Mussar-Psych by Rabbi Ephraim Becker

Jews have a complex relationship with redemption.  On the one hand (most of what I write has an ‘on the one hand’ in it) we are called upon to look forward, indeed to yearn, for redemption.  When discussing the great and awesome judgement to which a person will be subjected after his days on Earth are over, a key question that will be asked of each of us is whether we yearned for the promised redemption (Shabbos 31a).  If we are meant to continuously yearn for the Messianic redemption, then why are we taught (Sanhedrin 97a) that there are three things that spring upon a person while he is unaware, the arrival of the Messiah, a lost item that he stumbles upon and (the bite of) a scorpion?  It seems that for all of our yearning for Messianic redemption, it only comes when a person isn’t looking!

The answer seems to lie in the depth of our belief system.  We don’t believe that the status quo can radically change.  From the micro level (can I really alter some aspect of my character or repair some act for which I must repent) to the macro level (can the messed up situation/world ever be set straight) we tend to disbelieve.  On the downside, we find the prophet teaching us (Lamentations 4:12) that even the kings of nations, did not believe that Jerusalem would be breached and that the Temple would be destroyed.  In fact, this left ample room for false prophets to declare that there was nothing to be concerned about, that the Temple would be safe and that the People need not take major corrective steps.  Their message met the basic feature of human belief – in the status quo.  Things don’t change; indeed they cannot change.  And yet the Temple was destroyed.  From one day to the next the situation of the Temple and of the Jewish People was altered dramatically.  Similarly, we have difficulty believing that our situation will again change and that Messianic redemption will indeed arrive.  Thus two things can co-exist.  We can yearn for the Messianic redemption and it can only come when we are not looking.  They come together as beliefs.  We must believe in the prophecies of redemption while bowing to the human nature of belief in the status quo.  There is no other way to live for if I were to imagine that the situation will immediately change then it would not matter much how recklessly I enlarge my overdraft.  And if I do not believe that the situation can change then I will lose all hope and become a desperate ‘fixer’ of things over which I have no control.  I need to find the balance between the two belief systems; the necessary belief in redemption and the belief in the status quo.  One keeps me going and one keeps me from going too far.

There is a big catch in this story, though.  There is a piercing comment of the Maharsha on the above-mentioned Gemara about the three things that spring on a person when he is unaware.  He decodes the Gemara as follows: The Messaih’s arrival will be for some as joyous as finding a lost treasure, and for others it will be as the bite of a scorpion.  Both are sudden, but one is suddenly brilliant and wonderful and one is suddenly horrible.  How could the same event be both wonderful for some and horrible for others.  Likely that has a great deal to do with the nature of the yearning.  I recall as a youngster hearing about a simple Jew in a small town who heard a great rabbi speak about the coming of the Messiah.  Glowing and excited, the fellow ran home to tell his wife the good news.  The Messiah is coming and we’ll all be going back to the Holy Land, to the rebuilt Temple, and so on.  His wife’s response took him aback.  She challenged him, ‘but what about our cow?’  So the simple Jew ran back to the rabbi who was still at the Synagogue and put her question before him, ‘perhaps we don’t want to go to the Holy Land; we have a cow here.’  To which the rabbi responded with exclaim, ‘but what about the Cossacks!’  Ah, now he clearly understood.  He went back to his wife and proclaimed, ‘we shouldn’t want to stay here, what about the Cossacks!’  She thought for a moment and sent her husband back to the rabbi.  She had a suggestion.  ‘Leave us here with our cow, and take the Cossacks to the Holy Land!’

There are many people whose yearning for deliverance, if it exists at all, is simply for relief from the difficulties of their daily lives.  And while I have no issue with such prayers and while I would wish the same for myself and for those I care about, there is more to redemption than relief from difficulties.  There is universal recognition of what a human being was designed to be – a mentsch who is then crowned with Commandments (Mitzvos) and above that crowned with Torah.  The universal recognition of what it means to be truly human in the Creator’s image is the piercing message of redemption.  To cut through the nonsense and seemingly endless stream of smallness when people hold up false values and put other humans down.  To wipe away the disgrace of misguided people who have replaced the glorious Torah definitions of exalted humanity with their own pathetic definitions of human achievement.  For those who are yearning for distorted humanity to prevail then redemption will be a scorpion’s bite.  For those who are holding fast to the finest Torah definitions of Man, the redemption is a found treasure.  It will always be unexpected because of the nature of our status-quo belief, but it can be profoundly glorious if we are yearning in the right direction.

Oh, by the way, the way to demonstrate the yearning for exalted humanity is to strive towards it with actions that reflect that yearning.  We’re fragile and error prone, but if we keep climbing the steps, there will be an elevator that will take us to the top.

As the cryptic title implies, there is a delicate tightrope which we each must walk when balancing our personal strengths and assets with our challenges.  On the one side of the rope is the terrible abyss of despair.  Despair is the assumption that I do not have the skills nor the strength to confront the challenges of my life.  They are greater than I am.  That side of the abyss is associated with depression or, more commonly, endless complaining and a vague sense of irritation at the unfairness of the world whose challenges rest on my inadequate shoulders.  Someone needs to lift the load for me.  Even prayers, when they are offered (and often folks who have fallen on this side of the tightrope do not engage in genuine prayer), become a pathetic pleading co-mingled with angry accusations at the One Who has singled me out for challenges that are beyond my ability.

On the other side of the tightrope are those who are so convinced of their personal strength and skills that they need not apply themselves to the challenges of life.  The challenges will simply fall away as I carry on with my endless potency.  I need not give them any thought and I certainly do not need to invent any challenges in my state of well-being!.  And while I may not carry this all the way to imagine that I am invincible, I need not address the process of overcoming challenges with any more attention than most healthy people give to their digestion.  It just happens as I breeze along ‘doing my thing.’

The one side of the tightrope leads to paralyzing self-consciousness and the other, a lack of purpose and mission owing to a lack of regard and respect for the formidable tasks that are before each of us.  In their extreme forms they lead to depression or mania. As Victor Frankl has pointed out, depression is the sense that life’s tasks are bigger than I am, while mania is the sense that I am far bigger than life’s tasks.  But even without looking at the extremes, failure to properly regard one’s strengths and one’s challenges will lead to a tumble from the tightrope.

The trick, if it can be referred to as such, is an internal concept of fit.  Fit implies that the resources and the challenges are in sync.  An inventory of resources will yield a discovery of personal challenges and an inventory of challenges will yield a discovery of personal strengths.  Let us imagine, for a moment, that I discover that I have a certain ability or strength.  Perhaps it is wealth or prowess or intellect, physical agility or creative juices, deep compassion or a sense of orderliness.  The list, with the unique combinations of skills both gifted and acquired, is as varied as there are people in the world.  (But let’s leave the whole world for a moment and focus on one person, oneself.  It is far too easy to pass this work on to someone else by noticing the fit between their strengths and their challenges.  ‘C’mon – you can do it!’ alternates with ‘you poor thing’ and no growth happens.)  Knowing that I have been given (or have acquired) a strength or gift means that I am summoned to put that asset to work.  An asset demands a challenge.  Just as one must keep a balance between what he eats and the activity of his lifestyle, so must we keep a balance between our assets and our challenges.  To have an asset is to be called by a challenge.  Asset without challenge is spiritual fat or lethergy.

The converse is also the case.  Challenges summon us to review our assets.  That does not imply that challenges can be overcome.  As Logotherapists we have come to learn that the asset which some challenges summon is the ability to accept and bow our head before the Righteous Judge.  However it is fair to say that every challenge is a call to revisit a resource.  When a person feels challenged, that is the time to recall his resources.  When he feels strong, it is the time to stretch the muscles and build resources.  Every instance of life, each meeting, each page of study, calls on us to sense our resources and to stretch them.  Without recalling our resources we are hopeless and without regarding the challenge we fail to stretch.

It has been said, correctly, that the place for Mussar and introspection must begin from an inventory of personal and trait assets.  That triggers a meaningful course of personal growth.  Others may start from the challenge at hand and the road leads back to resources.  After all, imagine someone who is facing a business difficulty who does not first think of the resources available to address the difficulty?!  It is natural to think this way when facing a challenge.

Unless, of course, one has forgotten about the tightrope.

As is evident from the verses that describe the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, the take away lesson of the event is that Hashem speaks with people.  He does not only manifest His absolute majesty over the universe, as the People saw in Egypt and at the Sea, He has a will for mankind and He makes that will known to man directly – Hashem speaks to man.

The content of the prophecy is, in this sense, secondary for Shavuos.  First and foremost is the celebration of the very fact that Hashem speaks to man.  In Shmos (20:19) we find Moshe summarizing the event of Revelation announcing to the People that “you have seen that from Heavens I [Hashem] have spoken with you.”  And again in Devarim (5:21) the People summarize the event by saying that “Hashem has shown us His glory and greatness, and His voice we heard; today we have seen that Hashem speaks with Man who can go on living.”  And further (ibid. 23) “For who among all the living who has heard the voice of the living Hashem as we have and are still alive.”  Hashem, as it were, is pleased with the take away lesson that the People have derived.  They got the message, and the message is prophecy.  Shavuos, the marking of the revelation on Mount Sinai then, is a celebration of prophecy.  We may not be on the level to receive prophecy but that is very different from saying that man cannot hear Hashem’s voice, orthat Hashem has no way to reveal His will to man.  He does, and He has, and the Torah that we have in our possession is the fruit of that revelation.  There are ‘moderns’ for whom the concept of prophecy does not quite work and there are quacks who insist that they are still receiving prophecy, but neither of those fringes can alter the fundamental factthat the revelation on Mount Sinai was meant to drive home – Hashem reveals His will to man.

I would like to suggest two metaphors that might help us take the message of prophecy home beyond the belief in the simple fact that prophecy exists.  So, in the spirit of Shavuos, I would like to speak of the Spy and the Psychotic.

The Spy

A spy has taken up residence in a foreign country.  He has established his identity in that place and he is living a normal life.  While he goes on with his life, anticipates that some day the boss who commissioned him to his job may send him a message indicating that he is needed in one way or another.  And one day, he receives a visitor at his store who, by use of the pre-arranged password, indicates that he has a message from the boss.  At once, the spy closes his store, lowers the shutters and begins to listen, very carefully, to the message from the boss.  Not a word of the instructions will fall to the floor forgotten nor will he hesitate to ask if some aspect of the instruction is unclear to him.  He is keenly aware of the significance of the instructions and he hears the words as though the boss were speaking with him directly.  This is meant to be our attitude towards hearing words of Torah.  We were witness to the event of Mount Sinai and we are aware that Hashem reveals His will to man.  Now a teacher, who can trace his teaching back to that event at Mount Sinai, is revealing some aspect of the content of the message from the boss.  Our attention is meant to emulate that of the spy in our story.  Now is not the time or place to concern ourselves with customers, calls, or bills.  For now is the time that the boss is disclosing a part of His message.  Shavuos is a time for reaffirming our relationship with the study of Torah in line with the metaphor of the Spy.

The Psychotic

One symptom of schizophrenia is auditory hallucinations, or command voices.  The person hears an internal voice and often those voices are very sinister and self destructive.  A person who hears command voices cannot ignore them, and if those voices command the person to some act that is a danger to themselves or to others then the person will need protective supervision.  The power of the command voice makes us certain that the person will act in accordance with the command voice and hence its power and potential danger.  As regards the message of Shavuos, we are meant to internalize the message of that which we learned through prophecy to the degree that we feel absolutely compelled to carry out the content of the message, no matter what the obstacles that may stand in our way.  Others who look upon a person who deeply lives the message of the Torah as an internal command voice will be impressed with the power and certainty with which the person dedicates himself to the instructions of the Torah.  They are command voices for him and he will go to the ends of the earth to carry them out.  Auditory hallucinations are scary because the person did not choose them and they exert great power.  The Torah has power because the person has chosen to internalize the message of prophecy and he can drink in some of the spirit of Shavuos to move the message from voluntary (I’ll do it when the spirit moves me and leave it when it does not) to compelling – to a command voice.

It might go without saying that there can be nothing more dangerous than a person who claims to have heard a message from Hashem but he has not, or is not transmitting the message with the precision that is needed for such a calling, but the Torah does not leave it go without saying it.  Such a person incurs the most dire consequences.  We rely (or, perhaps, have relied) on prophecy and let no one dare invoke the name of Hashem in promotion of some spiritual agenda of this nature or another.  As we commonly say, if Hashem wanted me to listen to you He would have told me, not you.  We are witness to prophecyand we can hold up with pride many examples of people who have related to the Torah with the seriousness of the Spy and the commitment of the Psychotic.  Shavuos is a time for each of us to take a small but meaningful step in the direction of prophecy and in the take-home lessons of prophecy.

I hope that this talk about Pesach is useful. Feedback is always welcome. Here’s a link to download.

Wishing each of you a Kosher and Joyous Pesach!

There is now a link to a class that I recently presented on Chanukah. It is suitable for all levels and is entitled:“Chanukah and Taryton – We’d rather fight than switch”

You may download the (free) class by clicking on the Audio link on the side of the page.

Wishing one and all an en’light’ening Chanukah!
Ephraim