstrates people's very sick priorities & revolting hypocrisy.

Please note that the above comparison is like-and-like.

Meaning, J.K. Rowling & the Heinous Monster are both Left-leaning liberal, female, feminist, wildly popular, best-selling fantasy writers.

​And look at the difference in response to their "misdeeds." (In J.K. Rowling's case, it wasn't even a misdeed, but merely a perceived misdeed...because she was actually correct.)

And before you point out that J.K. Rowling made a tweet of her own views, while Heinous Monster's daughter making allegations against the other author, please remember that the awful author made her sick views very clear in her books.

I've never read any of Heinous Monster's books, but in one series in particular, readers expressed discomfort with the display of such depravity. Again, it was promoted to the point that some readers even called it "preachy."

Again, Heinous Monster knew her husband had been convicted of abusing boys BEFORE they married, she knew he founded an organization dedicated to that, and she copyedited his book glorifying such abuse, plus she promoted this kind of abuse, plus toeva & radical feminism in her books.

(Despite J.K. Rowlings faults, I can't imagine she would ever do or even tolerate the same.)

So yeah, Heinous Monster didn't make a tweet of her beliefs, but her actions & writing clearly pushed a depraved & harmful agenda.

This again follows the theme of who your martyr is says a lot about you.

But in this case, it's the same theme turned on its head.

Here, it's about who is your villain & what that says about you.

Related posts:

• What Your Chosen "Martyrs" Say about You (in addition to the fact that in a pandemic, gathering in prayer is apparently dangerous & irresponsible, but gathering in violent riots is totally fine)

​​

• How would You Like to Take Your Poison: Scrambled or Sunny-Side Up?​

Rav Avigdor Miller's dvar Torah for Parshas Shemini 3 – Anger and Self Control is very fitting for now: the importance of restraining anger.

Through the dvar Torah, Rav Miller discusses Moshe Rabbeinu's anger and why it was a good thing. (Rarely, is expression of genuine anger a good thing.)

From page 4 of the PDF, Rav Miller offers all sorts of advice on how to start restraining an angry reaction and why it's so important.

Really, anger is the one middah for which the Rambam advises going to the extreme.

There is a lot to be angry about in life.

And there may also be truly infuriating situations.

Oftentimes, a person's ego contributes to his or her angry. Even a person who is not so prideful may find his or her ego popping up in times of anger.

And in American culture, it has become fashionable and even praiseworthy to get one's nose out of joint.

For many Americans (and the younger they are, the more likely this is true) getting mortally offended has become instinctive.

It's like people can't control it.

In fact, it's almost become a sign of integrity to get mortally offended...as long as you get mortally offended about the "correct" things. (And the definition of "correct" depends on your audience.)

And how many times have you heard someone say something along the lines of: "...but I'm so mad, I just can't hold it in anymore, so now I'm going too..."?

As if what makes them personally angry is the deciding factor and the justification for whatever they rant about?

How many times have you said it yourself? (I have.)

And how many times is it used to justify a rant, lashon hara, verbally ripping someone to shreds, and so on?

​Now, the Rambam certainly does not mean whitewash forbidden behaviors or to ignore injustices or the pain of others.

But one must go to the other extreme with anger.

(And here, I'm writing for myself as much as anyone else.)

One can address injustices and all sorts of other things with that Jewish passion for justice ("Tzedek, tzedek tirdof") without frothing at the mouth and losing one's temper.

It takes training, but it's possible.

While I'm always embarrassed to use myself as an example, I think it's important to testify that the bumbling efforts of a normal, flawed person really do meet with at least some success in this area.

Meaning, it's definitely worth at least trying to work on this because you do reap fruits even without becoming a tzaddik.

Needless to say, there are still things that make me angry and times in which I struggle so much to keep a lid on my mouth & my boiling blood.

However, there are things that used to make me angry that now, they simply don't.

Meaning, I'm not repressing anger in those particular situations; I simply no longer feel the anger.

Even more, it's hard for me to understand my old self: Why did I get so outraged about this-and-such?

Likewise, my response in situations that make me angry is much more tempered. After a LOT of training (plus lots of crash-and-burning), my tone of voice is modulated...often (but not always) without me meaning to.

Sometimes, my tone of voice even switches in the middle (from gnashing to even-keeled) without me consciously making it happen.

Meaning, the tone-modulation has become automatic. And that's possible with a lot of practice. I think it's has to do with making new pathways in the brain or something.

Yet am I where I want to be regarding anger?

No, I have a lot of work to do still.

There are still situations with which I find overwhelming.

But fewer situations and less so.

And I'm much happier without getting as angry & self-righteous & outraged & mortally offended.

By avoiding anger, you also avoid a lot of shame and blows to your own self-respect.

Plus, it's a more honest and less ego-invested way of being.

But as the Rambam says, "Lo yiyeh k'meit sheh eino margish – he shouldn't be like a dead person who doesn't feel."

Rav Avigdor Miller, quoting Kohelet 7:29, emphasizes that Hashem made Man perfectly. 

We're supposed to feel all sorts of middot – both the good AND the bad. 

The good middot are supposed to attract us to the right path and the bad middot are there to either be used in a positive way or to be utilized in our self-rectification by overcoming that bad middah.

This is hard to remember in modern society. When Americans aren't being mortally offended and indulging in self-righteous huffin'-'n'-puffin', they aren't supposed to be feeling anything uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable feelings are meant to be medicated, according to much of society today.

In parts of Europe & Scandinavia, it's even worse because an unemotional state is considered the superior one. Being cool & unaffected is the ideal (until they get drunk, of course).

​​Yet Rav Miller notes on pages 6-7:

And that's both our job and our direction in a nutshell.

That's the authentic Jewish way of relating to emotions.

On page 7, Rav Miller describes the chemical process of anger and how it affects your body chemistry.

And he tells us how to use this process when faced with a potentially violent Jew-hating incident (to run away and then how the body naturally deals with any wounds inflicted).

Anger is also good in battle.

​The Tribe of Levi, the Tribe of Moshe Rabbeinu & Aharon HaKohen & Miriam HaNeviah, became separated for greatness – the Kohanim & Levi'im – all because of righteous anger.

Truly righteous anger: They were angry on HASHEM'S behalf. Truly.

When Pinchas speared Zimri and his shady lady, Pinchas wasn't looking for a fight.

First, he needed to get a spear (he didn't walk around with one looking to gore people). And then Pinchas needed to call forth his anger in order to carry out the necessary deed.

This was a man in complete control of his middot; a true and imitable kanai (zealot). 

On page 10, Rav Miller discusses the correct use of anger and how being way to forgiving damages American society.

Then on pages 10-11, he compares anger to dynamite. 

Dynamite is good for blowing through mountains when you need to build a tunnel for a railroad or a highway to improve quality of life.

However, it's not good when you forgot your key and your wife & children aren't opening up for you fast enough, so you blow the door open with your dynamite.

(Great mashal, BTW.)

On page 11-13, Rav Miller quotes the well-known idea that for an angry person, all sorts of Gehinnom will have control over him.

When this idea is quoted, the speaker usually uses that as an opening to discuss the terrible kinds of states an angry person finds himself in This World.

And this is very true.

In fact, Rav Miller discusses this. He personally knew people who developed diabetes and blindness all due to anger.

In fact, one man (page 16) who become blind from anger ended up living all by himself in poverty in a dangerous neighborhood – this poor blind Jewish man.

Rav Miller remarks that the man had what to be anger about – his initial anger was understandable – but despite him being in the right, he still ended up in a self-made Gehinnom.

That's a big lesson: The man endured a genuinely infuriating situation! 

Nonetheless, he (and we) are not supposed to give in to anger.

In other cases, people end up with strokes and other dangerous medical conditions due to anger. 

However, Rav Miller also notes that it's the classic Gehinnom that entraps the person after he dies.

An angry person does all sorts of sins. How many frum people have left frumkeit because they were angry?

But not only that.

A totally frum person becomes mean and says hurtful things from their anger. As Rav Miller states:

So true.

He also mentions that angry often brings people to slander others & ruin their lives.

A person even comes to the point where they lose their belief in Hashem due to their anger.

All this earns Gehinnom.

So what's the cure?

First of all, says Rav Miller, everything is in the Hands of Hashem:

It's hard to take the necessary step back to see things in that light when you're in the moment, but any move you make in that direction adds up over time!

While you're getting your emunah in focus, Rav Miller recommends the following books to help you with your anger:

• Pele Yoetz
• Orchot Tzaddikim
• Shevet Mussar
• Reishis Chachmah
• Mesillat Yesharim

(I'm going to also add Rav Shimshon Dovid Pincus's 2 volumes on emunah, Nefesh Shimshon: Gates of Emunah, which weren't published yet at the time of this speaking.)

On pages 18-20, he discusses how to look angry without actually feeling angry, a method sometimes necessary for dealing with specific situations.

But then he comes back to training yourself.

Keep reading the right things and keep practicing.

He acknowledges that this kind of transformation does not happen overnight.

But, he promises, if you keep working on it for years & years, you'll be richly rewarded for all that inner work. You're fulfilling the tikkun for which you came into the world in the first place.​​

It's interesting that despite modern psychology's insistence that people cannot successfully overcome trauma & bad middot without therapy, you can actually run across people who've done just that.

It's not just that the victim didn't turn into a criminal; the former victim actually ended up becoming a good person.

​Not a perfect person, but definitely a good person.

Nice. Moral. Compassionate.

The former victim became a decent spouse and parent.

Having said that, I do think that therapy with a goal-oriented emunadik therapist and a sincere and willing client can be very helpful (although the main work really needs to be done by the person him- or herself).

The problem is that many therapists (even frum ones) aren't necessarily emuna-oriented and many clients are not willing to do the real cheshbon hanefesh and middot work it takes to improve.

However, this idea that people cannot recover from traumatic experiences, that they cannot overcome their upbringing, without modern psychological theories and modern psychological treatment continues to be doggedly promoted, both in the secular world and the frum world.

​This idea has become an absolute.

But I personally know or have read about people who overcame very difficult childhoods to become very decent people. Not perfect people, but certainly not dysfunctional people. Not even close.

And they did at least most of it without therapy. 

Also, from the therapist's side of things...a person doesn't necessarily need a degree in psychology to help others.

Often, a caring friend with a strong sense of empathy, emotional intelligence, and emunah can do the job just as well if not better.

And what I discovered from reading Holocaust memoirs was that people were a lot more aware than we are given to believe.

And people were able to help each other.

A lot depended on how much the other cared about the person in trouble and whether they understood what that particular person needed.

Again, empathy & emotional intelligence played a huge role in helping the other.

(SPOILER ALERT: This post references the endings of several books you may or may not have read.)

​In Holocaust memoirs that told of the period after Liberation, I noticed a recurring theme.

First of all, the survivors grouped together and repeatedly told their stories.

And everyone listened to each other empathetically.

This repeated outpouring of experiences, including lots of tears and non-judgmental listening, continued until the survivors no longer needed to do this.

It was a kind of purging of pain.

Interestingly, people who suffered through a death camp did not scoff at the pain of survivors of convents or others who, though they also suffered, had it much easier than those in a death camp.

For example, in Behind the Walls, 15-year-old Chana ends up in a frum orphanage after having survived the Holocaust in a convent.

All the girls there are trying to rebuild their shattered lives.

One day, one of the other girls notices that Chana looks sad.

Annette, the survivor of the death camps, comes over to Chana and smiles at her understandingly and asks, gently, "Are you still 'there' in your memories?"

When Chana answers in the affirmative, Annette reassures her, "Don't worry. It's impossible to erase everything all at once. Slowly you'll free yourself. I am the same way."

This is astonishing empathy from a girl who survived torture and starvation while Chana lived in the relative safety and nourishment of the convent. Yes, most of the nuns were abusive and the convent was terribly cold in the winter while the food only fulfilled their minimum caloric needs...but it was still a nice refuge compared to the horrors of Auschwitz.

Annette goes on to say, "I understand that you didn't have it easy either."

How can Annette even compare the two? How is Annette so empathetic toward Chana's trauma when Annette's trauma was so much worse? Annette is obviously a genuinely caring & understanding young woman.

Then Annette reminds Chana that Annette's "there" was much worse than Chana's "there" – but not to put down Chana or invalidate Chana's pain.

​On the contrary, Annette seeks to encourage Chana that if Annette and the other camp survivors can rehabilitate themselves, then Chana can too.

Then Annette gives an inspiring speech about the will to survive and to rebuild the Jewish people.

"I know it is hard to continue, but one must," Annette concludes.

Chana feels invigorated by Annette while the reader feels awed.

How is Annette so empathetic and encouraging of a girl who hadn't suffered nearly as much as she did?

It certainly wasn't because of anyone psychological theories! After all, these girls never learned psychology; they were only teenagers by the end of the War.

Annette simply possessed a wise & discerning heart, a good heart (which Pirke Avot tells us is the most important thing to have).

A common & understandable response after the initial Liberation was depression.

In A Daughter of Two Mothers, twentysomething Leichu finds herself depressed around a month after Liberation.

She feels confused by and terribly ashamed of her own crying because she realizes that, hidden in a cave amid a beautiful forest by a Roma (gypsy) couple who treated her as if she was their own cherished daughter, Leichu got off quite lucky in comparison to her fellow Jews.

And while they came close to starvation at one point, Leichu and the Roma couple managed to have proper heating and delicious nourishing food most of the time.

But after Liberation, Leichu is surrounded by survivors of the ghettos and death camps.

So she feels ashamed of her grief.

Silently, Leichu cries and sinks into lethargy.

At one point, Mathili (a friend from before the War & a survivor of Auschwitz) decides that Leichu has been depressed for long enough.

She shouts at Leichu with "terrible screams" designed to jumpstart Leichu from her bed.

It works.

Once Leichu is on her feet, Mathili then switches to a loving & earnest approach. She implores Leichu to stop her obsessive thoughts of "What if I'd done this or what if I'd done that?" regarding Leichu's murdered mother.

Mathili then gives Leichu a beautiful speech of loving mussar, strengthening Leichu's emuna and reminding Leichu that "even though we don't understand, even though it is very, very hard for us – it was all done for our good somehow."

This is amazing emuna coming from a young woman who lost so much.

But from what I've read, it wasn't uncommon for fellow Holocaust survivors to allow each other that time to grieve and be depressed, then spur each other out of depression before losing themselves completely.

Again, the empathy, the understanding that grief & crying is acceptable & appropriate, but that at some point, one needs to be spurred out of it – where was it coming from?

There were no therapists around.

And while psychological theories proliferated in the early 20th Century, these young people would not have encountered the theories prior to the War, both because of their youth and their inaccessibility.

Because of their good sense and their caring hearts, they were able to do instinctively what psychologists claim is impossible without their theories.

Interestingly, I once read that Holocaust survivors who came to Eretz Yisrael ended up better off than those who went to America.

Why?

Because in Eretz Yisrael, they were allowed to talk about their experiences.

In America, they were expected to repress them.

And sometimes the obtuseness survivors faced just made you go "Huh?"

For example, I remember reading one memoir in which the teenage survivor who ended up with relatives in the US was expected to go to sock hops and wear lipstick in order to forget her torture in Auschwitz. Her American family could not understand why she could not put the horrors behind her and immerse herself in the non-Jewish teeny-bopper lifestyle of the 1950s.

In Leah Kaufman's Live! Remember! Tell the World!, Leah survives the brutal Transnistria death march and is one of 3 survivors of Pechora, one of the most horrific death camps in Transnistria. 

By age 10, Leah had seen her entire family die one by one, along with other truly horrific incidents. She needed to survive on her own in a cruel & genocidal world.

And with Hashem's Help, she did.

In 1947, Canada offered to accept over a thousand child survivors (on the condition that the Canadian Jewish Congress took full responsibility for their support) and Leah was one of them.

Though the director of the Jewish Immigrant Aide Society pondered how to greet the traumatized children in the most healing way possible, including preparing the aides with "social work techniques" designed with the traumatized children's needs in mind, Leah remembers the techniques and approaches as "empty, cold, and inappropriate."

The social workers also tried to get the children to open up about their experiences, but the children did not want to. (They did this upon the children's arrival, while the children were still en route to being settled, which is sort of strange, if you think about it.)

Leah was placed with a caring, yet secular, Jewish family who felt that speaking Yiddish at home was all they needed to preserve their Jewish continuity.

Immediately after they welcomed 15-year-old Leah into their family (perhaps they'd been advised to do so by well-meaning professionals), they asked Leah about her original family and what had happened to them.

Yet when Leah told them, this new family did not know how to respond to such horror.

They looked away silently before finally saying, "Maidele, du bist a groise fantazie – Little girl, you have a big imagination."

This unexpected response threw Leah into shock and made her determined to never speak of her past again. And she didn't until circumstances opened up that convinced her to speak out.

Nonetheless, the family continued to lavish material nurturing on Leah and even called her their "teire tochter – dear daughter."

Leah appreciated their dedication to her, even as she realized their limitations in giving her what she really needed emotionally. 

In viewing the less healing response in North America, it's logical to assume that culture played a part. Even when psychology was considered and applied, it wasn't necessarily helpful (as in Leah's case).

Again, to facilitate healing, traumatized people really need to be dealt with via sincere warmth, acceptance, understanding of their individual needs, and emotional intelligence. As we see in the above examples, a teenage survivor of trauma herself could possess these traits while a trained professional could lack these traits. 

(By the way, Leah is a truly remarkable & inspiring Jew. It is unfathomable that she came out of such horror and brutality with a personality so full of love, compassion, and emuna. In fact, I'm pretty sure I met her at one point, before I knew who she was, and found her to be a very warm, sweet, and sensitive person. You can see more about Leah in Choose Life: A Documentary about Leah Kaufman, but please be forewarned that some of the images included are extremely disturbing.)

When I was going through a hard time, a Yerushalmi chassidish acquaintance in her mid-20s called me.

She really spoke to my heart and I was both shocked and touched that she knew exactly what to say to me.

We came from such different backgrounds and there was no way she ever encountered therapy techniques. 

We didn't even know each other so well.

How did she know that not only would it be good to call me, but also to know what to say?

When I asked her this later, she said that she simply sat down and thought about me, and what I must be feeling. After contemplating this for a while, she pondered what I might want.

Then she called me and said all that she said.

I was floored that someone would think about me like that when they already had a full life, and it taught me the real secret to reaching people in a healing manner: thinking about THEM – what's good for them, what's REALLY good for them, what THEY need, and so on.

I know I don't always succeed in doing this, but I think it's the correct goal.

And in the above examples, I think that's the difference in response.

When the Holocaust survivors were with people who fearlessly focused on their needs regardless of personal comfort, they received a genuinely helpful response.

When faced with people who cared, but could not step outside of themselves completely and could not let go of their own emotional comfort level, the survivors received a stunted response.

Returning to A Daughter of Two Mothers: Aside from the trauma of the Shoah, the book also shows how different people face other traumatic situations at different times.

Sometimes, they were handled wisely and sometimes not.

Leichu emphasizes that when her mother poured out her heart to Rivka Klar over the years, Rivka never told her not to cry. She accepted the tears and the pain, which is exactly what Leichu's mother needed & gave her comfort.

In another scene, Leichu confides in the Roma laundress (who later saves Leichu from the Nazis) that Leichu is actually adopted and expresses her anguish over this discovery.

The Roma woman simply hugs and rocks Leichu back and forth until Leichu calms down. Then the woman says some supportive and insightful words, which give Leichu a lot of comfort & encouragement.

​Leichu is able to recover from her shock and go on with her life.

Later, when Leichu is with her real mother and struggling to adjust to the world of poverty with a loving widowed birth mother versus Leichu's previous world in an adoptive family with a upper-class mother and father in a life of luxury, Leichu again turns to the Roma laundress who grants Leichu more insight into her situation, then wisely says:

"You must accept this duality: that you enjoy your present life, yet miss your past life at one and the same time. That's the way it should be, that's exactly how you should feel, and you may well feel that way for a long time." (page 267)

This validation and insight was exactly what Leichu needed to hear, and it enabled her to go forward. (It is also obviously wise & true.)

Throughout the book, Leichu encounters different people throughout her struggles. Some respond unhelpfully. But it was amazing how many people did respond in a way that was validating, empathetic, and offered solutions & hands-on assistance that were genuinely helpful.

How did they manage this when they couldn't have possibly read any book on trauma or psychology, or have any experience with what Leichu was going through, whether it was dealing with her surprise discovery of her adoption or recovering from the Holocaust?

​Again, I think the people who fearlessly and sincerely focused on what Leichu's real needs were managed to respond in a way that was genuinely helpful.

As mentioned above, Leichu discovers she's adopted and this throws her into distress.

She becomes depressed and disconnects from her friends, her beloved nanny, and her schoolwork.

Eventually, her adoptive mother (who doesn't know that Leichu now knows the truth) takes her to the doctor.

After not finding anything physically wrong with Leichu, the doctor waits until the adoptive mother leaves the room to discuss tests with a nurse. He then sits down with Leichu and looks her in the eye.

"What is bothering you, Leichu?" he says. "Has something terrible happened to you?"

It's clear he's asking whether she has been abused in some way.

She tries to brush off the question, but the doctor refuses to be dismissed.

Not wanting to tell him about the traumatic discovery of her adoption, she simply says she discovered that "the world is full of thorns and thistles, and if there are flowers, they are hidden and surrounded by lots of thorns."

The doctor validates her perception of the world, then offers her thoughtful advice on how to navigate her way through "the garden of life without getting pricked too much."

The doctor's words sit well with Leichu and she throws herself into following his advice, which truly benefits her.

This was the 1930s in Budapest. Psychology ​was already established, though not nearly as developed as it is today. It makes sense that the doctor might have learned whatever psychology was available at that time.

However, modern psychology will tell you that prior to the, say, 1970s-80s, no one knew about abuse, so no one ever considered that possibility or talked about it, etc. 

This also never made sense to me because of course people knew these things happened. Maybe they didn't think these things were common, but they certainly knew.

And clearly the doctor was aware of the possibility, as he clearly shows by his questioning.

He was also sensitive enough to realize that if Leichu hadn't confided in her adoptive mother about it, then Leichu would not reveal it in front of her, which is why the doctor waited until the woman left the room before sensitively confronting Leichu.

​Now, how the doctor would handle the scenario had actual abuse been committed?

I have no idea.

​But clearly, he was aware of the possibility and prepared to deal with it, and seemed genuinely concerned about it.

The intention of this post was not to bash well-meaning therapists who strive to help their clients heal from trauma and become emotionally healthy people.

Like I said, I think they can be helpful (although personal observation tells me that many are not as helpful as touted).

This post is more against the widely promoted idea that we were all helplessly dysfunctional until modern psychology came along to save us, and that therapy is the only solution for healing emotional pain.

​And this is more in favor of the idea that normal caring people who possess emotional intelligence can be just as helpful, if not more so.

(In fact, you see that modern Western society is more dysfunctional now – with all the psychological theories and therapy available – than it used to be.)

And I think there is so much in modern psychology that is actually harmful. While I see people successfully dealing with 1 or 2 issues in therapy, they overall don't become better or nicer people (even though they often feel better).

I think that genuine compassion and caring, combined with emotional intelligence and rooted in emunah can take a person much farther in both helping others & helping oneself.

And I think it's those qualities we should be focusing on.

Growing up in secular liberal America, I always heard a lot about self-love. There was even a famous song, which declared that learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.
 
(Shame on that songstress. As someone with a religious background, she should have known that learning to love God is the greatest love of all. But Hollywood corrupts everything. Oh well.)

Self-love & self-esteem were supposed to go hand-in-hand to cultivate a positive self-image, thereby making you a better person.
 
Yet as time went by, many “experts” realized that self-love did not actually lead to the good behavior they’d predicted. And many bad people (narcissists, for example) possess a falsely positive self-image and esteem themselves too highly.
 
So “experts” started talking about self-compassion.
 
That was better, but I still couldn’t help noticing that the concept of self-love (self-esteem, self-compassion, etc.) didn’t seem to exist within all the millennia of scholarship contained within Judaism.
 
Yes, there is ONE passage commonly lifted out of Gates of Teshuvah to promote self-love & self-esteem. (Basically, it explains something like how low self-esteem can lead a person to compensate by puffing up himself with fake attributes and arrogance.)
 
But it seemed that if self-love was an essential part of self-growth, Chazal would’ve mentioned it somewhere – and somewhere easily found.
 
And no one ever quoted the Gemara about self-love.

If self-love is essential to teshuvah, why isn’t it anywhere in the Gemara?

That omission alone should tell us something.
 
At the very least, in the entire book of Gates of Teshuvah, Rabbeinu Yonah should have mentioned it more than once if it was so important.

​Gradually, the realization dawned on me that if it’s not mentioned in our core Jewish sources, then it is probably not a Jewish idea.
 
Eventually, I chalked it all up to a common practice among many well-meaning frummies: They shoot their arrow and then draw a bull’s eye around the arrow so it looks like the arrow hit the target.
 
Likewise, these very well-meaning people grab an idea from modern psychology and then search through Chazal until they find a verse that supports their treasured currently fashionable idea.
 
They honestly don’t realize what they’re doing.
 
And while such a method may help temporarily (if it didn’t help at all, it likely never would’ve made it into the annals of pop psychology), it ultimately will not do the job because it’s not completely true (if it’s true at all).

​Next, people pointed to Rebbe Nachman of Breslov’s famous idea that you need to find at least one merit in yourself, at least one good point.
 
That’s still not self-love.

​It’s more along the lines of self-compassion & self-esteem & a positive self-image, but it’s still not the same idea as promoted in the non-Jewish world.

Anyway, why did Rebbe Nachman so strongly push this idea?
 
What’s the motive behind it?
 
He pushed it because people who do a very sincere & deep cheshbon hanefesh come up with all kinds of unpleasant realizations about themselves.

Even very good people end up discovering all sorts of not-so-pious motivations behind their acts of piety and chessed.

(It’s exactly this kind of self-awareness that keeps our Gadolei Hador and our tzaddikim so humble, despite their genuinely elevated qualities and, in some cases, their global fame.)
 
So the whole point of self-azamrah (finding at least one good quality in yourself) is to save the profoundly honest & relentlessly self-probing people from despair & emotional paralysis.
 
Along these lines, it’s impossible to miss Breslov's constant encouragement to uncover your flaws before Hashem, pouring your heart out about them in hitbodedut in order to polish them. (In Words of Faith, Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender emphisizes several examples of this.)

Which, again, is the whole reason for the necessity of self-azamrah.
 
I don’t know if you need to go digging around for at least one good point in yourself if you’re not doing some kind of cheshbon hanefesh. If you have no serious regrets and you feel pretty satisfied with yourself, then what is the point of self-azamrah? After all, you already see plenty of good points in yourself!

In other words, Azamrah facilitates cheshbon hanefesh & teshuvah.

That's its purpose.
 
So really, self-azamrah is not the self-love or self-compassion promoted in pop psychology either.

To see a classic short story from Rebbe Nachman describing the Azamrah process, please see:
The Tzaddik Who Fell into Sadness

A positive self-image Torah-style means recognizing that your core self, your neshamah, is pristine and holy.

​Your job is to clean up the rest of you and actualize your pristine and holy core.

​So while I came across nearly zero about self-love (or self-esteem), I did come across an enormous amount of Torah material promoting love for HASHEM.
 
Ahavat Hashem/Love of God: THIS idea is just all over the place in Chazal. It’s in Tanach. It’s in every book on mussar or Chassidus. You can’t get away from it.
 
So then I realized that the goal is actually to love Hashem…and to know that Hashem loves you too!
 
In fact, Hashem loves you much more than you could ever love yourself.
 
This is talked about in Torah classes. But why the need to also introduce self-love and self-esteem and self-this and self-that?
 
I think it’s because the idea of such a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu feels very far away, very difficult to attain.
 
And that’s to be expected.
 
But that’s doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make it our goal.

​A far-off goal doesn't mean we should dilute it with non-Jewish ideas in order to seemingly bring it closer.

​In the spiritual realm, EVERY SINGLE TINY STEP is HUGE PROGRESS.
 
Every spiritual act you do MEANS something.
 
Even if you become a completely rasha tomorrow (chas v’shalom), you can never erase any of the good you did.
 
Never.
 
That’s why terrible people often live it up in This World. Somewhere, they’ve done something good. And Hashem gives them their reward for it now.
 
(But they sure will pay for it later!)
 
So we shouldn’t allow the loftiness of the goal to dissuade us.
 
Unfortunately, people who automatically (and often unconsciously) dismiss this goal can end up teaching, and writing books and articles in the frum community, which is why you’ll hear about all these pop psychology concepts within frum venues.
 
So as good-hearted as these people are and as passionately as they want to help others, they can’t because they don’t have the right hashkafah themselves. And they honestly do not realize this.

​By the way, this idea that a 100% true and necessary Jewish fundamental is “too far away” or “too high” to even attempt reaching is a 2000-year-old mistake made by other people.
 
This is the basis for declaring a son of God who is also divine, and then using this imagery as a medium for prayer.
 
Combine this with a rejection of the paradox that really horrific things happen in the world, yet Hashem is a Wholly Compassionate Creator Who does everything for the good, and you have what you have in the world today as far as a major religion goes.
 
So for them, God feels too distant to access, plus they need someone to blame for all the bad stuff and the harsh judgements. So they make the human rep the “god” of love and accessibility, while they make the actual Creator the source of whatever they perceive as bad and punishing. Ta-daaaahhhh!
 
Actually, it goes back even further. Much avodah zarah rests on this idea that God is too far away, too busy, too overwhelmed, too exalted, too paradoxical, and thus we need an intermediary (chas v’shalom).
 
(In contrast, very early avodah zarah derived from the idea that people should praise the King’s servants—i.e., the planetary bodies—which led to actually worshiping them.)
 
The point is: We should not limit Hashem.

(Needless to say, we can't actually limit Hashem. But we can fool ourselves into thinking so.)
 
That always leads to trouble in the end.
 
We can strive to nurture a personal relationship with Hashem, and cultivate love for Him while at the same time, making every effort to feel His Love for us.
 
So it’s not that you need to love yourself, but that you need to maintain a constant awareness that HASHEM loves YOU.
 
Even when you’ve been bad, Hashem is right there loving you and waiting for you to return to Him.
 
But that still wasn’t the end of it.

​If you read the wonderful mussar book, Pele Yoetz, you’ll discover that the second chapter is titled: Ahavat Atzmo – Love of Oneself!
 
So what’s going on with that?
 
First of all, the preceding and first chapter is Ahavah L’Hakadosh Baruch Hu – Love for the Holy One Blessed Be He.
 
That right there tells us something.
 
The very first sentence of the entire masterpiece is:

So self-love (as defined by the big tzaddik who wrote the Pele Yoetz) is actually an aspect of God-love.
 
True self-love does not exist on its own, nor is self-love in and of itself considered a virtue in Judaism.
 
In Love of Oneself, the Pele Yoetz immediately states that self-love in an integral part of Divine Design, explaining that a person loves himself more than anything else and will give away everything in order to save his own life.
 
Then he immediately dives into the concept of self-destruction – which he exhorts against as the opposite of self-love.
 
Basically, genuine self-love leads to good physical & emotional function, which leads to continued service of Hashem in mitzvot & good deeds.
 
And that’s the whole point of self-love: avodat Hashem.
 
A person who transgresses, a person who lives a physically and emotionally unhealthy life? That person is not expressing genuine love for himself.
 
The Pele Yoetz categorizes such a person as being exploited by the Yetzer Hara, as having fallen into an “evil sickness,” and calls him a fool.
 
Such a person can even commit suicide, notes the Pele Yoetz, God forbid.
 
Whether a person injures himself or others, that injury is an act of cruelty.
 
The Pele Yoetz lists behaviors that do NOT show self-love, but rather display self-hatred:

• Excessive drinking of wine
• Excessive eating, especially of red meat or delicacies.
• Excessive intimacy with your wife
• Lengthy vacations and holidays
• Working just to increase your bank account when you already have enough for your needs
• Endangering yourself just for the money (going on dangerous journeys, as sailing in a ship once was, or to dangerous areas, not taking body guards).
• Not being watchful with things that cause physical harm

(You can see that excessive intimacy with one’s wife or lengthy vacations do not clash with the idea of self-love in the non-Jewish world. So as long as you work by the non-Jewish self-love paradigm, you won’t reach the Jewish ideal of self-love, which is based on making yourself a vessel for continued service of Hashem.)

These behaviors DO show self-love:

• A willingness to eat parched bread in peace & serenity rather than compiling a vast fortune accompanied by anxiety and toil
• In the case where you are doing well financially, you use your funds to afford more physical comfort, but do not labor simply to increase profit.
• You avoid indulging in wine.
• You avoid indulging in meat.
• You avoid consuming delicacies.
• You do not overeat.
• You avoid lengthy vacations.
• You avoid excessive intimacy with your wife.
• You stay away from hazardous places.
• You stay away from hazardous journeys (sailing across the sea, for example), unless absolutely necessary.

 
Again, the non-Jewish world glorifies people who engage in dangerous treks to beautiful yet risky places. Furthermore, it sees nothing wrong with excessive marital intimacy or lengthy holidays. (In fact, lengthy vacations, ocean-crossings, and adventurous treks are even goals for many people.)

​So living your life according to even the best intentions of the non-Jewish self-love/self-compassion/self-esteem proponents will not lead you to the Jewish ideal of self-love.

​It’s interesting that the Pele Yoetz focuses primarily on your physical preservation with regard to self-love.
 
But again—what is the root of self-love, according to the Pele Yoetz?
 
The primary motivation for his love of self, body, and soul must emanate from the love of his Creator.
 
The body and self are “tools for serving the Master.”
 
They should not be sullied or broken.
 
So basically, you’re good to yourself—especially your physical self--so that you have the strength and ability to keep serving Hashem and doing mitzvot.
 
There’s no other reason.
 
Sounds like a tall order?
 
It is. But we should still try.
 
As long as we make the effort, the Pele Yoetz reassures the striving individual with this final note of encouragement:

To sum up Judaism's take on all the above, based on the classic sources I've read:
​
 #1
Healthy self-esteem means:

• You know that Hashem loves you (and is always ready to accept your sincere remorse & willingness to change).
• You know that your core neshamah is pristine and holy.

You can maintain the above knowledge even if you know that you (outside of your neshamah) are actually not so great. You might think there is a heck of a lot wrong with you. You might even think you're very bad.

That's okay as long as you know the following:

• You need to be secure in Hashem's Love & the exalted potential of yourself emanating from your deepest level of soul: your neshamah.

I can't repeat this enough: I simply never found the pop psychology ideal of self-esteem in any authentic Torah sources.

#2
A positive self-image means:

• Knowing your neshamah (your deepest level of soul) is pure and unsullied.
• Because of your neshamah, you have the ability to be a tremendously great person. (I know, I know...it sounds unrealistic for me too. But this is what the sefarim say.)

#3
Self-love means:

• Taking care of your physical self in a way that enables you to serve Hashem in the strongest & healthiest way possible for the longest time possible.

In Section 3 of Ahavat Hashem in Chovot HaLevavot, Rav Bachya states an interesting observation:

• Love of God is a natural result of certain realizations.

 

• Paradoxically, the way to achieve love of Hashem is NOT to aim for loving Hashem, but to focus on certain preliminaries, out of which ahavat Hashem will NATURALLY unfold.

The preliminaries are as follows:

Wholehearted Devotion

• Wholeheartedly acknowledge Hashem's Unity (He is One & the Source of EVERYTHING in the world).
• Wholeheartedly devote all your acts to Hashem and serve Him for His Sake alone.

(Admittedly, a very tall order.)

Humility

• Submit & humble yourself before Hashem.
• Submit & humble yourself before truly God-fearing people (who turn from bad) and Hashem's Prime Ones (who do good).

Cheshbon Hanefesh

• Make an account of all the good Hashem has done for you & ponder how much You owe Him for all that.
• Take into account all the times you've messed up & sinned, and how Hashem so often grants you a reprieve and forgives you. Also, think of all the stuff you've done that you'd be so embarrassed if others found out, and how Hashem generally does not let that happen.

Reflection

• Reflect on the words & experiences of the Nevi'im and others like them.
• Reflect on the wonders of the world.

Sadly, I really have nothing to offer for the first 2 preliminaries. Halevai I was wholehearted & humble enough to have something to recommend!

(However, suggestions are welcome.)

Here are some suggestions for making progress with the last two:

Cheshbon Hanefesh

• Write or say a gratitude list.

This idea has been repeated so often, but it is always a good idea. Then think about how Nice Hashem is for doing all that for you, and how you can never repay Him for all that, but you can at least show him some gratitude back.

(NOTE: This should not lead to despair; on the contrary, it is an uplifting idea. Think of Hashem like a pampering spoiling Parent who has done so much for you. Yes, this can be difficult if you've suffered a lot. But try your best.)

• Do a chesbon hanefesh and then think about how Nice Hashem is to you despite all the times you've let Him down. 

​Think of how many times you've mindlessly mumbled a bracha ("Baruch, You're God, Our God, King of the Universe, yeah, yeah whatever...oh, where was I again? Hey, does anyone remember if I bentched?"), and how Hashem still loves you so much.

He forgives you and keeps you and the rest of the world operating.

If the world ran according to din, people would get struck by lightening right after bar or bat mitzvah.

Just think about how a snipey comment or utterance of slander does NOT get one's tongue yanked out. Ears that hear lashon hara or nivul peh still work perfectly fine a moment later.

One of our generation's biggest challenges is with our eyes. Taavah, taavah everywhere...whether it's the classic taavah or turning green with envy while window shopping or visiting someone with more materialism than you, or just plain desiring more of Olam Hazeh, most people's eyes work fine. Sure, some need glasses, but nobody's eyeballs just fall out, no matter how much bad stuff they do with their eyes.

Thanks, Hashem! SO INCREDIBLY NICE OF YOU!!!

Reflection

• Review your favorite stories or passages from Nevi'im and Ketuvim. 

Telling them over to a child or any other enthusiastic listener is one way to relive these ancient experiences. Read them in the plain text or with mefarshim. Peruse them in the modern-day graphic book form for children.

Shoftim is chock-full of great stories. And I've always loved the stories of Eliyahu Hanavi & Elisha Hanavi. Sefer Yeshayahu is full of beautiful language and ideas. Think about what they said, their messages, and what that means for you. After all, these were all written down FOR YOU. (You can write down your thoughts or say them.)

• Think about nature & all its routine miracles.

Rav Miller loved to talk about apple seeds and all the wonders within. Rebbetzin Heller noted that if there was only one willow tree (or some kind of tree) in the world, people would flock to look at it, even paying big money to see it.

But because we're surrounded by apples & trees, these wonders become bland in our eyes. 

But just think about it what these things really are. (It also helps to listen to or read Rav Miller talking about the wonders of nature.)

When Hashem bound the soul to the body, He charged the soul to care for the body.

Your soul possesses a natural attraction to all that is beneficial & healthful for your body.

So take a moment to focus on the fact that Hashem imbued your nefesh with the good inclination to care for your physical body. Then close your eyes & ask your nefesh:
​

• "What do you want me to do for my body?"
• "How best can I help my body?"

You can speak this aloud or freewrite it, as you wish.

If you have a specific health problem, you can ask your nefesh what it wants you to do for that.

• Now think about 3-5 activities that give you the most pleasure.

​
(The above can be literally anything, even very material not-so-positive pleasures, like eating fatty carbs or getting buzzed, or positive emotional states like when you first fell in love with your spouse or the love you have for your child at his or her most lovable age).

• Now focus on the fact that achieving a feeling of love for Hashem actually feels BETTER than any of those activities combined! (This should lead you to some kind of WOW moment – even a millisecond of WOW is really, really good.)

You don't actually need any of those material, emotional, worldly things to feel good! 

(Needless to say, it is of course very positive and beneficial to love your spouse & children, but even such positive worldly love can sometimes lead a person to indulging the relationship when they shouldn't; it can lead to imbalance.)

Loving Hashem is the best feeling there is. All the other stuff we do to feel good pales in comparison to being in love with Hashem.
​

• Think about this, that loving Hashem feels SO MUCH BETTER than ANYTHING else. Contemplate it for at least 10 seconds.

(In Rav Avigdor Miller's 10 Steps to Greatness, Rav Miller advises telling Hashem directly, "I love You." The truth is that following Rav Miller's 10 Steps to Greatness will definitely lead you to increased love of Hashem, as will talking to Hashem in your own words as you would your best friend – as per the shitah of Breslov Chassidut.)

Please see Yosef Sebag's wonderful translation (along with his translations of the useful commentaries) here:
Sha'ar Ahavas Hashem - Gate of Love of G-d with select commentaries

Click here for Part 2.
Click here to continue to Part 3.

In Nefesh Chaya, Rav Shimshon Dovid Pincus offers the best & surest way to improve tsniut:
​

• (1) Cultivate a relationship with Hashem by talking to Him.

​

• (2) Say brachot with kavanah – especially the asher yatzar bracha (which, among other things, thanks Hashem for concealed body parts & processes).

This wonderfully effective advice follows on the heels of a previous post:
An In-Depth Discussion of One of Today's Most Despised Topics: Tsniut/Tsnius/Modest & Dignified Behavior & Dress

For a couple of years now, I've been wanting to take a look at the famous collection of volumes called Netivot Shalom by the late Slonimer Rebbe Rabbi Sholom Noach Berezovsky ztz"l.

Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller gave a lecture series on it and Rebbetzin Esther Baila Schwartz called Netivot Shalom her "best friend," plus Rav Itamar Schwartz named it as one of his recommended mussar sefarim for women to learn. 

I don't know how much I can get through it at this point, but I figured it would help me out during the 10 Days of Teshuvah between Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur.

And it has!

I haven't completed its section for these 10 Days of Teshuvah (called Bein Keseh L'Asor), but here is the little bit I've gotten out of it and found so helpful.

(It's mostly from Ma'amar 4, Shabbat Shuva is the Root of Teshuvah.)

First of all, Rosh Hashanah renewed us all.

Literally.

We are totally new creations, the Universe is new, everything is new.

This is what enables you to do teshuvah right now and transform yourself deep within.

You literally are NOT the same "you" you were last year — which was only a few days ago.

You are different and NEW. So you can do different stuff than you did even just last week.

And with this new & improved you, we cruise into Yom Kippur. 

Shabbat is the most amazing way to do teshuvah.

Shabbat can even forgive a Jew who "worshiped idols like the generation of Enosh."

How is that remotely possible?

Shabbat does 2 incredibly powerful things:

1. Shabbat effects a deep-cleaning; it cleanses & rectifies your very neshamah.
2. Shabbat is a day of love; you are the zivug of Hashem on Shabbat.

When you keep Shabbat, you are completely nullifying yourself to Hashem, which is what cleanses you from avodah zarah and other frightfully yucky stuff.

Netivot Shalom enthuses a lot about doing teshuvah on Shabbat.

But how can you really do teshuvah on Shabbat?

After all, thinking about your sins makes you depressed — a big no-no on Shabbat.

There is no vidui on Shabbat, and the sections of confession don't appear in the Shabbat Amidah.

It seems that Netivot Shalom mentions teshuvah as coming close to Hashem.

FEELING close to Hashem. Thinking about Him whenever you can on Shabbat.

​If you imagine that Hashem is your zivug, like the most loving & cherishing spouse you could imagine, then you should speak & relate to Hashem in that way.

There's a famous verse in Shir HaShirim:
Ani yeshena v'libi er — I am asleep, and my heart is awake.

The mundane flawed you is the "I am asleep."

Shabbat is the "my heart is awake."

You might be asleep, so to speak, but Shabbat is your aroused heart; it's the neshamah that clings to Hashem.

Now, Shabbat Shuva (the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur) is the most powerful Shabbat for neshamah-cleansing and deep-rooted teshuvah.

But hey, I missed it too because I didn't get to this part of the sefer before then.

Still, it's good to know that ALL Shabbatot produce this wonderful cleansing & forgiving effect.

​As Netivot Shalom states:

Don't despair if you're not feeling it during this special time.

It simply means that you haven't succeeded in completely rectifying your distance from Hashem.

​You may have rectified some of it, but not completely.

So what should you do?

Take upon yourself this idea of Shabbat Kodesh.

As Netivot Shalom says:

Shabbat is the time to get back in touch with your soul-root. It's the time to really cleave to Hashem.

Right now, you can think about Hashem or talk to Hashem as there is "no curtain" between you.

You can also think about how to improve your future Shabbatot.

Bringing Shabbat in a little earlier, adding a special food, setting some time aside to think about Hashem, to focus on that emotion of closeness & deveikut...

These are all ideas that effect powerful transformation at the soul level.

And if you haven't been keeping Shabbat?

Now is the time to decide to keep whatever you can throughout Shabbat, whatever you know about keeping Shabbat.

And try your best to get that feeling in there too, even if it's only for a moment.

Shabbat is all about the deepest, purest kind of love there is.

And that is exactly what rectifies your neshamah and brings the real you back to your soul-root.