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.

A neighbor who is part of Biyaner (or Boyaner, if you're outside of Eretz Yisrael) Chassidus told me of a couple within her Chassidus where the husband is a Biyaner chassid and the wife is a Moroccan (and a second marriage for both, if I'm not mistaken).

Marrying outside their ethnicity and marrying someone non-chassidish isn't the norm by Biyaners, but this guy did it and he and his wife are very happy. Anyway, the Moroccan wife decided to dedicate a sefer Torah, which called for a huge celebration.

What ended up happening was a huge celebration was organized and in addition to the Biyaner Rebbe and other important Biyaner personages, important Sefardi rabbis attended too.

This also called for a mix of music.

Happily, when Sefardi songs were played, the chassidim danced and sang with the Sefardim to Sefardi music using the Sefardi Hebrew pronunciation. Then when chassidish songs were played, the Sefardim danced and sang to the chassidish music with the chassidish Hebrew pronunciation.

And all the participants danced and sang to each others' nusachim with great gusto.

"If Am Yisrael would be like this all the time," enthused my neighbor, "then Mashiach would already be here!"

Then she emphasized that she was just repeating what everyone else at the celebration was saying.

And she's right.

Yet again, I see how much regular Jews want to unite with each other.

May this aspect of us always shine through!

Thus says Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender in Words of Faith, Vol. 1 pages 410-412

He states that the following two commands must be performed simultaneously:

• “Seek His Face constantly”
• “It is a great mitzvah to always be happy”

The Rav advises:

Rav Bender himself lived under terrifying Communist pursuit with his life constantly in danger at times. Or at least, under the constant threat of being sent off to a slow and grueling anonymous death in Siberia.

And he’s very honest and open about his feelings.
He endured personal moments of sheer terror.

Yet he emphasizes the constant seeking of connection with Hashem accompanied by a happy heart.

Believe me, he wasn't chuckling or doing the Irish jig when he was brought to KGB interrogation where they talked about shooting the rav and his friend with the casualness of shooting a beer bottle.

Yet he emphasizes the importance of being happy in connecting with Hashem and scrutinizing yourself for self-improvement and repentance.

Rav Bender says:

And true enough, you can always find someone—including yourself—to put you down about any spiritual efforts you struggle to make.

You need to bring yourself to happy heights in order to plumb your dreary depths.

It brings to mind the image of a person whistling as they search for Hashem, doesn't it?

In Likutei Moharan II:10, Rebbe Nachman states:

Coming from American culture, this amazes me.

I always associated joy or a happy heart with giddiness and frivolity. It always seemed like being happy makes you crazier and more impetuous while being very solemn and even grave grants you a balanced mind and better decision-making.

In fact, we even refer to deep thoughts with the slang, “heavy.” If something is very profound, we say, “Whoa, that’s pretty heavy.” There’s a sense of being weighed down with all that deliberation and contemplation.

And of course, a happy-hearted person can still possess a serious countenance. But he or she is not depressed or sad. They’re just taking their responsibilities seriously, that’s all.

One of the things I’ve been learning from reading Chazal is to reframe my understanding of happiness.

When Judaism talks about joy and happiness, it means real joy and not the fake giddy frivolous merriment I’ve been seeing most of my life.

Happiness that comes from mockery, secular comedy, or emptiness is latzanut. This is disconnected from Hashem and leads to lightheadness or recklessness or a mind-numbing “high.”

Real joy is connected to Hashem and leads to all the good things Rav Bender describes here.

From reading classic Torah sources, I’m learning about genuine joy and not its giddy shadow.

Rav Bender says:

This is incredible. In order to control the mind, you first have to set it free?

Yes, apparently so!

Once again, Judaism is cozying up to the very real paradoxes that Hashem established within the world.

Eureka! I mean, Azamra! You mean, doing something ordinarily considered gaavadik is actually good for you?

Well…as always, it depends on your motivation.

Understood superficially, this sounds like all the self-affirmation and self-esteem building stuff advocated by psychology. We’re back to the the old “Love yourself and everything will be dandy!” method again.

But it's much deeper and more real than that.

No pop psychology here! Again, it’s all in the motivation.

Why are you seeking out your own self-fabulousness?

In order to work on the not-so-fabulous parts of you.

You are using your acknowledgement of your good points for Hashem, to bond with Hashem and to enable yourself to perform a genuine cheshbon hanefesh and perfect yourself as much as humanly possible.

This goes far beyond the psychology of “love yourself so that you can love others” or "Be happy and then you'll be a nice person."

It’s "love yourself so that you can love Hashem" because your self and your positive attributes come from Hashem. He’s part of you and you are part of Him.

Your negative attributes also come from Him, by the way. So self-hatred and self-recrimination are not part of cheshbon hanefesh or Jewish teshuvah.

(Regret is good. Recrimination is bad.)

So in order to strengthen yourself for cheshbon hanefesh to do teshuvah:

• Work yourself up into a good mood as best you can; cultivate a happy heart
• Seek out the good points in yourself and actually find them.
• While in this state, look out what you need to improve in yourself. (You can use your children’s undesirable behavior or someone's hurtful comment for clues. Ask Hashem to guide you in this. After all, He gave you those hints, so feel free to pester Him to enlighten you!)
• Do each step with Hashem. All of this needs to be done with Hashem.

Again, it's important to be happy.

This does not mean you think your negative points are cute or funny, as people often imply when they joke about their penchant for snipey comments or coarse behavior.

"Funny" and "cute" aren't joyful or happy.

You're happy that in addition to being snipey or coarse, you also cook meals for the sick and you have a soft spot for elderly people.

And you are happy that you are willing and able to regret your snipeyness or coarseness because the ability and willingness to do teshuvah are great middot!

Example:
1) Admit to Hashem that you've been snipey.

2) Regret it. (And feel happy about the fact that you are able to regret it.)

3) Take upon yourself to cease and desist with the "sur m'ra v'aseh tov" ("turn from evil and do good") method: "Instead of using my quick tongue to slice through people, I will now use it to build people."

4) Think of to whom and how you need to apologize: "Shira, I feel that I've said things in the past that were inappropriate and hurtful, and I'm very sorry. You have many admirable qualities and I was wrong to ever insinuate otherwise. I truly regret my hurtful and inappropriate behavior, and have resolved to work on this bad middah. If there is any further way I can make amends, I hope you will feel free to discuss it with me."

May we all merit to do full teshuvah from love.

In Chovot Halevavot/Duties of the Heart, Rabbeinu Bachya states in Shaar Habechinah/Gate of Reflection that God's Wisdom is One and the Same, but looks different depending on its vehicle of expression.

This is why we have 12 Tribes within one nation.

This is why we need different paths: We need a garden full of different flowers: a Breslov flower and a Chabad flower and a Yemenite flower and a Chazon Ish flower...all misted and irrigated by the same Water of Wisdom.

The Jewish Nation becomes a 12-point prism through which Hashem's Light shines.

When I was a little girl, I found little boys intimidating.

Boys tended to be louder, rowdier, less sensitive, and sometimes even cruel.

And they often thought that mean teasing and cruelty was funny. Not all of them, of course.

But there did seem to be this strain of reveling in dominance, particularly against those who couldn't fight back—sometimes it was passive aggression and sometimes it was aggressive aggression.
 
Being in public school, sports were coed, which was pointless. They boys couldn’t play as heartily as they needed and many of the girls couldn’t be the teammates or opposition that they boys needed (although some girls did thrive on this).

I remember one of the more aggressive boys in sixth grade power-kicking a soccer ball straight into my face by accident. To his credit, he came over to me later in class and stammered an apology. I hadn’t thought he would feel so bad, and it was touching to see that he really hadn’t meant to do it. But I also remember being yelled at by frustrated strong and scary boys who couldn’t understand why I wasn’t throwing myself into the game like they were.
 
Boys also did things like put a ladybug onto a flashlight bulb, close the lens and then turn on the bulb, torturing the poor ladybug to death—and the boys enjoyed this. Another time, I listened to two boys chuckling about tossing a pet gerbil between each other from pillow to pillow and laughing when the gerbil accidentally flew out the second-story window after a badly aimed toss.
 
But in high school, things were different. Boys had matured somewhat, and could restrain themselves, and you could be friends. And you were no longer pitted against them in Physical Education class because there was no longer an obligatory PE class. Also, guy is humor is really, really funny. The way guys tell stories and yeshivah Purim shpiels, etc…they’re very funny.
 
And while due to my nature even as a secular girl, I tended to have female friends almost exclusively, though there were still guy friends too (like Linus, whom I wrote about in The Startling Impact of Kol Ishah.)
 
So I didn’t have an issue with guys nor with men. I just thought that little boys (though not all of them) were kind of scary and sadistic.

Then I came to Eretz Yisrael and here, kids are out and about a lot more because Israeli streets are generally safer for kids, plus there are a lot more kids. (Even secular Israelis tend to have more kids than their secular counterparts outside of Israel.)

Particularly in religious neighborhoods on Shabbat when kids are out in droves, I ended up faced with those aggressive, bold, pushing-the-boundaries little boys again. Not all of them, but gosh. There are some who are real little gremlins.
 
And again, they were kind of scary. There are these types that don’t have personal limits and they revel in seeing how much bad stuff they can get away with.

Anyway, I got married and before I even got pregnant, I thought maybe I should daven to have girls first. I knew almost nothing about taking care of babies and very little about motherhood in general, but I’d been a girl and and I liked girls, so why not start off with girls first?
 
But another part of me said that Hashem knew best. What if the very best thing for me was to have a boy first? Would I really want to miss out on the very best thing for me just because of my anxieties? So I decided not to daven for gender.

And I had a boy!
And I fell head-over-heels in love with him at first sight. I thought he was absolutely the greatest thing that had ever happened to me (and truly, he was) and why hadn’t I gotten married and had a baby much earlier? He was so fabulous.
 
He was also born with this fun-loving innately masculine Alpha male personality (an Eight with a Seven wing, for anyone familiar with the Enneagram). You know, the type that can grow up to be a Green Beret or some other Rambo type? Yeah, that. His way of thinking and behaving is just totally masculine and I mean that in a scientific biological sense, not a stereotypical sense.
 
So he was not only very different than me in general, but totally different than I was as a toddler and preschooler, and so on. And as much as I adored him, he was also a big challenge.
 
And chinuch people and chinuch classes weren’t very helpful about this personality type.
But other mothers and my husband (who himself had been an active and fun-loving child, though not as daring and as much of a natural leader as his son proved to be) were able to tell me that a lot of his behavior was very normal for boys, and this endowed me with a more balanced and positive perspective (both toward him and myself as a mother) than I would have had otherwise.
 
Then I had another boy. And then another. And so on.
 
And I quickly realized that I really need to learn how to deal with Boy World in the best and healthiest manner possible. And while some fellow mothers provided a lot of chizuk and healthy perspective, some did just the opposite. Unfortunately, some women have ugly feminist views that are totally chauvinistic. They think that male chauvinism is evil, but female chauvinism is the emesdikker emes. And even in casual conversation, they denigrate men for no real reason and when talking about their own sons, they also denigrated them and considered them innately inferior—just because of their gender.
 
If you’ve ever looked at your kid for even a moment and thought about their innate potential, “Meh”— or even “Ugh”—then you’ll know that is a horribly depressing mindset. You cannot possibly raise a child in this mindset. It’s so miserable. So those chauvinistic snotty attitudes repulsed me because of that.
 
Secondly, this was exactly what feminists raged at society for doing (although certainly not all parents favored their boys pre-feminism. But the ones that did caused a lot of damage.) So why was it the Height of Evil to do it to girls, but perfectly acceptable to do it to boys?
 
It just all seemed wrong, wrong, wrong, and I avoided these types.

But the good thing that came out of it was that I saw that boys needed appreciation and advocacy too. I mean, we are talking about innocent children with precious potential, regardless of gender.

So it’s hard to say exactly how I changed and all the steps along the way because a lot of it was so subtle. I think the main thing was that I really loved my kids and I wanted to be a good mother, and you can only be a good parent if you see your child’s potential positively (even if the present behavior is sometimes monstrous). And just like there are innately feminine traits that are positive, there are innately masculine traits that are positive.

And also, there are two sides to any coin. Even a trait generally considered negative (like aggression and territoriality) can be used a positive and beneficial way.
 
Then I started noticing that a lot of problems in society are because of feminine traits being used negatively and masculine traits not being used at all.
 
There needs to be a balance of feminine and masculine traits, and both need to be expressed in a positive manner.
 
But the point is that now, I really like and appreciate little boys. And I’m not scared of them anymore. (Well, not usually…) And at this stage, I’ve liked them for years. And I like my own boys and I like their friends. And because of my own boys, I’ve learned how to relate to and deal well with other little boys. But the main thing is…I like them!
 
And I think that this is one of the very precious benefits of being a parent:
You learn to like and appreciate people that you never would have otherwise.
 
The truth is that when you feel repulsed by a group or trait, it’s because of fear or overfocusing on the negative aspects of that group or trait.
 
And ultimately, that fear or negativity stunts you and your own spiritual development.
 
But our children can help us overcome our own negative bias if we let them.

When I was first getting married, I happily took in lots of advice.
 
I wanted to be as close to achieving the perfect frum wifely ideal as possible!
 
And all the advice sounded very good.

And I was very idealistic.
 
But it didn’t always work out well. In fact, like with some of the parenting advice I received later, some of the marital advice seemed to backfire.
 
When I young and newly married, one rebbetzin insisted that good communication demanded that I force my husband to parrot back everything I tell him (well, not everything…just the stuff I felt necessary for him to understand and remember). I was really uncomfortable with this because it seemed very condescending. When I tentatively shared my hesitancy with the rebbetzin, she seemed confounded.

“Whyyyy?” she said in that creepy, utterly perplexed, vowel-dragging intonation some rabbis and rebbetzins adopt when being questioned.

So I very hesitantly explained, asking her if maybe it could be interpreted as condescending?

She looked dumbstruck. “Whyyyy would he ever consider such a thing con-de-sceeeending?” she asked.

Suddenly, the implication seemed to be that there was something wrong with my husband, not with the method. I felt really bad that I’d inadvertently engaged in a form of lashon hara about my own husband.

Intimidated by her and disoriented by the sudden turn in the conversation, I tried to stammer out my thoughts on the matter, but I didn’t want to offend her. After all, she was a very chashuv person and she was taking the time to help out little ol’ me.

She replied by saying, “Well, I can’t think of what could possibly be condescending about asking a person to do that!” She paused, then said, “Ohhhh…maybe for a Sephardi man, you feel it’s condescending? Because his kavod is very important to him?”
Oh, this was just getting worse. No, that’s not what I was thinking at all! Now this conversation was turning into lashon hara about a whole group!

“No,” I said. “No, it’s not that at all.”

My mind rushed to find a good explanation. The truth is that I couldn’t imagine my 3rd-generation American liberal Ashkenazi father responding well to my mother telling him to parrot back whatever she just said, as if he was some kind of errant kindergartener or something. But I didn’t want to have my words twisted into lashon hara about my father—it was bad enough that it happened regarding my husband. Anyway, why was this suddenly turning into a cultural issue?

I took a deep breath and gave it my best shot:
“The truth is, I don’t think…um…I’m not sure if I would like to be talked to like that either… I mean, if someone would want to make sure I understood them, I…I’m not sure if I’d understand why they’d need me to do it like that. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say…”

Not terribly coherent, of course, but I was trying my best. By using myself as the example, I meant to convey that this wasn’t a gender or cultural issue. See, Ms. Rebbetzin? Even an Ashkenazi female might find it condescending.

Yet now the rebbetzin turned her beady eye on me. “Ohhhhh,” she said, knowingly—and distastefully. “Well.”

I squirmed. Apparently, I must be a gaavadik piece of dirt to consider something so innocuous to be so condescending.

(Now I know better, but that was then.)

Anyway, after some more melodramatic vowel-dragging, she convinced me that the method was just fine, if only I’d just get over my own (gaavah-based) reservations.

My perceptions were wrong, hers were right.

She was the big important FFB rebbetzin married to a chashuv rav and I was just a young stupid baal teshuvah girl from America.

She didn’t say that outright, but the message was clear. (And it was a common message I heard repeatedly from all different rabbis and rebbetzins in different versions throughout the years.)

So next time my husband and I needed to sort some things out, I took a deep breath and asked him to repeat back to me what I just said.

And guess what? There really is no nice and uncondescending way to do exactly this.

And guess what? He was offended! And he didn’t know what I wanted from him.

Finally, I apologized and explained where I got it from and he just sighed and grumbled something about interfering rebbetzins.

In the end, he wasn't upset with me, he was upset with her.

My husband never was into this whole running to a rav or rebbetzin for every little thing. He didn’t grow up with it and he never saw anyone doing it in his Moroccan community. People went to the graves of tzaddikim to pray or to the tzaddikim themselves to receive blessings and get advice for truly complex halachic issues—but not day-to-day stuff.

As his mother once told me, “In Morocco, we (she meant Jewish women) didn’t go ask rabbis and rebbetzins all the time—we already knew stuff by ourselves!”

She also meant that women turned to other women who intimately knew and cared about them for advice and even halachic direction.

(Just as an aside, my mother-in-law was also perplexed that women needed official sessions with a certified instructor to learn about taharat hamishpacha. You do need proper instruction for the actual halacha of it, but the hashkafic aspects of these classes can be problematic…)

Several Ashkenazi Yerushalmi women told me, “We have a saying: ‘Rabbis are for chickens!’ "

What??!!!

They explained:
"If you have a specific question about Jewish law (like a question about the kashrus of a chicken you’re preparing to eat), you ask a rabbi. But advice? How can he know what you—especially a woman!—is supposed to do? Is he in your situation? Is he in your head? Does he know what you experience? How can he really know what you need to do?”

But I’d been indoctrinated that consulting with rabbis and rebbetzins for advice (not halacha, but mere advice) is the age-old Jewish tradition (it’s not) and that something terrible will happen if I don't consult with someone greater and wiser than I (not true).

So it was hard to let go of.

Anyway, I went back to the rebbetzin and as tactfully as I could, explained what happened. She was nonplussed to hear that her method was indeed found insulting.

“Ahhhh,” she said sagely. “I guess it’s because he’s Sephaaaardi. Noooow, I understand. Okay. Everything’s clear. This just won’t work with Sephardi men; they can’t handle it. Okay, fine. I just learned something new.”

It’s seems so ridiculous that I fell for her garbage back then.
It’s such obviously passive-aggressive sniping and sinat chinam.

Another problem is all the “advice” and “shitahs” (methods) and taking verses out of context and misapplying Gemaras and blah, blah, blah.

It really messes with your head.

ESPECIALLY the verses and Gemaras taken out of context and skewed to fit the speaker’s agenda. Many, if not most, of the people quoting stuff supposedly about and for women have not actually looked into how the mefarshim themselves interpret these sources.

In addition, for a lot of things, but especially for child-rearing and marriage, two people cannot apply the same whole chunk of advice or shitah.

Yes, many people offering courses and classes and advice really do want to help. And yes, you can definitely pick up some good stuff in what they have to offer.

But you’ll also get some head-wrecking stuff in the mix.

And depending on you, your spouse, your child(ren), and your specific situation (health, finances, community, or anything else), the stuff that worked wonders for someone else may slam you into an abyss that is very hard to scrape out of.
 
We’re all too different and even more essentially, we all have different tikkunim to rectify via our relationships and roles in life.

In a nutshell, you aren't necessarily supposed to be doing what your neighbor is doing and she's not necessarily supposed to be doing what you're supposed to be doing.

But I learned with time.

At this point, I’m very, very picky about shiurim and what I read. It’s very hard to be a rabbi or rebbetzin and I know because I’ve actually been a rebbetzin for a blessedly short time. And, to put it politely, it’s extremely challenging to maintain your spiritual equilibrium in such a position. (I’m not talking about gadolei hador, but regular rabbis and rebbetzins of a community, pulpit, or kiruv.)

Baruch Hashem, God made many of these people so unbearable that I ended up turning directly to Him and to classic Torah sources (like Duties of the Heart and so on) in way I wouldn't have otherwise.

And because Western society has become increasingly agenda-driven, it’s hard for people from such societies to keep their agendas off their hashkafah.
(Getting agenda-free takes a lot of emuna and self-awareness. Ask me how I know...)

And the following is very important to realize:
The classic Torah books and commentaries were written by tzaddikim.
Your rabbi or rebbetzin may be a good person (or maybe not...), but it is VERY unlikely that he or she is a tzaddik.

So who is actually going to impart to you true wisdom?

• The tzaddik?
• Or the guy with a certificate that only proves he's got good academic skills...and his wife?

So, with a few exceptions, I try to stick to stuff that was written a couple of centuries or more ago. And I’m much happier now!
 
Anyway...what are wives supposed to be doing?

When I read original sources written by tzaddikim a century or more ago, this is what they emphasize for women: tefillah.

Yes, they also talk about actual behavioral things, like nurturing, honoring, and forgiving your husband, and treating him with patience.

(And their standards for how husbands should treat their wives are even higher their standards are for wives. But we’re talking about the wifely role right now.)
 
At the same time, the Sages were also very aware that there are difficult, temperamental, and even abusive husbands.
 
(For example, the Pele Yoetz states that in the case of a very abusive husband, it is “fitting for whoever has the authority to punish [the abusive husband] to the best of their ability” and that it is important to help an abused wife get divorced if that’s what she wants because it is “a great mitzvah” to “save the oppressed from the hand of their oppressors.”)

Regardless of how good or successful he is or isn't, the Sages emphasize davening for your husband.
Rav Eliezer Papo in particular expounds on this in Pele Yoetz:

(And in a later book, he composed special prayers for wives to pray for their husbands.)

Rav Papo's words are very moving.
 
It doesn’t matter whether your husband is best thing that ever happened to you or if he’s just a heavy millstone around your neck or anything in between.
 
A wife’s tefillah for her husband is so incredibly powerful.

Even if you're very happy in your marriage and couldn't ask for more, you should still daven for the welfare of your husband in his life and health.
 
Notice that the Pele Yoetz assumes that no one can feel more compassion for a woman’s husband and children than she.

Not her husband’s rav, not his siblings, not his best friends, not his rosh yeshivah, and not even his own parents--HER.

This isn't always true, of course, but it often is true.
 
So if your husband is doing well, you can talk to Hashem about him succeeding even more. And if your husband is faltering in some area—whether it’s his livelihood, his physical health, his mental health, his character, his Torah learning, his spirituality, or anything else—you can have some heart-to-heart talks with Hashem about that.

You both benefit.
 
Now, it needs to be acknowledged: We don’t know what our tikkunim are exactly.

Oftentimes, pouring out your heart to Hashem leads to improved circumstances in your marriage, but sometimes it results in a divorce with a happy second marriage later on.
But then again, some people don’t seem to get a break.
There are no guarantees.
 
But looking around, I do see that turning to Hashem on behalf of your husband is much more effective in every way than all these books and classes and “experts.”
 
May Hashem grant feelings of true love and unity throughout the entire Jewish Nation.

In the last two posts (Hashem-Love vs. Self-Love, Self-Acceptance, Self-Esteem, Etc. and Hashem and You: The Real Love Story), we discussed how developing a relationship with Hashem and increasing feelings of love toward Hashem is at the core of any self-improvement healing program as per the Jewish Sages.

And while taking shortcuts (like focusing on self-esteem, self-worth, self-compassion, self-forgiveness, self-image, self-acceptance, and so on) can produce positive results, they ultimately cannot bring you to your full potential and healing. The self-introspection necessary to rectify yourself and to achieve true teshuvah is impossible without clinging to God in the awareness that He loves you with an Indestructible and Eternal Bond of Love.
 
So if there is only to gain and nothing to lose by loving and accepting love from Hashem, then why don’t people simply head down the road of Ahavat Hashem/Love of God?
 
There are lots of reasons:

• Previous traumas and experiences that make you feel you can’t trust God, that God is scary, or that He even hates you, chas v’shalom.
• It feels unachievably far from your present state.
• It doesn’t really sound Jewish because Christians talk about “love” all the time and you haven’t heard Jews talk about love within a religious context.
• You may never have experienced love or only experienced exploitation and abuse in the guise of “love” and have no idea how to love anyone.
• People you respect encourage you in another direction (like the hyphenated “self-” way) because those people, despite their own goodness and good intentions, cannot relate to the concept of ahavat Hashem.
• Following on the previous reason, people you respect insist that this is not even attainable and only for tzaddikim.
• You have no clue how to even start, so you don’t bother even trying.
• It’s rarely discussed in modern-day lectures and books, so you either didn’t know about it OR you know, but didn’t realize how essential it is.

 
And probably other reasons that I didn't think of.

And yes, I feel weird writing about this topic because I am just as flawed and wonky as anyone else and am definitely not example of an ohev/et Hashem. I discovered the necessity of ahavat Hashem pretty late in the game because of some of the above reasons.

My own fork-in-the-road came when I started reading a lot of classic Jewish sources and could no longer maintain my state of denial and the fact that loving Hashem is expounded on at length in millennia of Torah literature regarding it's essential necessity and truth.

However, just the little attempts I’ve made at loving Hashem have produced undeniable results and I'd be happy if everyone else could benefit at least as much as I have - if not more!
 
So let’s start with the big questions:

Yes, absolutely. This is a Torah command we repeat several times a day:

And the above is just one of the most well-known examples.

Judaism is full of exhortations to cleave to Hashem. Chassidus has run with this idea and contains copious teachings on the importance of “deveikus” - cleaving to Hashem.

So you're halachically obligated to consciously and actively try, even if you can't relate to it at all.
(If "can't relate to it at all" describes you as it once described me, then please note that toward the end of the post, you'll find suggestions for getting yourself started according to your individual disposition and idiosyncrasies.)

Luckily, this isn’t an all-or-nothing bet. Any attempt at loving Hashem reaps happy rewards. The mere act of trying to form a loving relationship with Hashem, however awkwardly or inconsistently, automatically makes you a better and happier person.

Depending on where your starting point is, you may not become a good or happy person immediately, but you will be better or happier than you were.

The following may sound odd, but if you dismiss this Torah mitzvah (as many people mistakenly do) as something “only tzaddikim do,” or if you only acknowledge this mitzvah in word, but make no conscious effort in deed, it’s really no different than a Jew who claims to be frum, but then dismisses Shabbat as “only for tzaddikim” or insists that keeping kosher is “too hard and not for normal people on our level” or that keeping taharat hamishpacha is not for people in our generation (which is what the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements do).

For example, if you are a Sabbath-observant Jew, you likely do not keep Shabbat perfectly, but that doesn’t stop you from trying, right? I mean, have you ever accidentally hit a light switch on Shabbat? Made your morning coffee straight from a kli rishon? Felt sad or gotten angry? (Remember, joy is an obligation on Shabbat while sadness and anger are strictly forbidden.) Yet you don’t brush off Sabbath observance as “only for tzaddikim.”

So the same effort applies with this mitzvah, too.

Let’s ask the expert himself: Rabbeinu Bachya ben Yosef ibn Paquda (circa 1040).
In Chapter 4 of the Gate of Love of Hashem in Duties of the Heart, Rabbeinu Bachya lists 3 types of love, then says that only the third is not possible for every person. “Nature and instinct work against it,” he explains.

Yet he insists:
“The first two kinds, however, are within the grasp of most people, provided they work hard at the preliminaries cited earlier in this gate.”
(Feldheim translation)

The 3 kinds of love are:

• Love for which it is easy to give up one’s money
• Love for which it is easy to give up part of one’s body and all one’s money
• Love for which it is easy to give up one's money, body, and soul (i.e. your life)
  

Rabbeinu Bachya explains that Avraham Avinu achieved all these levels, but that realistically speaking, most of us can only hope to reach the first two.

Starting Out in Thought:
The first thing you can do is start thinking of things in your life which benefit you and for which you can be grateful. Praise Hashem and thank Him for whatever you have.

Again, the idea of praising and thanking God is king all throughout Torah literature.

As one starting point, you can think of all the things He has done for you and continues to do for you.

In fact, Rabbeinu Bachya himself lists 30 topics you can cover with Hashem in the section called Gate of Self-Accounting. You can use those as your springboard.

For more ideas on getting started with baby steps, you can read books written on this topic for regular people, like:

• Garden of Emuna
• The How, What, and Why of Talking to God (available here as a free download and can be read within an hour, so you can be on your way toward more love pretty quickly)
• Talk to God and Fix Your Health, (which includes fixing your mental and spiritual health too)
• I've also been going through Rivka Levy's 49 Days: An Interactive Journal of Self-Development and have already found several helpful springboard ideas and topics.
• Orit Esther Riter's book Turnaround: 180 Degrees in 180 Days also offers a variety of helpful tips for getting started in a loving relationship with Hashem.

There are other books written for English-speaking lay people on how to get started, but I can't remember them right now.

Any mussar book (Duties of the Heart, Pathways of the Just, Ways of the Tzaddikim, The Way of God, The Gates of Repentance, Palm Tree of Devorah) or any classic Chassidic book (such as the Tanya of Chabad/Lubavitch or Likutei Moharan of Breslov) can explain the importance of trying to love Hashem and advise you how to go about it. In particular, Breslov books encourage you to connect with God despite intense feelings of unworthiness, shame, and self-loathing.

Starting Out with Action

• You can tell Hashem you love Him.
• Blow Him kisses.
• Sing to Him.
• Dance for Him.
• Play music for Him.
• Write poetry to Him.
• Give Him a thumbs-up as you go about your day.
• Paint or sketch Him a picture of your feelings of love or gratitude.
• Read Shir HaShirim as if it's an actual exchange between you and Hashem.

People don't always realize that Judaism actually provides soul-expression for love. Sefardim in particular possess a whole tradition of piyutim, which are basically love songs to God. An Invitation to Piyut (H/T Hava haAharonah-The Last Eve) provides you with the words and melodies to many piyutim.

Some piyutim, like Yedid Nefesh, are well-known across the Jewish world, among both the Sefardi and the Ashkenazi communities.

(Composed around 500 years ago, Yedid Nefesh is a particularly stirring love-poem to God with particularly beautiful melodies. Here is Yedid Nefesh in translation. Here it is in transliteration. And here is a selection of its melodies; scroll down to #9. The Lev Tahor acappella group also has a very nice version of Yedid Nefesh.)

You can read piyutim or sing them as if you were actually singing or reading to your one great love of a lifetime.

In the Bakashah prayer composed by Rabbeinu Bachya at the end of Duties of the Heart, he strongly advises you to sing to Hashem.

Of course these are all just suggestions. Feel free to start off expressing yourself according to the nature Hashem planted within you.

Some people understandably feel extremely awkward or silly getting all lovey-dovey with God, but this is something that is incredibly powerful and sweetens harsh judgments hanging all over the world.

You don’t even need to intend your expressions of love as a merit for the Jewish people, yourself, or the world (although you certainly can if you wish!). Just doing it and getting yourself into that state is good enough, as far as God goes.

And the truth is, even a very unspiritual and disconnected person can activate a feeling of love for Hashem, even if it’s just for one fleeting second.

Women may have an easier time accessing this state than men due to women’s innate tendency toward emotional experience and expression.
 
Finally, like everything else in spiritual work, this is a process. It’s perfectly normal to fall on your face, to throw in the towel temporarily, to careen from “I absolutely positively ADORE you, Hashem!” to “AAAACK! How could You do this to me??!!!” and anything else.

The main thing is to try.

Torah Judaism: The REAL Religion of Love

In Hashem-Love vs. Self-Love, Etc., we discussed how self-esteem, self-love, self-compassion, self-acceptance, and all the other hyphenated psycho-scientific “self” terms aren’t discussed in Jewish mussar literature as the key to self-improvement and emotional healing.
 



The exception is self-image, but not the kind of self-image Western psychology advises you to develop, but the self-image of you as a holy person with a pristine soul and a wonderful Yetzer Tov, a person whose flaws and bad inclinations are just an extraneous layer, a “shell” that isn’t the real you at all.
 
No matter how horrible you are or what you’ve done, you still possess powerfully positive traits in addition to your negative ones. Any negative traits like selfishness, arrogance, nastiness, etc. are just a klippah (extraneous layer) over your jewel-like qualities and over your untainted Divine soul.
 
But maybe as you are behaving now, you really aren’t loveable.
Or esteemable.
Or respectable.
Or acceptable.
Or whatever other feel-good term you’d like to hyphenate to “self.”
(Or maybe you really are a completely righteous person. I don’t know. I don’t know you.)

Yet despite all and any of the negative traits and behaviors that may be mucking up your soul, Hashem still loves you more than you could ever love anyone else, even your own child, even your own Prince Charming or Dreamgirl, or even your own favorite cuddly pet.

Picture it like this:

Let’s say that you decided to swim in a pool of sewage, even though the person who loves you most in the world has cautioned you a million times NOT to frolic in sewage because it is dangerously unhealthy. And the person who loves you most in the world even repeatedly detailed to you the exact kinds of diseases and skin conditions and even deaths you can expect after immersing yourself in sewage. AND you have even almost drowned several times in the sewage.

Yet you insist on doing it anyway.

(I know that sounds gross and preposterous, but spiritually speaking, that is exactly what many of us are doing or have done.)

Despite your revolting obstinacy, this same person continues to rescue you every single time you cry out while drowning. And this person sits right next to you even though you reek like I-don’t-want-to-say-what.

And this person even lovingly hugs you tightly in all your repulsive filth and stench while saying, “No matter how disgusting you look, smell, and feel, I still love you more than anyone else in the whole world. I don’t want anyone else but you. And not only that, I want to raise you up and crown you with royalty, and give you the best of everything. I want to tell everybody that you are mine and that I love you most of all.”
_________________________
 
That is our relationship with God.
 
The above parable isn’t my invention. The theme of a besmirched, underserving potential prince or princess rescued and cherished by a king can be found throughout mussar literature and Chassidus.
 
You can be a psychopath, and Hashem will still be there for you, ready to accept any baby steps you choose to take in His Direction.
 
So the three important truths of human nature are:
1) Hashem planted any and all flaws and negative tendencies within you. The “real you” is not the bad stuff you think or do. Whether you were born with those negative traits or whether you developed them in response to trauma and abuse, they are from Hashem and not your fault.

2) The process of rectifying your flaws is the main reason why you exist in This World.

3) Hashem loves you so profoundly and more than any human being ever could, and tapping into that love is the key to healing and self-improvement.
 
Internalizing this reality is what enables us to do that kind of onerous self-introspection and self-refinement necessary to improve ourselves and fulfill whatever potential God imbued within each one of us.

I grew up with notion of self-love as being the key to being a happy, good, and successful person.

One of my favorite songs was sung by Whitney Houston with the chorus:
"Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all!"

(Prior to the Seventies, American society emphasized self-discipline and self-respect as the key to being a happy, good, and successful person.)

"Low self-esteem" was deemed the root of many destructive behaviors.
(It is indeed part of a destructive behavioral pattern, but the solution is not praise, positive self-image, and to hyper-focus on self-esteem—as well-meaning researchers insisted at that time, only to backtrack more recently.)

Then as time went by, psychologists and other social scientists realized that loving and esteeming yourself doesn’t necessarily make you a better person or help you live a better life. So in recent years, the term “self-compassion” has been popping up more and more with, yet again, extremely convincing explanations as to why THIS is the key to happiness, goodness, and success.

And still, there is still a lot of talk about accepting yourself, loving yourself, appreciating yourself, developing a positive self-image, and so on.

Self, self, self, self.

Additionally, any frum psychologist, coach, adviser, or any other frum professional in the field will tell you the same thing.

And as far as I can tell, all the people writing books, articles, or offering therapy along these lines are truly well-intended. They genuinely want to help people and the guidance they offer does often helps to a certain extent - particularly if the professional offering the method is a truly caring person.

The thing is that over the years, after reading a lot of Tanach, commentaries, mussar books and the like, I just can't see where Jewish sources emphasize self-love, self-worth, self-compassion, self-esteem, self-acceptance, etc.

It's just not there as far as I can tell.

True, I'm no expert. But if the whole emphasis on self-(fill-in-the-blank) was so crucial to healing and self-improvement, I should have come across it by now within the centuries of Jewish writings on this topic.

Yet all these writings just don’t use terms or describe ideas resembling that of Western psychology described above as far as I’ve ever seen.

(The exception seems to be the idea of a positive self-image. While the Sages don't use that particular term, they do emphasize the fact your neshamah is pure and that you have exalted potential, and that you can succeed in reaching that potential if you really try, and that you are obligated to see yourself in that light.)

And when well-meaning frum professionals discuss all this, they tend to focus on one sentence within Rabbeinu Yonah’s book Gates of Teshuvah. (I think it’s the part in which he explains how low self-esteem leads to a superiority complex because a person puffed up with arrogance got that way because he or she felt compelled to cover up his feelings of low self-worth with lots of fake superiority.) What about the rest of Gates of Teshuvah? In Breslov, Rebbe Nachman recommends that a depressed and despairing penitent find at least one positive trait within himself and of course, the story of The Prince Made Entirely of Precious Gems symbolizes the jewels of goodness hidden within every Jew.
(This is in line with the idea of positive self-image based our Sages' stipulations, and not that of Western psychology.)
But what about the rest of Breslov's Likutei Moharan and everything written therein?
There is a lot more to Rabbeinu Yonah's teachings and Breslov than what is cherry-picked by well-meaning advisers and therapists.

Or they insist that the recommendations by Western psychology are the same as in mussar literature, but that Western psychology presents it in a language we can understand.
(Again, there is some truth in this, but not as much as they like to think.)

Or frum advisers fall back on ye olde favorites:

• “That was then, but we can’t do that now.”

Or:

• “That’s only for tzaddikim, not regular people like us.”

Yet taking one sentence out of the vast treasury of mussar doesn't justify the solutions offered by Western psychology. What about all the other hundreds of thousands of sentences of mussar?

Furthermore, taking the idea of the hidden beautiful potential we all possess is still very different than the hyphenated “self” that keeps popping up (however well-intended) all over the science of self-improvement.

With the vast literature Judaism possesses regarding teshuvah (the main form of human self-improvement), could it be that the answer is only in one or two paragraphs in a couple of traditional sources that "happen" to jive with modern-day psycho-science?

Yet there is another powerful and common theme running through the entire Tanach, rabbinical commentary, and mussar books:

Divine Love

• the love that Hashem has for you and the love that you should ideally feel for Him.

Many mussar books dedicate entire chapters to the idea of Love.

Yet rather than emphasizing how to love and accept yourself, they focus on loving and accepting God.

Not surprisingly, loving and accepting God leads to loving and accepting both yourself and others, it leads to compassion for all creatures - and not the other way around.

This is what all the Sages seem to be saying.

Yes, you can work on self-compassion (or self-love or self-esteem or self-acceptance or self-worth or your self-image) and you can also work on general compassion (or love or esteem or acceptance) for others.

But it seems like doing so can only take you so far.

Trusting in Hashem’s Love and Omnipotence roots you in the knowledge that whether your bad  traits are innate or whether they are traumatic reactions to traumatic experiences, they aren’t your fault because HASHEM designated you and your faults that way.

So good-bye toxic shame!

However, while your bad traits aren’t your fault, they are still your responsibility to fix—a holy assignment directly from Hashem Himself with which He is both Happy and Willing to help you as much as you need.

Everything is about Hashem, everything is from Hashem, and everything He does is beneficial, so you might as well throw yourself on Him and start to love Him back.

(And yes, this is difficult and painful if you’ve had a lot of pain and abuse in your life.)

The problem is that by focusing on self, you’re not getting to the root of the issue.

A lot of people walk around today with crushing feelings of toxic shame. Toxic shame prevents you from being a decent person. All that inner toxic waste comes leaking out in a variety of ways: cutting comments, sneers, smirks, passive-aggression, verbal attacks, self-harming behaviors (cutting, addictions, eating disorders, etc.) and even violence.

Is a sneering, mean, manipulative, or violent person particularly loveable?
Respectable?
Should we accept them as they are?
Should they accept themselves as they are?

No.

And believe me, I used to be convinced that you could love, accept, and nurture another person into a state of better emotional health.

I used to believe that people who behaved badly didn't really want to behave that way, and that if you showed them an alternative, they would change. (This is sometimes true, but often not.)

I found out the hard and painful way that you can’t. Regardless of how much goodness they possess underneath it all, you just can’t bring it out of them no matter how much you try to love and nurture their hidden—unless they actively want it.

However, you can pray them into a better state, if God wills it. But in most cases, you can never love and encourage that person enough to heal them, no matter how much you focus on their good qualities and their very real potential.

And therefore, I’m not sure whether you can nurture or love yourself into a better state either. (Literally, I'm not sure.)

But you can pray yourself into a better state.

And the most powerful kind of prayer comes from a loving heart.

So maybe in your current state, you aren’t so loveable.
Maybe you really are acting like a selfish, uncaring, arrogant, and nasty person.

(And again, if you are acting this way, please remember that all your selfishness, callousness, arrogance, and nastiness came from Hashem—either He planted those traits as innate within you OR He designed you to respond that way to traumatic experiences in order to overcome them. Why? Something in the experience of fixing those traits repairs past-life mistakes, cleanses your soul, and earns you spiritual reward you wouldn’t otherwise deserve. Yay!)
 
So this is the truth as written throughout Chazal.
 
But in order to love Hashem back, you need to get to know Him better and develop a close relationship.
 
In a nutshell, giving God lots of compliments, focusing on the Good in Him, and having heart-to-heart talks with Him, and sharing yourself and letting Him share Himself is what develops your relationship with Him (as with any relationship),  and increases both your love for Him and your awareness of His Infinite Love for You.
 
But that's in a nutshell. Practically speaking, there’s a lot more to it than that, which I’ll be addressing in upcoming posts.