“I’m not intimating that ‘healing’ in itself is idolatry, there is, however, a sentiment that people openly vocalize that ‘healing’ is paramount. Concerns and questions about particular methodologies, even questions like ‘Is it Avodah Zara?’ are scoffed and dismissed as out of touch.”
By Rabbi Mendy Majesky
A man with a notoriously poor memory struggled every morning to find the essentials he needed to start his day.
After much frustration and confiding with a friend, his friend offered some sage advice: “Every night, before you go to bed, write down the precise location of everything you’ll need the next morning.” Eager to try something new, the man diligently wrote down the whereabouts of his car keys, wallet, phone, etc., and finally, as a humorous afterthought, he wrote, “I am in bed.”
The next morning, he proudly followed his list, effortlessly locating each item. However, his triumph was short-lived, as he reached the final entry. Confused and panicked, he searched his bed high and low, muttering to himself, “But where am I? I know I’m supposed to be in bed…!”
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We traditionally wish one another before Shavuos, “Kabolas Hatorah Bisimcha Ubipnimyus”- [may you] accept the Torah with joy and in a personal and internal manner. The stress being on the personal relationship with the Torah.
This should not be understood to mean that we need to develop something new, but rather, “internal” means to recognize the internal (and therefore eternal) connection we already have with the Torah, as a matter of identity. All we need to do is bring forth and highlight that truth.
The name Yisroel as spelled at in Hebrew is an acronym for יש שישים ריבוא אותיות לתורה – there are six-hundred-thousand letters in the Torah. Each soul, the sages teach, is a letter in the Torah. The Torah—being a power far greater than any natural law—is “embedded” within every single Jew regardless of their behavior, level of observance or intellectual abilities. Yisroel is also associated with the word sar, which means to be a prince or master. The Rebbe explains that these two associations have a connection. Every Jew has the infinite power of the Torah that they can tap into, in order to be a “master” over themselves and over their “corner of the world.”
To illustrate this with a story:
The famed Chasid, Reb Shmuel Levitin, travelled to Chicago on behalf of the Freierdike Rebbe, he was instructed to visit a local Jew by the name of Yecheskel Lisner, a descendant of Chabad Chasidim going back to the days of the Alter Rebbe. When they met, Mr. Lisner immediately took out a check, assuming that the sole purpose of his coming was for fundraising. Reb Shmuel told him that he is there for more than just money: “Every Jew is a letter in the Torah, and we all make up one Torah scroll. If one Jew’s letter is fading or erased, the whole Torah is unfit for use. The Rebbe is a ‘travelling scribe’ going around, rewriting the faded and missing letters, I am his emissary.”
When Reb Shmuel returned, he related to the Freierdike Rebbe this exchange. The Rebbe was pleased with the parable, but added: “A Jew’s letter is not written with ink on parchment where the letters can be erased. They are etched in stone, like the letters of the Luchos. A Jew’s connection with Hashem and His Torah can never be erased or fade. It can be covered with dust, but never erased.”
We possess an infinite power that is simply just there, as a matter of fact, “Should we choose to accept it.” The power we receive from our intrinsic an indelible connection with the Torah.
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Each of us are blessed with living a life of our very own—uniquely distinct from anyone born before us or anyone in the future. Each of us are tasked to accept the Torah with joy and in a personal and internal manner, to make the Torah uniquely ours. Based upon our unique spiritual makeup, personality, background, and life experience, our “internally” differs from one another.
However, in our “search for more, more from ourselves and more from this world,” we must remember that it’s not the steps we take for self-improvement in itself that hold the true power, the act is only a trigger to release the internal power we already possess. As Chazal teach, Hashem declares, “Open for Me an opening the size of an eye of a needle and I will open for you an opening as large as the entrance to the ulam [of the Beis Hamikdash].”
It is essential that we don’t put all the emphasis on some self-improvement fad, that won’t bring out our truth. It is our inner truth that is essential, it is the rewarding opening by Hashem to our efforts that is paramount. We must not look for ourselves in our bed.
Dating back to Moshe Rabeinu at Har Sinai, Yiddishkeit has been consistently under attack. In addition to external attacks by oppressive governments and evil tyrants, at times, its biggest challenges came from within. From Korach’s group of rebels to the Greek Hellenist, from the Maskilim (enlightenment movement) and Poalei Tziyon (Anti-religious Zionist) to the Yevesektsiya (Jewish brigade of the KGB), our biggest challenge often came from within.
Chas veshalom, my intention is not to compare anyone today to any of the above-mentioned sinister vile groups and ideologies. However, if history has taught us anything, it taught us that not everything with a beard and payos is compatible with a Torah true way of life. It is our job to discern between what is correct and what is misleading.
The latest manifestation of this is the world of “healing.” Healing is of course of utmost importance, however, when it comes at the expense of Halacha, it is tantamount to the man searching for himself in bed. We can only find ourselves by looking in the place where we’ve always been, a letter in the Torah.
Back in the days of idolatry, when people served idols and bowed to all sorts of gods, it surely felt extremely authentic, it was for them a mystical spiritual and healing. Surely this is not acceptable.
While I am not, chas veshalom, intimating that “Healing” in itself is idolatry, there is, however, a sentiment that people openly vocalize, that “healing” is paramount. Concerns and questions about particular methodologies of healing, even questions like “is it Avodah Zara?” are scoffed and dismissed as out of touch. The respond is, “You need so much help, how can you be bothered with halacha.” These questions are not a joke to be dismissed, they are the most essential question of all. It is the difference between the greatest of heights and lowest abyss.
In Lubavitch there was a bochur who died R”L as a result of neglecting his health in the pressures of avodas Hashem. Once at a farbrengen, a Mashpia was talking to his students about intensifying their devotion. “You want us to die like that student?” someone presents at the farbrengen heckled. Without hesitation, the Mashpia replied, “better to die as a Yid than to live as a Goy.” This is the attitude we need to have. Torah and our Jewish heritage is our guiding factor.
When the Frierdike Rebbe was told that American Jewry is at the brink, it’s on fire, and when there is fire, you throw anything you have to extinguish the fire. You don’t need the water to be perfectly clean. They were trying to tell him, that for the sake of saving Yiddishkeit, we must water it down and bend some rules, making Yiddishkeit more accessible and enticing for the modern American Jew. The Rebbe responded “when a fire is burning, you must be careful you aren’t throwing gasoline at the flames.”
In conclusion, the greatest energy we have is the internal and eternal power of the Torah. That is where we need to look to find our healing and faith. Perhaps the internal connection with the Torah (pnimiyus) doesn’t mean to “make Torah your own,” that you get to manipulate it at your whim, but it means, make yourself Torah’s, allow Torah – your true self – guide and propel the process.
It is so refreshing to read this!
Thank you for taking the time to write it and thanks for posting it with your name, which gives your message more credence.
Chazak ve’amatz.
I am so impressed with this article and to the author for saying the message so clearly. It sounds like it’s coming from a very kind place. Kol Hakavod, we need more of this!
So true
Written with emes
I disagree with that mashpias response. I guess you can say that after the fact. But if someone is struggling terribly and is on the brink of suicide, I don’t know if one would say such a thing…
The emphasis on healing may be because we really do need personal geulah within the geulah sheleima. Sometimes that includes focus on healing and with heterim. At the same time, as the author explains, this needs to be within true avodas Hashem and I would emphasize without assuming that heterim that some people got are for everyone across the board lchatchilla. Meanwhile, something has crept up from within that has tragically and severely harmed and damaged people who were simply in search of legitimate healing and better feeling their connection with Hashem — “kosher” gatherings and retreats with psychodelics that the Rebbe answered about decades ago when they first came out are not the proper derech. As it turns out, many people’s biochemistry can’t handle that. I actually think healing does need to be sought more often than we might acknowledge, but with individuals talking it over with Hashem, if it is their practice: writing to the Rebbe, and it is necessary to keep in touch with a mashpia who simply seeks to go according to the Rebbe’s directives, and may not be such a famous person but his or herself has humility and would know when to refer to daas Torah. So important is the understanding that not everything is for everyone across the board; and traditional and non traditional medicines, and healing modalities all need to be prescribed on an individual basis and responsibly. There are even over the counter herbal remedies that are not for everyone. We need a lot of siyatta dishmaya, introspection and I for one am focusing on teshuva, praying and THANKING Hashem more, and not only asking the Rebbe for brochos, but also reporting good news and yes, often that has to do with seeing healing and growth for myself and others, Geula pratis part of the Geulah klali.
I think what most people find in healing is support, someone they can trust, friends to be open with and accepting. And they find G-d.
All these things are officially part of our derech, but for some reason many are forgotten (by many) like being open by farbrengens, קנה לך חבר, not everyone has an easy time finding an עשה לך רב, and thinking chassidus and עבודת התפילה
Proper דרכי החסידות would prevent many people from searching elsewhere
With all due respect, this article is absolutely out of touch with reality and couldn’t possibly be more uninformed.
The same Torah that by whose rules we “guide and propel the process” of living our lives also includes the rule of doing what you have to do to take care of your mental and emotional health, no different than not putting on tefillin because you’re in a coma or eating on a fast day because you medically have to. That’s not against the Torah–that IS the “internal and eternal power of the Torah”!
Ask any mental-health professional, or anyone on the front lines of OTD teenagers, and they’ll confirm this: Healing IS Torah, IS the Rotzon Hashem, and IS what is needed so that people in pain (physical/emotional/spiritual) can reconnect with Hashem and His Torah in a healthy way. The thousands of young people who over the last several decades have left Torah and Mitzvos altogether were not at all helped when told the very thing this article essentially pushes: “Just be frum and everything will work out!” False. The issues are not being addressed.
Yes, to be perfectly clear, I am saying that sometimes, for some people, not being so frum–or not being frum at all–because they need “healing” actually IS the way back to frumkeit, the same way a frum yid with a long beard in a medically-induced coma comes back to putting on tefilin and davening and learning daily by being guided by his doctors through the coma. No one but a fool would wake him up and say, “Hey, Reb Yid, it’s almost past Zman Tefilah–you need to put on tefillin now!” It’s part of the healing process. First they need to heal, and then let Torah and mitzvos back into their lives, all while developing the real Ahavas Hashem and Yiras Hashem they never had in the first place.
To borrow the Frierdiker Rebbe’s moshol here, telling people burning alive in flames that you can’t see, that “healing” (and the resulting heteirim/kulos) is not al pi Torah, is like hosing them down with kerosene because “I want to save them!”
You missed the whole point! The issue is not whether true healing overrides halacha, which it sometimes does. The issue is that isn’t healing at all!
This is exactly like the argument to give away land of Eretz Yisroel for “pikuach nefesh” and that it overrides the kedusha etc. The Rebbe’s response: That is irrelevant! Of course pikuach nefesh overrides yishuv Eretz Yisroel etc., but giving away land won’t bring peace! In fact, the way to saving lives is by holding on to the land!
Going away from who we truly are as Yidden will not bring a person lasting healing. He may feel temporary catharsis, but it will come back and he will be in a never ending spiral of feeding his need for “healing.” If he only tapped in to his neshama, he will feel energized with meaning and purpose and happiness.