Yael [not her real name] grew up next door to my husband, both in Morocco and in Eretz Yisrael. Several years older than him, she remembered things from Morocco that he couldn’t as a baby.

We spent Shabbat in her villa with her family in a pastoral area of Eretz Yisrael and she’s full of joy and vitality. She and her husband celebrate Saturday night Melaveh Malka with singing, tambourines, and bongo drums.

She described the good relations Jews enjoyed with their Muslim neighbors.
But when the Jews chased out the antisemitic British and established a country of their own, the Arab propaganda machine started up against all Jews everywhere.

Like other Moroccan Jews I've met, Yael emphasized that crimes against Moroccan Jews were committed by Muslim strangers, and not by the Muslims they knew and lived with (unlike in Europe, where pogroms and Nazi collaboration were carried out by non-Jewish "friends" and  neighbors). And she also stressed Moroccan Jewry's unwavering belief that Morocco's royal family opposed the antisemitic outbreaks, but couldn't always stop the riled-up masses.

Here, I’ll tell the story in Yael’s own words as best I remember:

And that’s where she ended it. It was clear from her face and the hand she clutched over her heart as she spoke that even fifty years later, the trauma was still raw.

(I know, I know…it makes you want to storm over to Morocco and shout: GIVE THAT LITTLE JEWISH GIRL HER COAT BACK!)

No one died, no one was even bruised or even cursed, but there’s something about these very human stories that tear at your heart.

The happy postscript is that Yael remained frum after arriving to the poor, dysfunctional immigrant neighborhood in Eretz Yisrael (a lucky fact she attributes to her father's beautiful singing and the general music in the home, plus her brother’s ability to bring some of the yeshivah atmosphere and enthusiasm home from the yeshivah which he later attended). She earned a college degree and married a cheerful man who also likes music.

But the beginning of the marriage saw no children. After 4 years of infertility, the Lubavitcher Rebbe came to Yael’s husband in a dream and promised them a son within a year.

And so it was. Within a year, their first son was born followed by a daughter three years later, and then no more.

Interestingly, neither Yael nor her husband shared any connection with Lubavitcher Chassidus or the Lubavitcher Rebbe other than the general esteem in which Yael and her husband held all tzaddikim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe's appearance occurred completely out of the blue.

When the dream’s message was fulfilled, Yael and her husband became Chabadnikim.

May all Jews everywhere merit to embrace all our chagim in peace.

I've written a lot on the importance and power of thanking Hashem, even for exasperating and painful events.

But it's really not easy.

If something is genuinely overwhelming, infuriating, and horrible, it's extremely painful to thank Hashem for it. Even if you know everything Hashem does is for your own good, some things are just over the top.

But I force myself to do so anyway (most of the time...) and it really does sweeten and lighten the harsh things in life.

Rav Arush says that even if your "thank you" is dry, it's still effective.

And I can personally attest to the truth of this.

Even if you're full of resentment, just the act of lip-service that it is somehow for your best impacts you in profound ways you may not immediately sense.

The mere act of expressing gratitude toward God in the most exasperating times kindles a high-octane spark that can ignite tremendous blessing.

This is true even if you have to grit your teeth to do it and every fiber of your being is screaming, "NO I HATE THIS!!!!!!!"

In the interest of full disclosure, here is a self-portrait of how I sometimes express my gratitude to Hashem in overwhelmingly trying times:

This is perfectly acceptable.

I'm only human and so are you.

So don't despair.

Just take that step and you'll eventually reap blessing!

It took me ages to realize that I was giving the benefit of the doubt in the wrong manner. If being dan l’kaf zechut leads to chanifah (often translated as “flattery”), then it’s harmful.

Chanifah is strictly forbidden by the Torah.

(Shortcut explanation of chanifah: It’s basically any time you give the impression that the forbidden is permissible.)

Judging favorably is a popular topic in frum lectures, books, and articles.

Most of material on giving the benefit of the doubt promotes the theme of “Things Aren’t What They Seem.”

In other words, the suspicious-looking person is indeed innocent or truly not at fault.

As long as the assumption of innocence won’t harm you or anyone else, you are indeed obligated to believe the best of the other person. And some inconvenience is okay to risk, but potential harm demands precautions.

So it’s okay to say to yourself (and to Hashem!): “I don’t know.” Or, “I’m just not sure. I can’t decide how much to give the benefit of the doubt here.”

If you’re from America or Great Britain, you’ll probably want things to be black-and-white, you'll want to act with confidence, and just have a pat solution of how to proceed. This reaction is because of the surrounding culture.

But it’s perfectly okay to be uncertain.

The second popular category is the idea that a person “just doesn’t know” or that the person’s difficult experiences, whether past or present, justify the dysfunctional behavior.

If a person truly does not know, then that’s understandable. We all fall into that category sometimes. And while it is some excuse, damage is still done.

For example, I’ve known of otherwise shomer Shabbat Jews who put their cholent in the fridge overnight and then transferred it to the electric platter Shabbat morning.

Totally forbidden.

Are they bad people? Not at all!

Should you eat at their house? Are they allowed to eat their own cholent? A halachic authority needs to be asked. Shabbat transgression is still taking place even though they honestly did not know. They’re not evil or heretical, but it’s still a problem.

The problem comes when someone does know better. Sometimes, they even admit this outright, usually in a joking manner, like saying how fun it is to hurt people or how easy you make it for them to criticize you, or how you or someone else really deserves “it”…

At this point, if you confide in someone about it, you’ll probably be introduced to the “going/gone through a hard time” excuse.

Like Popular Benefit #1, "hard-knock life" can indeed justify a certain amount of less-than-ideal behavior.

Someone in physical pain or ill or going through trying times with their marriage, children, or finances may truly be unable to smile and greet you warmly, watch their children properly, or pay attention properly within a conversation.

They can talk too much or too little, eat too much or too little, struggle to arrive to appointments on time, be brusque when dealing with people, and so on.

This excuse works well in a situations in which the other person is truly overwhelmed and probably wants to be better, but just can’t make it there.

However, this does not justify stealing (or being a willing and aware party to unethical situations), any kind of abuse, nastiness, embarrassing people, or any other forbidden behavior.

I think we can all say that we’ve taken out a bad mood on an innocent person and that we were wrong. Fine. That happens. You apologize, sincerely take measures to prevent it from happening again, and go on with your life. No one’s perfect.

The problem comes when people behave this way for years. And everyone will dance around this person’s victims chanting, “She doesn’t know! He’s struggling in his marriage! She had a difficult childhood! He’s having financial problems!”

So…it’s wrong to do this.

I cannot emphasize enough how every mussar sefer and how Rav Levi Yitzchak himself says that you cannot join with such people.

Yes, you should be courteous to them! You must be careful not to embarrass them or any other behavior the Torah forbids.

Rav Levi Yitzchack says that if a person is truly wicked, you cannot even join him in thought--you can't even think much about him!

Rav Levi Yitzchak explains:

So what do you do?

The Torah itself commands you to judge others on the side of merit.

You must do so. The question is, how?

Here are 3 ways:

• 1) You tell Hashem how, from the other person’s point of view, they feel their behavior is completely appropriate. (Note: You are NOT saying that it is appropriate. Wrong is wrong. You are simply telling Hashem how from THEIR point of view, it seems okay in THEIR eyes. Not in your eyes, not in Hashem’s eyes—THEIR eyes.)

(This is directly advised in Likutei Moharan I:6)

• 2) You find a positive aspect in their negative behavior: “His penchant for mockery would be great if used against avodah zarah—may it be Your Will that he channels it for the good!”

 

• 3) You can find a good point that has nothing to do with the bad behavior, i.e.: “She is genuinely kind and intuitive toward elderly people.”

Once you find a person’s good point—at least one—then you open the door for them to return to the right path and fulfill all their wonderful potential.

It’s a deceptively powerful act.

Of one who finds positive aspects in others, Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender says:

And this is the correct way to give the benefit of the doubt and judge favorably.

We want to effect real change in the world and this one of the best ways to do it.
_____________

Practical Powerful Tool to Transform the World:
Make a list (mental or written) of people you simply hate, or who have hurt or betrayed or even just mildly annoyed you, then go down the list and judge each person on the side of merit using at least one of the above 3 strategies.

I wanted to give some personal examples of how prayer and cheshbon hanefesh worked for a normal, flawed person who doesn’t spend as much time as she should talking to Hashem and living in full emuna. (Yes, I mean me.)

So…I have a son who fit the classic ADHD profile since toddlerhood. Having said that, he's still a delight to be around because he’s loyal, compassionate, courageous, friendly, and has a happy heart.

His teachers have genuinely liked him because of these qualities, even as they noted he had a hard time sitting still and tends to socialize during class halfway through the day.

One teacher, who taught him a couple of years ago, felt he should be on Ritalin. The teacher meant well, but I disagreed with his recommendation and the teacher ended up not pushing it.

But then over summer vacation, this same teacher ended up giving my husband a ride and spent the journey inundating my husband with compelling reasons why this child needs Ritalin.

As I said, the reasons were compelling and the well-meaning teacher spoke from his heart. So since that ride, my husband periodically brought up what he sees as the need to take our son to the doctor and get a Ritalin prescription.

I kept holding out.

I prayed about it, but nothing major.

Suddenly, this same child came home from school with a note from this year’s teacher proclaiming that our son was the best listener in class that week.

This note pretty much put an end to any more thoughts of Ritalin for this child.

I could not have worked the situations this way.

First of all, I wouldn’t have thought of creating a note davka about being him a good listener.

Secondly, there is no way for me to force a teacher to write such a note and to write it with such good timing.

Only Hashem can arrange something like this.

While taking a Shabbat walk one night, my son revealed that the teacher he’d had several years ago was just terrible.

I felt awful upon realizing that due to my involvement with another child at that time (who was seriously acting out and getting kicked out of schools, and skipping class when he was in school, and getting into trouble), this child had been neglected—and there was nothing I could do it about now.

It was all in the past with no way to remedy the situation now.

So I just listened to him, validated his feelings, and told him how sorry I was that I’d missed the ball with him back then.

It was hard listening to him because all his words about his anger and hatred of that teacher were like daggers in my heart, accusations against me in my mind (although he wasn’t blaming me at all and on the contrary, really enjoyed getting it all off his chest).

But I felt the least I could do to make it up to him was to listen empathetically to him.

(Just so you know, it wasn’t things like physical abuse. He just felt that the teacher didn’t like him, was trying to separate his best friend from him, and handed out odd punishments like, “Write I will not speak in the middle of a lesson ten thousand times.”)

So like I said, I apologized to him, which is the first thing you do when you’ve sinned against a person.

But later at home, I also spoke about with Hashem and told Him how sorry I was for not involving Hashem more at that time and for neglecting this child in that way, and how I could be better in the future. I asked Hashem to heal my son’s nefesh regarding this issue, and so on.

A while later, the same teacher suddenly walked into this child’s classroom as a substitute teacher one day. But before he did anything else, he sat down and made a public apology before the entire class. 

It went along the lines of: “Before anything else, I want you all to know that when I taught you a couple of years ago, I feel like I transgressed against you. I wasn’t the best teacher I could have been and I behaved wrongly in certain situations and treated some of you unfairly. I am truly sorry. I wouldn’t do now what I did then. If I made any of you feel bad in any way, please know that you are not bad at all and you shouldn’t feel bad about yourself. You’re actually very good and I was wrong. If any of you have anything you’d like to discuss with me, anything you feel you need closure on, that you’d like to discuss in private, I hope you’ll feel comfortable approaching me about it so that I can make it up to you.”

I’ve never heard of a teacher doing anything like this before.

This humbling speech from the heart rectified everything for my son. He instinctively let go of his grudges and hatred and truly forgave this teacher.

And now he likes this man a lot.

My son even found many merits for this teacher and excused him for his former behavior due to the stresses in his life. No one told my son to give his former teacher the benefit of doubt; it occurred naturally, inspired by the sincere apology from the teacher.

So again, I ask you: Is there any possible way I could have set this up?

Even had I spoken to the teacher myself, could anything I have said ever elicted this response of true teshuvah and sincere apology from the teacher?
Could I have I sent the “right” person to elict the response from the teacher?
Could I have imagined the teacher making a public confession and apology to the children themselves?
Could I have set up something so healing for the child?

No, no, no, and no.

Only Hashem can orchestrate things to work this way.

Now, did I invest in copious hitbodedut regarding these issues?

No.

Needless to say, sometimes you do need to invest in hours of prayer and good deeds and self-introspection just to make a tiny bit of headway in a particular area.

But in the above situations, heroic acts of prayer weren’t necessary. I didn’t even daven about the above every day. In the latter case, I found it too painful to focus on it too much and in the former, I just forgot.

In other words:
You DON'T need to be some spiritually advanced super-special person to get your prayers answered.

You can just be flawed struggling you and STILL merit Heavenly Compassion and Help.

You don’t ALWAYS need to invest heroic feats of spirituality to get your prayers answered.

Okay, sometimes you do. There are things I’ve been davening about for years now and the answer is still, “Not yet.”
And I still face some distressing problems that are hard to even talk to Hashem about.

So some things do demand copious prayer and teshuvah. But not everything!

Hashem just wants your heart.

Just be honest about yourself and show him that you’re willing to accept whatever message He’s giving you about what you need to work on in yourself. And even then, there are many times that Hashem gives us what we ask for without us jumping through even the smallest hoop (other than the mere request).

It depends.

You can’t know ahead of time which prayers will be answered at the drop of a hat and which ones will take years.

And you can’t know what wonderful solution Hashem has planned for you that’s yours just for the asking.
____________
For another story of how Hashem orchestrates the answer to your prayers in a way you could never imagine or arrange on your own, please see:
How Praying for Your Child Can Work

In a previous post, I discussed how different people need different kinds of advice. Along those lines, our individual strengths and weaknesses make it hard to see other people objectively and hence, give them advice that is right for them.

The post discussed 2 groups:
Group #1: Consulted a lot with rabbis, rebbetzins, advisers, etc., and followed the advice with great mesirut nefesh…yet everything kept failing.

Group #2: Consulted with rabbis, rebbetzins, advisers, etc. and then did not follow their advice (or did not consult at all), and now feels major regret because feels the advice was actually right.

The post emphasized that ultimately, these 2 groups still need to turn to Hashem.

• The first group was overdependent on other human beings and took the messages way too literally rather than examining them objectively with Hashem.

 

• The second group ignored the messages (whether from pain or gaavah or confusion) rather than examining them objectively with Hashem.

Yet there’s a third group.

There are people who consulted with rabbis, rebbetzins, chinuch advisors, etc…and things worked out swimmingly! And things worked out EVERY SINGLE TIME!

Woo-hoo! The lucky ones! These are the people who get to star in all those stories of inspiration popular in frum reading!

So what’s their challenge in all this?

It’s sort of like the challenge of wealth, which in some ways is a bigger nisayon than the challenge of poverty.

These people need to have the humility and gratitude to realize Hashem allowed everything to work out for them, and it’s not just because they were so smart and good, and did the “right” thing in consulting with Rabbi or Rebbetzin So-and-So.

Paradoxically, it can be harder for them to really turn directly to Hashem on a regular basis with the same healthy dependence because their situation doesn’t force them to throw all their weight on Hashem.

And this paradox of success is true for all of us.

When anything goes right for us, we tend to look askance at those less fortunate.

It doesn’t matter what it is: shalom bayit, well-behaved children, a well-run home, robust finances, easy pregnancies, smooth births…anything. If it’s going well for us and not for others, then it must be because they must be doing something wrong.
And the oh-so successful me must be doing it all right!

(Okay, it could easily be they’re doing something wrong, but it doesn’t have to be. Or maybe they are doing something wrong, but not in the way you think they are.)

This is human nature and I’m no exception. Yet it needs to be identified and overcome.

If something is wrong in life, that's a challenge from Hashem to help you rectify certain aspects because He loves you so much and wants you to be as fabulous as you can be and earn the best Eternal Life possible.

If something is right in life, that's a gift from Hashem (and also a challenge, as discussed) because He loves you so much and wants you to use your strengths to be as fabulous as you can be and earn the best Eternal Life possible.

We all have areas of strengths and weaknesses.

Maybe you’re failing at your marriage, but you’re really good with your toddlers.

Maybe you’re happily always available for with making nutritious & filling meals for the sick, but have no patience to care for other people’s children.

Interestingly, people tend to expect others to be strong where they are and look down their nose at people who are weak in their strong area, even though these same people are strong in other areas in which you’re weak.

And this really impacts the advice you give to others.

This also really impacts the advice others give to you.

This is why it’s so important to take it all back to Hashem in some version of the following:

Group #1 (my group) can get the message that Hashem is whomping over their head: TURN TO ME.
They can sit down with Hashem as if He is their Good, True Friend and ask Him why this whole disappointing mess is happening.
What’s the message? Are these advisers right? Wrong? A mixture of both?
And even if you stop asking for advice, Hashem still sends you the messages you need in other ways, via other people or experiences (even via spiders).
(Speaking from personal experience…)

Group #2 can sit down with Hashem as if He is their Good, True Friend and ask Him how they should handle the advice they’ve received.
They can admit that their instinctive response is to just fling it all aside and keep going their own way.
Then they can tell Hashem the advice they received and piece it apart point by point to see what they should keep and what they should discard.

Group #3 can sit down with Hashem as if He is their Good, True Friend and thank Him from the bottom of their heart that Hashem has made it so easy for them to get the right advice in all areas. Yishtabach Shemo!
They can also ask that this chessed continues.

For example, there have been aspects that I took pride in over others, but Hashem knocked me off my pedestal to show me that it wasn’t me who was superior, but Him.

Other people have told me they’ve had the same experience.

So it’s essential to take it back to Hashem whether you are hopelessly lost or blessedly found.
________________
So tachlis. What do you do if you belong to any of the above 3 groups?

You turn to Hashem.

And interestingly, all 3 groups can actually respond in more or less the same way.

Please see previous post: Different Courses for Different Horses

This post will focus specifically on the area of pain relief.
___________________

I’ve written a couple of times on this blog about my attitude toward drugs in general, which could be whittled down to the following:

1) I don’t see a practical difference between legal or illegal substances (including alcohol), prescription or OTC (over-the-counter) substances.

2) I actually believe in the concept of treating mental illness much as you would treat physical illness—I don’t just give lip-service to the concept.

So this means that I readily acknowledge that sometimes physical or emotional pain may be so overwhelming, you might need some kind of chemical pain reliever to deal with it.

Note: Just like headaches or muscle cramps do not necessarily signify "illness" (even if one has a tendency toward such pains), so too emotional pain also does not necessarily signify "illness" (even if one has a tendency toward such pains).
This is another truth that often gets lost in the claim that one is treating mental illness like physical illness.

In other words, I try to be consistent.

However, if someone tries to sell me the beloved psychiatric canard that because mental illness is just like physical illness, then that means that someone must ingest behavior-altering substances for the rest of their lives—substances that even top scientists aren’t sure how they work or what exactly they do, and even doubt their long-term effectiveness—then I will have the same problem I'd have if you'd tell me that you need to take percocet or cocaine or whiskey or even ibuprofen every day to control physical pain.

I will be concerned that there is a deeper issue not being addressed.

Why?

Because physiologically and spiritually speaking, there are correlations between physical and emotional pain.

So when my friend told me that she lights up a grass joint whenever her mother comes to visit, my reaction was exactly the same if she had told me that she has a few shots of rum or a doctor-prescribed sedative or a OTC Tylenol/Acamol (which has been found to blunt emotions):

“Mm.” (While thinking, I’m not for it, but having met her mother, I definitely understand. So what can I say…?)


Ditto with the friend who after being continually ganged up on by her husband and his mother while hosting his mother and, after standing up for herself in a calm, polite, yet firm manner, could not fall asleep, even though she desperately needed to in order to restore herself for the stressful upcoming day she knew she faced again with the Dynamic Duo she’d married into: She took a doctor-prescribed sedative.

And I responded the same way I would’ve if she’d said she’d smoked half a joint, treated herself to a couple of martinis, or taken a Tylenol: “Yeah, I understand you. I don’t see anything wrong with it as a one-time solution.”

She doesn’t do it all the time. The situation comes up for her maybe once a year.

I remember a Rav Avigdor Miller lecture in which he helped treat a depressed man by giving him a few shots of schnapps, some cake, and sitting with him to encourage him with words of chizuk and reassurance. And he recommended this technique for similar situations.

Some people will be appalled that the rav would ply the guy with alcohol, and even more so that the rav recommends this.

But I say, “What’s wrong with it?” Rav Miller was very clear that this is an rare remedy (i.e. not once a week nor even once a month; this was a one-time scenario) and he didn’t just fill the guy with whiskey and send him on his way. Rav Miller sat with him. He shared his pain. He offered him support and chizuk.

Believe me, sometimes with depression, just the right “kick” can jolt a person out of it.

If treating a depressed person in a caring and nurturing manner while getting him out of the depression itself by getting him a bit tipsy will get the guy back on his feet, then that is miles better than handing him a prescription for Prozac (whether for weeks, months, or even years) and sending him on his way.

(It goes without saying that if the guy was showing up regularly for some of this “Anti-Depression Treatment,” the rav himself would’ve taken a whole other tack to dealing with it.)

Now let's look at the opposite extreme:

Some say that you should never medicate emotional pain.

Do they say the same about headaches and physical pain?

Again, consistency is important.

If we say that mental/emotional pain and physical pain are the same, then we must actually treat them the same.

So the same goes for if people occasionally take pain medication, whether OTC or prescription. (I’d say the same for illegal pain relief too, but it's rare for people taking illegal pain relief in a measured and sporadic manner; it’s usually to add to the prescription dose they’re receiving. But some people do take illegal stuff because it's the only thing available that works.)

I don’t think people should break the law, by the way. Interestingly, the worst of illegal drugs are often made into prescription drugs in the laboratory. And there is a whole black market of illegal consumption of prescription drugs. So it’s just odd to me that people make such a big deal about drugs only based on their legal status.

A lot of people treat both physical and emotional issues with herbs, vitamins, oils, and acupressure/acupuncture, etc.

The difference is that with most (though not all) natural treatments, you are actually restoring to the body something it needs.

For example, your body needs calcium.

So if you feel stressed or have physical problems (like muscle cramps), you could have an actual deficiency of calcium that supplements can treat. Ditto with vitamins B, D, Omega-3 (fish oil), and GLA (found in primrose and borage seed oil). Treatments like acupressure and acupuncture actually restore the body to its proper balance by releasing energy blockages and energizing weak energies.

No one is suffering from deficiencies of opium, marijuana, vodka, Prozac, or Tylenol. These things play around with your brain in ways that aren’t fully understood by even the top experts in their fields.

Note: Psychiatrists claim that depressed people suffer serotonin imbalance or lack, and that Prozac fills that balance. Studies seem to show that this is not true, and even if so, Prozac and SSRIs don't seem to be the solution.

And again, what really, really disturbs me about most psychiatrists is their refusal to run a simple test of vitamin deficiencies on their patients. Why on earth would you prescribe expensive medication with potentially dangerous side effects and unpleasant common side effects when all your patient might need is extra calcium or vitamin B12 (as methylcobalamin) or folate (not folic acid) or vitamin D?

Should anemics be prescribed speed rather than iron to up their energy levels?

One psychiatrist cured his patient of OCD with probiotic supplements (and I’m assuming also some dietary changes). Usually, psychiatrists prescribe antidepressants with no goal of curing, but merely to contain the behavior.

And even with herbal remedies, you still have to be careful. (I think many of us tend to forget that the worst illegal drugs are all herbal in origin.) For example, when I was going through an impossibly and overwhelmingly stressful situation with no solution in sight, a naturopath gave me motherwort.

I loved it.

Yet I noticed that if I didn’t take it every day, the feeling of all my nerves being shot immediately returned. Eventually, I realized that the motherwort was not actually balancing my body chemistry, but merely altering it.
(Some herbs do balance you from within as a tonic, like nettle and dandelion and others.)
And so I continued on my quest for a better remedy.

While I am grateful that motherwort enabled me to be a much calmer mother than I would’ve been otherwise and without nasty side effects, it’s no more a long-term solution than Prozac or Valium (which are not long-term solutions).

Later, I read that motherwort can indeed be addictive.

So along these same lines, if someone is treating me or their children badly because they are drunk, high, or suffering from Prozac-induced emotional blunting or Prozac-induced mania, then why should I be sympathetic?


Yes, I'm sympathetic to the person's pain and trauma that led to self-medicating.


But I ask these questions:

• Does having had too many beers justify your drunken outbursts?
• Does being high justify your mania or the inappropriate things you say or do?
• Does your doctor-prescribed medication excuse or justify the inappropriate and hurtful words cheerfully popping out of your mouth because your doctor-recommended medication has blunted your sensitivies or induced mania?

I personally know people who have terrible attitudes toward their own children and can be rude and insulting while having been on antidepressants for years to treat “chronic depression.”

I knew someone on medication for bipolar disorder who led her children to mock and disrespect her tzaddik husband due to some “temper” she imagined he had. And she did so while on medication.

Drugs of ANY kind do not in any way substitute for work on one's middot and one's emuna.

Probably a lot of you (even if you're taking drugs, whether legal or not) agree with the above statement. But for some reason, many frum people taking these meds do not seem to observe the fundamental obligation of cheshbon hanefesh and working on middot and emuna.

If they feel bad in some way, they seem to assume that it's their illness and not their lack of emuna or faulty middot.

Chemical substances mask or numb unwanted emotions.
(Or sometimes make them much worse, and suicide or homicide ensues.)

So if your decision is to treat yourself long-term with any behavior-altering substance (legal or illegal, prescription or OTC) and thus in a sense say, “I don’t care who I hurt. The main thing is that I need to feel good and guilt-free. My feelings are the only feelings that matter”...then why should anyone respect that attitude?

Honestly, how is that different that an alcoholic or drug addict who behaves the same?

If you hate yourself, your kids, men, women, rich people, poor people, life, God…then you need to deal with that, not medicate it.

Covering it up with chemicals does not deal with any problem at its root.

In many ways, drugs make it worse.

So my unprofessional recommendations (which you’re free to take or leave) are as follows:

• Try to avoid any behavior-altering substances, whether doctor-recommended or not.
• Treat the problem at its source.

This often means a combination of spiritual efforts (like cultivating a relationship with Hashem by talking to Him regularly)  and inner-body-tonic efforts (like vitamins, healthier foods, nurturing herbs, and energy-balancing methods like acupressure or acupuncture, etc.)

• If you do occasionally need to take a behavior-altering substance for pain relief, that is okay in my unprofessional opinion, no matter what purists tell you. If you want to say that Hashem put physical pain relief here for a reason, then you can say the same about emotional pain relief.

HOWEVER, if you need to take emotional pain relief once a month or more, then that is NOT treating it like physical pain and the underlying issues need to be addressed.

• Be consistent with your attitude. Examine how you really feel about physical pain as opposed to emotional pain and whether the attitudes propagated in most media (including frum media) are actually consistent and don't contradict each other.

Teshuvah is always possible, no matter how badly you've behaved. And I can tell you about people who've behaved badly on antidepressants for years and are destroying their children.

Yet Hashem loves them too and is waiting for them to take those first baby steps in the right direction.
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Note: Recently, I heard a Rav Arush shiur regarding “soft drugs,” and he made the point that smoking pot is like offering incense to avodah zarah. Because this drug, as opposed to other drugs, utilizes smoke and aroma, the rav’s point is clear. Before, I was unconcerned about the rare use of pot for the reasons noted in this post, but I'm definitely rethinking it based on Rav Arush’s logic. Also, it’s illegal in most of your countries, so it should be avoided anyway.
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Links referred to in the article:
Acetaminophen Study of Emotional Blunting
Curing OCD with Probiotics
How Prozac Really Works
Treating Mental Illness like Physical Illness: How We Don't and Why We Really Should

Something that gets lost in the discussion of middot or fixing deep-seated issues in society is the reason why people do the wrong thing.

People sin because something about that particular sin makes them feel good.

When that sin becomes a primary goal and something they engage in frequently (and when not actively engaging in it, they think about it or plan with anticipation how to engage in it), we call it "addiction."

In Torah terms, it’s called a “baal [fill-in-the-blank]”—meaning, the person has become an owner of this negative act: baal lashon hara, baal taava, etc.

(This term can also be used positively, such as a “baal chessed” or a “baal tzedakah.”)

For example, every female I’ve ever met who doesn’t dress in a refined and self-respecting manner does so because the “hot” styles make them feel good.

I once saw a young Yerushalmi Yiddish-speaking woman who was slowly deteriorating in her mitzvah observance. I was stunned to see her show up to a Simcha Beit Hashoeva (Sukkot celebration) in a shocking outfit which included fishnet stockings (!!!). But she obviously had no idea what she represented. She just felt good.

This can be very innocent.

As another example, a woman may genuinely love the color fuchsia and love how she feels when she’s wearing it as a dress, a sequined hair-covering and as nail polish. She’s not thinking, “Ooh, now everyone will gawk at me; I just love attracting stares!”

No, she’s just thinking that wearing her favorite color boosts her mood.

Same thing with long, swoopy eye-catching looks-EXACTLY-like-real-hair shaitels. The wearer simply like how she looks in it. She feels GOOD in that shaitel! Or maybe she also likes the idea of being what her society considers stylish.
A lot of times, just by virtue of being the latest fashion somehow makes something attractive.
I feel it and I can’t help noticing that a lot of people seem to feel it too.

And yes, sometimes it's out of rebellion...which also feels good to some people!

The same mechanism is operating with addictions everyone realizes are bad, like with alcohol or drugs.

But this is also true with behavior.

For example, it took me a long time to realize that people who frequently put others down actually enjoy it. Sure, they might feel a twinge of shame, especially if they get called on their hurtful behavior. But a part of them feels good.

Ditto for people who lose their tempers easily. Again, I was shocked to see that they actually feel good and don't even feel so guilty about their loss of control. The fury is a release of tension and they feel powerful, especially when they see how people cater to them because of their temper.

With bulimics, the physiological result of vomiting is similar to having a really good yell at someone. So if a bulimic feels bad or angry, vomiting gets the physiological effect of screaming at someone without hurting anybody or risking confrontation.

This is why scaring people into being good often doesn’t work, especially for the long term. Even if it does work (or the sinner hits bottom), they often just go on to another negative habit.

Why? Because deep down, people can't stand the thought of living what feels like an empty, boring, or miserable life for the rest of their life.

For example, AA meetings are often filled with people who took up smoking when they quit drinking. And a lot of smokers gain weight when they stop smoking.

Another example: I know parents who stopped hitting their kids and started ignoring them instead.

When someone I know calmly told a long-time friend that her frequent put-downs were unacceptable, she seemed to stop, but in reality, she just went underground and turned passive-aggressive.

Later, when she went on Prozac and the insulting behavior returned (although now with Prozac-induced exuberance), the other person tried to respond by gently confronting her on the spot each time she did it. Then she gradually cut off contact with her "friend." Later, she decided to speak to her and explain why she couldn’t maintain any further relationship with her (and yes, she did tell her that the Prozac had something to do with her behavior, as a way to give her the benefit of the doubt).

But the errant friend had no idea what the other was talking about and could not think of anything she’d ever done that was wrong. Even as she said this, she still delivered mild put-downs of which she genuinely seemed unaware. (This is called “emotional blunting,” by the way, when you cannot feel how your behavior is impacting another person. It’s another Prozac side effect.)

And the offended party couldn’t push her on the issue because Prozac isn’t foolproof and who wants to be the catalyst if a Prozac-user would end up harming herself in any way?

The truth is, that person can’t get off Prozac. It makes her feel too good. And the friend she kept hurting has nothing better to offer her as far as “feel good” goes. No one does! For her, it’s worth it for her to engage in hurtful behavior of which she claims to be completely unaware and it’s worth it for her to lose a friend. Without the Prozac, she just feels too bad and unhappy and there is NOTHING that makes her feel as good as Prozac.

And I do understand that.

And this is why people can spend too much time on blogs, videos, Facebook, Twitter, the news, or literally anything else. It feels good!

So when you’re trying to influence someone (including yourself!) to change a behavior, it’s important to keep this "feel-good factor" in mind.

And maybe there isn’t anything else in their life that makes them feel as good as…

• pizza and ice cream
• vomiting
• drinking
• opium
• meds
• getting angry
• criticizing and nitpicking
• sniping
• lashon hara
• tight skirts and sparkly deeply orange lipstick
• secular novels
• secular music
• shopping
• tweeting
• podcasts
• facebooking
• commenting
• staring at women
• dressing immodestly
• watching cat videos
• reading the news
• talking
• workaholism
• sleeping
• jeering
• anything else you can think of

Then people have a hard time because they sense or may even actively realize what they’re doing is wrong, but they can’t stop themselves because they have nothing else that feels as good.

For example, fat people suffer health problems and shame about their appearance, but find it hard to diet. Angry or snipey people destroy their relationships and they know that halacha exhorts against such behavior, but they don't stop. And the same goes for all the above behaviors.

You can feel bad about your addiction or sin, but stopping it feels even worse.

And even though people like to wax lyrical about:

• the beauty of sunsets
• spending time with the people you love most in your life
• doing what you love (as a hobby or a career) and so on...

...the fact of the matter is that many people DON’T find beautiful sunsets or walks in the woods or their hobby/career or the people they love most as compelling as the above.

Some people even find these things boring. What’s harder is when the people you love most (like your parents, spouse, children, or “friends”) even make you feel bad about yourself or when your career or hobby proves unfulfilling. It depends.

This is why forming a relationship with Hashem is so important. Talking to Him as if He’s your Good True Friend is vital in conquering your inclination for the lesser things in life.
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But having said that, connecting to Hashem can still be a moment-by-moment challenge, especially when the talks feel “dry” or when you’re having a hard time settling your mind and not daydreaming or feeling pressed to do something else.

But I just don’t see another way.
All the lesser stuff has become too compelling and too accessible.

Some of it is even lauded in secular society as a good thing to do.

So it’s really good to just try bonding with God despite all the compelling stuff.

The effort alone is very precious in Shamayim.

It’s always a bit problematic to talk about why some kind of disaster happened to someone or to a group of people. It’s a kind of finger-pointing that seems holier-than-thou, and who am I to point even a pinky? I'm pretty flawed myself.

However, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the destruction in the Caribbean while reading last week’s Haftarah (Yeshayahu/Isaiah 60:1-22) for Parshat Ki Tavo.

Verse 60:2 reads:

Malbim defines choshech specifically as “an obstruction of sunshine.”
Arafel in Modern Hebrew refers to “fog,” which is dense cloudiness. I seem to remember arafel meaning a thick gloomy cloud in Tanach.
Malbim describes a le’um (plural: le’umim) specifically as a group united by the same religion or belief system.

(In contrast, Malbim explains that Am, which is also translated as “nation” refers to a group of people living under a common government; they don’t necessarily share the same belief system or religion.)

Hurricane Irma didn’t necessarily make things dark in the Caribbean, but it did obstruct the Sun to some extent. Certainly, there was massive clouding with a hurricane that more than covered entire islands.

And while the Caribbean is populated by different religions, there is a strain of voodoo and other occultic witchrafty belief systems running through that part of the world. I mean, the area is known for that. And people can go to church, but also practice this stuff on the side. Of course Western Christians oppose voodoo stuff, but in places where the original belief system was occultic (like Africa and the Caribbean), many of proclaiming to be Christian do incorporate occultic elements into their Christian belief system.

The other thing popular in that part of the world is licentious behavior. In fact, there is a brand of Caribbean tourism which specifically caters to this.

Furthermore, what Hashem has done in the past century is introduce the Tanach to non-Jews around the world in every language. Yes, it was often introduced through Christian missionaries. But the point is that a great many people have been able to read the Tanach in their own language. While a tremendous amount is lost through translation, you can still get the gist that there is only One God and He hates witchcraft and occultism and idol worship and licentious behavior.

You can also get a sense of the consequences that await people (Jewish or not) who choose to run after that which God hates and has forbidden.

Furthermore, Chabad has been active in the Caribbean and Chabad promotes Noachide Laws to the non-Jews in whatever area they are found. I’ve even seen Chabad trailers with the Seven Noachide Laws printed from top to bottom. I don’t know if Chabad goes around with those vehicles in the Caribbean specifically, but my point is that Chabad promotes these values for all to see and hear.

And Hashem is very, very patient. He gives people so much time, even generations, to take the tiniest baby-steps toward the Truth.

Yet spiritual physics are what they are. At some point the measure fills up and the consequences spill over.

Verse 9 continues:

Again, the mention of islands is significant because during the week in which this haftarah fell, that’s what Hurricane Irma hit: islands.

The kind of hope mentioned (yikavu) is the root of the word tikvah.
Malbim defines tikvah as “expects something unclear, but hopes it’s good.”

What better describes the hope of those islanders before or during last week’s hurricane?

Needles to say, I am truly sorry for the human suffering, for the people who died in slow terror of roaring winds and rushing ocean waters, and for the innocent babies and Jews and Noachides who suffered destruction because of the society surrounding them.

But I didn’t invent these spiritual physics.

Hashem exhorts us repeatedly for generations regarding the behavior He expects of us.
I’m just reporting on what He says and what we’re seeing.

May we all return to the One True Creator with love and emuna.

These are all specimens of the same species below.

But...

• Would you give a Shetland pony the same kind of food in the same amounts as you would give a Morgan stallion?
• Would you give the same job to a British Shire as you would an Arabian horse?
  
• Would you have a Tennessee Walking Horse run the same kind of racecourse as a Thoroughbred?

One of the walls I’ve often slammed against when either listening to or dispensing advice is that it’s very hard to see past one's own weak points to what the other person really needs.

For example, some people really need to be told to slow down and smell the daisies.

Yet other people are so into their slow-down and flower-smelling that they’ve made their bed among the daisies and lie there all day long with flower petals up their nose.

Likewise, when I became frum, I was very open to receiving direction and consulting with rabbis and rebbetzins for everything (because I got the impression that if I didn’t, I would make some kind of horrible mistake and then bad things would happen).

(Just to be clear, if it's a matter of actual Jewish law, then you need to ask someone knowledgeable in that area of law. But otherwise...)

And no matter how irrational or wrong the advice was, or how disdainfully given, I often pushed myself beyond my abilities to follow it.

Sometimes, I questioned them in order to understand what they were telling me to do. I’m very much the type of person who like to know why I’m doing something before I do it, partly so that I can do it exactly right.

Usually, they didn’t like it when I did that. (Later, I realized that some things are genuinely difficult to explain and I wouldn’t have been able to explain it either, but they could have had the humility to acknowledge that rather than getting sarcastic or disdainful.)

And to be completely upfront, sometimes I wasn't able to follow it because I couldn't hear beyond the disdain or jeering way it was given or because I couldn't understand it.

Anyway, when the advice either didn’t work or stopped working after two weeks, I’d go back to consult with them regarding what I had done wrong with the original advice.
(I was sure the negative results were my fault, and not the fault of the advice.)

This back-and-forth continued until they rejected me in some way.

What it took me a long time to realize was that Hashem wanted me to turn to Him, not them.

I was putting my faith in them due to a warped misunderstanding of emunat tzaddikim. (They weren’t tzaddikim, by the way. That was my first mistake. Many of them meant well and wanted to help, but that alone doesn’t make anyone a tzaddik.)

When I stopped consulting with others (and this means chinuch classes and everything else) AND started consulting with Hashem, many things in my life improved that never had budged (or had even gotten worse) when I was running around consulting with frum "experts" before.

Reading memoirs, Jewish history, and listening to frum people older than me also taught me that this insistence on running to rabbis and rebbetzins for all sorts of personal issues and non-halachic advice is actually a new invention of our generation. This is not what people traditionally did. They asked halacha (although not always even that, unfortunately) or they asked advice when they really, truly got stuck. And then, they asked someone who they felt would really know how to help them, whether that person was a true gadol, a rabbi, rebbetzin, relative, or friend.

For many, 2 factors were paramount in deciding whether to consult with a particular person:

• the level of the adviser’s emuna and yirat Shamayim
• how much the adviser genuinely cared about the person turning to them for advice

People looking for advice today don't necessarily consider those 2 factors first.

Then I came across Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender’s collection of lectures, which clearly repeat the idea of turning to Hashem with your issues, while using friends to give you general chizuk and point out your positive attributes.

Likewise, you also point out their positive attributes and give them general chizuk (encouragement).

He stresses that you need to allow your friends to shine their positive attributes on you and they must also allow your positive attributes to shine on them.

But he was clear about 2 things:

• While the desire to confide is very understandable, it's ultimately not beneficial for you or your friends to confide very personal things or sins you've committed because most people ultimately cannot handle it (even if you both mean well). Only a true tzaddik can really handle hearing your "confessions."

 

• The wrong advice can destroy the person receiving the advice. People need to consult with Hashem, each person according to his or her level.

It's not easy and it is a process. But you do the best you can and Hashem helps.
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So I pound this idea (of using religious authorities for halacha only) pretty hard on my blog.

I lived it, it was excruciating, I survived it, and I really don’t want others to suffer like I did.

It’s about turning to Hashem and clinging tighter to Torah, and not flinging any part of Torah away in a rebellious state of “I gotta be meeee!”

But what if my above situation isn’t like yours?

What if your problem was the exact opposite?

What if you resisted anyone’s advice, let alone seek it out?

What if you found it all too easy to dismiss any advice you felt was too hard, simply not “you,” or just made you feel bad?

What if you regret not following the advice you received?

So, then...maybe what I write about isn’t for you. Maybe it’s even wrong for you!

And that’s perfectly fine.

People who experienced the above as I did might benefit a lot from the way this blog covers this topic.

But people who experienced the opposite might not.

You have attributes that I can learn from. I have attributes that you can learn from.

You have a strength in davka the area where I have a weakness.

Yet I have a strength in davka the area where you have a weakness.

This is how it is supposed to be. Hashem set things up in exactly this way.

(It's actually not "advice," but commanded in the Torah itself.)

So tachlis. What do you do if you belong to either group?

You turn to Hashem.

(This isn’t Breslov or wacky me. It’s repeated throughout the Torah, Chazal, mussar book, etc.)

And interestingly, both groups can actually respond in more or less the same way:

Group #1 (my group) can get the message that Hashem is whomping over their head: TURN TO ME. They can sit down with Hashem as if He is their Good, True Friend and ask Him why this whole disappointing mess is happening.

• What’s the message?
• Are these advisers right?
• Are they wrong?
• A mixture of both?

And even if you stop asking for advice, Hashem still sends you the messages you need in other ways, via other people or experiences, and even via spiders.
(Speaking from personal experience…)

Group #2 can sit down with Hashem as if He is their Good, True Friend and ask Him how they should handle the advice they’ve received. They can admit that their instinctive response is to just fling it all aside and keep going their own way. Then they can describe the advice they received and piece it apart point by point with Hashem to see what they should keep and what they should discard (in the same way as described above).

Any comment or “advice” given in an insulting or hard-to-swallow manner still needs to be discussed with Hashem regardless of who said it or how it was said.

If it was said negatively, then I'm the first to admit that it's hard to swallow. At times, it's taken me a whole week before I could sit down with Hashem and go over what was said.

If a rabbi or rebbetzin didn’t say it to you, then maybe your aunt or your grocer would.

If Hashem wants you to hear it, then it will come from somewhere.

This applies everyone, regardless of what category they fit into.

Even in my situation, I still needed to seek out the grain of truth within the mostly wrong or hurtful words. And believe me, if you have a rav literally snickering at you while he’s explaining what you should do, it’s very hard to disregard the natural wall of defense your heart erects to protect itself.

That’s normal…which is why you turn to Hashem later in a private moment.

Of course Elul and Av did not switch places.

But at first, it felt like they did.

Av is always a hard month for me and a time when I really struggle to overcome the inner lion roaring to get out.
(Please see How to Deal with the Mazal of Crabby Tammuz and Savage Av for more about Av's "inner lion.")

But mostly, this Av saw me making some progress without the usual lows. I was thrilled because I thought that if Av was going so well, spiritually speaking, then Elul would be amazing.

Only Rosh Chodesh Elul arrived, and I went numb. It wasn’t depression exactly, but just "blah." I even did a few things in the spiritual realm that called for tremendous time, effort, and a certain amount of self-sacrifice. One of them I’d never done before.

I felt good for two minutes after I’d completed these efforts, then things went right back to blah.

I tried all sorts of things, including writing down 20 things for which I was grateful and Pitum Haketoret among other spiritual efforts, acupressure, the proper vitamins...and still no release.

Then I started thinking things that I knew were false and anti-Torah, like maybe this is Heavenly rejection, maybe Hashem doesn’t like me anymore, chas v’shalom.
And yes, I knew this couldn’t possibly be true, yet I fretted about it anyway.

(I realized later that because I've failed this particular challenge before, Hashem was probably throwing it my way again in a last-ditch attempt for me to tackle it before Rosh Hashanah.)

Heartbreakingly, it also seemed that toddlers injured in Av were succumbing to their injuries in Elul.

I felt a lot of din maybe?

Then I started seeing a lot of spiders, including a very big one. In Perek Shira, the spider (shmamit) says, “HalleluHu b'tziltzalei shema. HalleluHu b'tziltzilei teruah - Praise Him with resounding cymbals. Praise Him with trumpet blasts” (Tehillim 150:5).

• According to the Metzudah Tehillim, Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch explains this verse as "a call to whole groups for attentive participation."
• Metzudat David says tziltzalim (cymbals) produce a sound that travels far.
• Malbim says that teruah (trumpeting) represents fear of punishment (yirat onesh), but this fear will be mixed with joy.

(I believe that some interpret shmamit as a small lizard and I saw a couple of geckos along with the spiders. Either way, I got the message: With humility and joy, Praise Hashem LOUD AND CLEAR!)

So all these "singing" spiders and geckos encouraged me to start calling out thanks and praise to Hashem (as per the Sages commentaries on that verse) with myself, with my family members, and on this blog.
(Now you know why you got a big dose of pro-monotheism posts!)

Finally, I decided to say a prayer before randomly opening Volume 1 of Words of Faith by Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender.

It was all about not speaking falsely (even positively) or with any exaggeration of the deceased. I haven’t been speaking about dead people at all recently as far as I could tell, so I did the procedure again with the Volume 2.

Bingo!

It was all about the key to getting past “dry” hitbodedut:
Talk to Hashem like He's your Good, True Friend.

I realized that when I was trying to talk to Hashem, I was being too self-conscious about it. I was being too formulaic and not "real" enough.

I ended up not having any alone-time that day, so I resolved to give it a try the next day.

I also tried to remember that Rav Berland spoke about this, that sometimes you’re not given a good feeling about your spiritual stuff for two reasons:

1. Having too much blessing too fast really makes people incredibly stuck on themselves. I’ve seen it happen and it’s a very real concern.
2. Sometimes, Hashem just wants us to serve Him from a place of constriction. It’s a way of serving Hashem l’Shem Shamayim. You don’t have all the enthusiasm and flavor and spiritual uplift. You’re only doing it because Hashem said so.

It feels all wrong, but really, constriction is Hashem’s way of earning you and the rest of Am Yisrael a lot of extra merit. In other words, it’s actually a really good thing, even though it feels bad.

So that made me feel a little better.
 
But I was still out of sorts until I finally had the private time to speak to Hashem. I still got distracted, but I tried to follow the "Good, True Friend" advice by closing my eyes and settling my mind into the idea that right now, I'm talking to Someone who really cares about me, is totally Trustworthy, and Kind, Gentle, and Warm. And eventually it went pretty well and I felt better.

Now Elul is going better. I’m in basically good spirits even as those year-end “This is your last chance to get it right!” nisayonot are rolling in.

So I hope I’ll keep feeling the spiritual flavor of Elul. But if I don’t, I plan to do my best to keep pushing myself along spiritually and trying to feel good about serving Hashem from a place of constriction.
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How to Serve Hashem from a Place of Constriction by Rav Berland