What Are You Looking For in Chassidus?

By an Anash.org reader

Recently, I have been learning Kunteres Heichaltzu and maamar Bayom Ashtei Asar. Based on past experience with learning and understanding what I’ve learned, I assume that my understanding of it will deepen over time. What follows is an expression of my current perspective inspired by what I’ve learned and what comes to mind following the recent discussions on Anash.

I offer this article as a simple, genuine contribution for continued conversational development. I feel that most of Torah can be viewed as paradoxical, and yet a testimony to Hashem’s Oneness. The intention is simply to share my thoughts with space for reflection and correction if these thoughts inspire counter-perspectives or questions.

The Rebbe spoke about the unique nature of dancing as back-and-forth movement, and the Rebbe connected this movement to the dance of real shakla v’tarya.

Yet, before engaging in such movement, I think it’s really important to establish: Where are we moving to? So before saying anything else, I would like to begin with the knowledge that we are yirei Shamayim seeking Hashem’s truth and to fulfill His Will and to serve Him with a full heart.

That doesn’t mean we will always agree on which exact derech Chassidus directs us in each area of life. But perhaps it does mean that we can discuss these questions with true openness and with love for one another. To see the yearning that each of us has and to experience a partnership in the transformation occurring for the geula.

There is a story about someone bringing a Sefer Torah into a pub and the Rebbe objected. We bring Yidden to Torah; we don’t bring Torah into a place of tumah.

At the same time, we treasure every neshama. We don’t wait for someone to become perfect before noticing and inviting them to join us in connecting to Hashem through Torah and Mitzvos and revealing their spark.

People struggle. People don’t always know what they seek, where to search, and how to search. Sometimes people don’t know themselves, their neshama, the source of their neshama, and what Hashem wants. And Torah (and by default including Chassidus) is a directive for each aspect of connecting to Hashem.

Still, not every language used on the path of this search is Torah.

For example, a therapist once told me that Internal Family Systems (IFS) is Torah. Personally, I disagree. IFS is not Torah. It is a development of the field of (somewhat alternative) psychology. Psychology is not Torah.

On the other hand, Torah is Toras Chaim and Toras Emes. If something exists in life and is true, then ultimately that truth exists within Torah.

So there are parts of psychology that have truth. Ultimately, every single thing in the world – no matter how fundamental or false – has a kernel, or more, of truth. So I assume that every single thing in the world contains at least a kernel that mirrors the Torah.

Yet, that is far different than an extrapolated assumption that the whole package (in this case a modality in psychology) is Torah.

Here is another experience:

I learned Heichaltzu with a shiur from a teacher who explained some concepts using language familiar to people who know IFS. Because I already understood that language, the explanation helped me grasp the maamar more clearly.

But once I understood the concept in the maamar, it became obvious that the maamar was saying something immeasurably deeper and far-reaching than the psychological model. The psychological language remained a useful mashal, but not more. I grasped one level of understanding of the Maamer, which revealed depth far beyond and more encompassing than that mashal.

Perhaps we can bring our chosen and unchosen questions, struggles, and longings to Torah. Perhaps we can explain Torah in language people understand. And make a distinction between the source of the language and the Torah itself.

Ultimately, I feel the question underneath much of this discussion is not therapy, psychology, self-help, or even human experience.

The question is: What are we actually looking for?

For myself, I keep coming back to the same answer: Hashem.

Not just relief, understanding, or self-knowledge. Not even ‘spiritual safety’ (which previously I experienced as my own attempt to feel safe through creating a false identity based on a supposed ‘level’ or subscription to Chassidishkeit). But Hashem – the One from whom everything comes and who is in every place.

When Elliot Lasky asked the Rebbe, “Where is Hashem?” The Rebbe first answered, “In every place.” 

When he said, “I know,” and asked again, the Rebbe elaborated, “In every place, in everything, in a tree, in a stone.”

Finally, he asked again, “I know, but where?” The Rebbe answered, “In your heart, if this is how you are asking.”

If we begin there, our discussions can look different. More genuine searching and openness, shown Ahavas Yisroel, genuine and joyful shakla v’tarya.

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As I was sharing this, an interesting thought crossed my mind. I feel that perhaps the recent attempted hijacking of a plane to Eretz Yisroel can serve as a useful mashal.

The cockpit may be the mind. The brain leads the heart- the passengers. The plane is the body. And yet, sometimes, the mind hijacks itself. Sometimes ideas that sound like Torah are not Torah at all. Especially if it changes the destination.

(Even when somehow behind all the confusion there are intentions which were way back when sourced in truth, a reach for spiritual experiences which originated in Hashem and were now translated into falsehoods.)

With the recent attack, the passengers needed to intervene and improvise by finding pilots to fly the plane to safety for the sake of its passengers’ eventual return home.

The world was created “Bishvil Reishis” and on the condition that the Yidden accept the Torah.

Perhaps not every psychological language is ideal – and differentiation is key.

In one of the previous articles, I commented that without Torah, as explained in Chassidus, being oriented in the world properly, a person has symptoms. And those can look emotional too. Because living with a substitute ego and sense of orientation in the world does show up in all areas – intellectual, the way things are understood and related to emotionally, and even sometimes subtly in behavior.

But those things, even if subtle, have far-reaching effects. And therapy (which requires a therapist who is properly oriented- something their required certification is unrelated to) is not always the correct, and certainly not the full, place to address that.

Similarly, the last article shared concerns that perhaps the experiences someone is coming from can impact how they orient themselves in the world, which can then affect how they understand the remedy for everything – Torah.

Ultimately, all of us are coming from a confusing experience – galus. Perhaps that is what the differentiation created by Shaklah vtarya and a farbrengen accomplishes.

Sometimes, it is vital to listen to the passengers, the heart. The mind’s cockpit will guide. Sometimes it is the heart that improvises with the ahava mesuteres- the inner knowledge of where the destination is.

May we merit to search for Hashem together, in truth, to discover and reveal Hashem in every place, and to arrive in Eretz Yisroel with the geula soon.