Question:
What is an example of a good point to hold onto when we are going through difficult times?
Answer:
Good question. There are two opposite powers in the soul: despair, and hope. When a person is in a going through a dismal period and he despairs, and he is too accepting of the despair, he is weakening the “fire” of his hope. The only thing a person needs to do, in order to access the power of tikva/hope, is for a person to know that “I will soon return to the way things were.” Practically speaking, a person should understand that his soul needs to go to “sleep” sometimes, just as the body needs sleep [meaning that the soul isn’t able to perform at it best, during a dismal period].
Question:
So when a person is awakening the power of hope, there is nothing specific which a person needs to hope for?
Answer:
You only need to be on the proper level to do so, to have hope that you will certainly return to the way things were before, and that you can certainly succeed. This doesn’t meant to simply say “I hope” superficially, but to feel truly confident that Hashem will certainly help you succeed.
Question:
If a person gets sick and is physically not able to do anything, and he doesn’t even have a minute or two minutes a day to work on the idea of increasing the power of “hope”, is there anything she can do, to grow right now?
Answer:
If he doesn’t have 2 minutes, he can still find half a minute for this.
Question:
The sick person can only think about hope, but he has no one to work on it together with and speak about. For example, he was used to learning every day with a chavrusa, and now that he is ill, he has no one to verbalize his hope with.
Answer:
So he can do it while learning alone.
Question:
But there are days when an ill person will find even this too difficult for him to do.
Answer:
He still has a second or where he can find time to work on this – in spite of the fact that the yetzer hora (evil inclination) is very strong.
Question:
If a person’s ratzon (will) dries up, how can he get it going again?
Answer:
During a dismal period, a person should not focus on action (maaseh) that much, and instead he should focus more on maintaining whatever willpower (ratzon) he has acquired until now. It will be too difficult for a person to “create” a ratzon now for more growth, now that his will for growth has stopped. But this much, he will still be able to do.
Question:
I have learned that a person needs to keep doing what he needs to do and to keep serving Hashem, even when he doesn’t feel like it and he has no enthusiasm or will to serve Hashem. For example, a person should daven to Hashem even if he doesn’t feel particularly enthusiastic about davening right now. But according to what the Rav is saying here, it sounds like we need to keep awakening our emotion and will.
Answer:
Only a person who has reached a very high level of pnimiyus is able to do so. A person will never build his inner world if he serves Hashem without feeling. If a person has already developed his pnimiyus, then he is able to have times in which he serves Hashem even when he doesn’t have any will. But for most people, it is not a proper approach to always serve Hashem without any feelings.
Question:
But perhaps the approach (of action over emotion) would work better for women, who are usually more action-oriented.
Answer:
Actually, it is the opposite. Since women are more usually emotional than men, they need to work more with their emotions, than with trying to act when they don’t feel like it. By contrast, men, who are less emotionally inclined than women, are better equipped to do what they have to do even when they don’t feel like it. But this doesn’t either mean that men to need to act robotic and mechanical, with no feeling in what they do. Everyone needs to open their hearts. This should not be about “doing what you have to do even when you don’t feel like it.”
Question:
Do we have any way of knowing when these “good times” or “bad times” will come?
Answer:
We do not have any control of when they come and go, but the more a person works on himself, the less the “bad times” will come, and the less intense they will be. But there is almost no one in the generation who never goes through these “bad times.”
Question:
During a dismal period, a person wonders if he’s going on the right path or not. How can person indeed know if he’s going in the right path?
Answer:
During the “bad times”, it is too difficult for us to know if we are going on the right path or not, so we will have to wait for the “good times” when we can think more objectively. During a dismal period, if a person feels that he needs to improve in certain areas or take a different path, it is usually coming from an unhealthy place in the soul, from feeling down and broken. So in order to analyze one’s path, one will need to wait for the dismal period to pass, and analyze his path later, when “good times” return.
Question:
How do you know if you’re going through those “Bad Days”? Can it be that for two hours a day that you’re going through “Bad Days?”
Answer:
“Bad Days” (“Days of Hate”) can last well beyond 2 hours or half a day. They can go on for several days, and sometimes they can even go on for several weeks. Sometimes you can feel physical aches from them. But if you feel like you’re in a dismal period for more than a few months already, that’s a sign that there is a problem. Then it is not just a period of “Bad Days” anymore – it is a sign of depression.
Question:
Why does our soul need to go through this state of “sleep”, or “Bad Days”? And is there any way we can prolong our periods of “Good Days?”
Answer:
Hashem created the world that everything needs sleep, even our soul. Since our soul needs sleep, we need to also go through “Bad Days.” There is nothing we can do about it. But the more we work on ourselves, the longer our “Good Days” will last.
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