Rebbe Nachman of Breslev writes (Likutei Moharan I:173) that the soul and emuna are one aspect. Consequently, one’s emotional health is directly related to the level of one’s emuna. We therefore conclude that emotional disturbances result from a breakdown of emuna.
Emotional confusion results from confused emuna. Emotional weakness is the outcome of weak emuna. This is a rule of thumb for all mental illness.
Allow me to clarify: I’m not referring to such mental handicaps from birth such as autism and Down’s syndrome. These are the result of Divine considerations and soul reincarnations, neither of which we are capable of understanding.
Yet, when we see that a person is born healthy, but at a later age succumbs to fear, anxiety, depression, and even schizophrenia, or any other mental or emotional difficulties, the root of the problem is a blemished emuna. But here’s the good news: if an emotionally-disturbed individual learns all about emuna and prays for emuna, he or she will recover from the ailment. The more a person corrects and strengthens emuna, the more he or she will enjoy mental and emotional health.
Every person – even the so-called “normal” person – suffers from emotional problems to a certain degree. In addition to fear, anxiety, and depression, people are plagued with boredom, lack of satisfaction, anger, worries, nervousness, and extreme mood fluctuations, just to name a few. Emuna cures all these ills.
What are you afraid of?
People are frozen with fear. They fear other people, their bosses, the IRS, terrorists, other motorists – the list is long. Any time they get a muscle spasm, they envision some imminent crippling or terminal disease. All these fears are expressions of a lack of emuna, particularly the lack of emuna that everything Hashem does is for our very best.
A person with emuna doesn’t fear anything, for he knows that he’s in Hashem’s care and that everything Hashem does is for the very best. This saves tons of emotional wear and tear; since Hashem does everything for the best, then there’s nothing to worry about.
A person than devotes an hour a day to self-evaluation, teshuva, and personal prayer especially has nothing to worry about. If a person is making his best effort at self-improvement, then why should Hashem punish him? Such a person doesn’t need wake-up calls, because he’s daily arousing himself to teshuva and to self-improvement. The result of an hour a day in personal prayer is increased happiness and decreased stress and worry.
Be happy!
Stringencies in religious observance are madness; therefore, no one should be too exacting with himself. Don’t worry about whether your performance of a mitzvah is perfect or not, just do what you can with innocence and with simplicity of thought and intent. Remember that the Torah wasn’t given to angels, but to human beings with human limitations.
Those who demand angelic deportment from themselves are therefore candidates for frustration, gloom, and disappointment that results from the arrogant feeling that they should be doing everything perfectly. A person connected to the truth is happy serving Hashem the best way he or she can, without going into hair-splitting stringencies.
Belief in our wise men
Rebbe Nachman of Breslev teaches (See Rebbe Nachman’s Discourses, 67) that, “Ignoring the wise can cause insanity. A person acts insane only because he ignores the advice of others. If he would take rational advice, he could act normal. His mental state might rationalize his need to do such things as tearing his clothing and rolling in the garbage. But a wiser man than he tells him not to do these things. If he would only subjugate his will to the wise, his actions would become completely rational. Insane behavior therefore results only from ignoring the wise. Understand this well.”
The above teaching obligates any rational personal to heed the words of the wise, especially of our renowned spiritual leaders. Belief in their words together with emuna in Hashem is the key to mental health. The Torah praises the children of Israel during their flight from bondage in Egypt when it says (Exodus 14:31), “And they believed in Hashem and in His servant Moses.”
Torah study
Rebbe Nachman of Breslev, probably the greatest doctor of the soul that ever lived, also teaches (see Abridged Likutei Moharan, I:1) that “by learning Torah, one is saved from madness.”
The Yetzer Hara, the evil inclination, wants to drive a person crazy. Our sages teach us that a person doesn’t sin unless the spirit of insanity enters his brain. As the evil inclination (EI) wants a person to sin, he injects that person with a dose of insanity. The EI has all kinds of ploys to trap a person, and uses a number of different temptations and confusions to twist one’s better judgment. The only way to guard against these pitfalls is by strengthening Torah learning and strengthening emuna.
Thoughts
“Evil thoughts and contemplations of lust make people crazy” (Likutei Moharan I:60). There is a very strong correlation between personal holiness and mental health. The opposite is also sad and true, that the more a person succumbs to lust and lewd thoughts, the less sane he becomes. People notoriously do insane things to fulfill their lusts, whether it be squandering hard-earned money, risking the wrath of the irate husband of the woman they covet, or breaking up their own home and ruining their own lives as well as the lives of their wife and children. Pornography adds to this insanity.
Therefore, guarding one’s eyes and mind from lewd and forbidden input is just as important as guarding one’s mouth from swallowing poison. In fact, it’s easier to poison the mind that it is to poison the body.
Torah learning, learning about emuna, sincere teshuva in the area of personal holiness, extensive personal prayer, and guarding one’s eyes especially from impure books, movies, magazines, and websites are conducive to escaping the pitfalls of the type of evil thoughts and contemplations of last that make a normal person insane.
A person should pray for happiness. Happiness and good mental health go hand in hand. True happiness comes from enhanced emuna.
A patient shouldn’t be afraid of doctors or their forecasts, because everything depends on Hashem anyway.
A blind trust in doctors and medicine is itself a form of idolatry. Many people are afraid to sever their dependence on doctors and medicines, as if their lives were dependant on the man with the stethoscope around his neck. Therefore, one should fear Hashem only and not the doctors or their admonitions.
Psalms
Psalms have enormous power, tantamount to an intravenous infusion of trust in Hashem. Trust in Hashem is very conducive to a person’s full and speedy recovery. There are dozens of stories about people who merited miraculous recoveries from reciting Psalms.A little boy’s best friend become very ill and the doctors appeared to have given up hope.
He picked up his book of Psalms, and with poignant innocence said Psalms for an entire hour in his friend’s behalf. He closed the book, ran to his friend’s house, and asked if there was any improvement. His friend’s mother tearfully shook her head in the negative. The little boy ran home and said Psalms for another hour. Once again, he ran to his friend’s house and asked if there was any change in the situation. Once again, the answer was no. The little boy ran back and forth for most of the night, when his friend’s parents finally informed him that their son’s fever had broken and that he was sleeping peacefully now…
Names of the Tzaddikim
Rebbe Nachman of Breslev writes in Sefer HaMiddot that reciting the names of the tzaddikim can bring about a change in nature.
A woman came to me after a growth was detected on her uterus, and said that the doctors were demanding to perform an immediate operation that would render her unable to give birth to any more children. She took my advice and recited the names of the tzaddikim. A short while later the growth disappeared and the woman received a clean bill of health. Since then, she has given birth to more children as well.
Likutei Tefillot
A man suffered from severe back pains to the extent that he couldn’t lift the slightest weight. He asked one of this generation’s tzaddikim what to do. The tzaddik told him to recite all the prayers for healing in Rebbe Nathan of Breslov’s classic collection of prayers, “Likutei Tefillot.” He implemented the tzaddik’s advice to the letter. Within a relatively short period, his back was completely cured.
Everything will turn around for the best
Never forget that Hashem is G-d. Any Divine decree can be overturned with prayer, teshuva, and charity. Our sages teach us that even if a sharp sword rests on a person’s neck, the person shouldn’t give up hope. “Hope” means prayer, and the most cogent prayer is the sick person’s prayer for himself (see Rashi’s elaboration of Genesis 21:17).
Even though doing a Pidyon Nefesh and reciting the names of the tzaddikim are important, nothing so invokes Divine compassion for a sick person as his own personal prayer – speaking to Hashem in his own words. A person should ask for all his needs from Hashem, and especially for healing and good health. King David said (Psalm 30:3), “I cried out to You, Hashem, my G-d, and You healed me.”
One of my students was in a near-fatal automobile accident that left a gaping hole in his back that exposed his spine. The gap almost reached his kidneys. The wound became infected and the doctors had given up hope. My student was conscious and well aware of his critical situation. There was no rational procedure or cure. Up until the accident, my student would devote a few casual minutes to personal prayer, but nothing more. Now, I asked him to commit to speaking to Hashem for two hours a day – he agreed.
Every night when most everyone else was sleeping, he’d wheel himself out in a wheelchair to the hospital terrace. For hours on end, he’d beg Hashem to stimulate new tissue growth around his kidneys and spine. Little by little, to the amazement of all the doctors, new tissue began to grow until the gap was completely healed.
The Lachovitcher Rebbe used to say that when the doctors tell a patient that there’s no cure, and the patient reinforces himself with complete trust in Hashem, then all the gates of salvation and healing are opened…
A sick person shouldn’t wait for the doctors or sickness to turn to Hashem. Putting one’s complete trust in Hashem not only facilitates healing, but helps to keep healthy people healthy.
Don’t waste a moment!
As with incarceration, a sick person should utilize available time for self-evaluation and for soul searching. Many patients lie idle in hospital beds for hours; freed from the demands of a normally busy routine, the bedridden should take advantage of the time at their disposal. Oftentimes, a sick person’s bodily urges diminish dramatically, enabling one to look at the world objectively. At such times, the soul’s delicate voice gets a fair hearing. Many healthy people let their bellowing bodies drown out the soul’s voice.
How tragic when “loved ones” arrange for a television to be planted in front of a sick person’s face! Instead of utilizing their available time for the type of soul-searching that would lead to a full recovery, they waste it on folly.
Hashem receives tremendous gratification when a person passes the test of faith that accompanies affliction. Reinforcement of faith is a wonderful way to insure good health and a complete recovery of body, mind, and soul.
Only God knows
The Gemorra teaches (tractate Avoda Zara 55a), that “immediately before disease and suffering are cast upon a person, they are sworn to leave on a certain day, at a certain hour, by a certain person and by a certain medicinal agent.” Rebbe Nachman of Breslev teaches (Likutei Moharan II:3) that all the above conditions must be met for a sick person to be cured. If so, how can a physician cure anyone? A doctor cannot possibly cure a person unless he or she is the designated Heavenly messenger with the proper cure at the proper time. Even more so, how does a sick person seek a doctor’s help if he or she doesn’t know if that particular doctor happens to be the designated messenger? As such, going to doctors is lighting betting on horses – maybe you’ll win and maybe you won’t.
Pidyon Nefesh: Redemption of the Soul
Nevertheless, a person can do something about the Heavenly edict that limits curing to “a certain day, at a certain hour, by a certain person and by a certain medicinal agent.” Once the edict is rescinded, then any doctor with any standard treatment can affect a cure.
There are three steps to rescinding a Heavenly edict – teshuva, asking tzaddikim to pray for the sick person, and a pidyon nefesh as Rebbe Nachman of Breslev writes (ibid.):
“When a person makes a pidyon severe judgments are mitigated, and the Heavenly edict is rescinded. Then, a doctor can cure by way of his medicines, for there are no longer stern judgments and a person no longer needs the specified doctor at the specified time with the specified medicine. As such, no doctor can really cure unless a person does a pidyon, for a pidyon is necessary to mitigate harsh judgments, and then the doctor receives license to cure.”
Consequently, when a person gives money to tzaddikim for a pidyon nefesh, then his efforts in seeking a doctor’s assistance will be worthwhile. Preferably, one should give the pidyon to an upright rabbi who knows the proper text of the pidyon nefesh, such as the Breslever rabbis. One should not be stingy, as Rebbe Natan writes in Likutei Tefillot, 123: “Please have mercy so the person bringing the pidyon won’t be stingy, and will give what’s required to mitigate the severe judgments.”
Pidyon nefesh is extremely effective. We have witnessed first-hand dozens of outright miracles, when a pidyon nefesh had virtually redeemed the giver’s soul, having been saved from grave danger or from severe sickness.
A sick person asked me if he should do to the doctor. I asked him why he’s running to the doctor so quickly. “Did the doctor make you sick? Hashem made you sick, so first you must ask Hashem why you’re sick, do proper soul-searching, and make teshuva accordingly.”
Medicine and medical procedures can be effective only after a person makes the proper effort to mitigate severe judgments against him or her, and to appeal to Hashem, the physician of all flesh, for a cure. Going to the doctor without prior spiritual effort shows a lack of emuna.
A doctor cannot add to or detract from a person’s allotment of longevity. Therefore, one is best advised to invest one’s efforts in seeking good health from He who grants life – Hashem!
Thank God and be cured
Emuna, more than anything else, is conducive to healing. Therefore, the first thing a sick person should do is to thank Hashem for the sickness. This of course sounds extremely odd to Western ears, but in fact, nothing could be more logical. Here’s why:
Hashem made the ailing person sick for his own benefit and ultimate welfare. Awareness of this basic fact of emuna enables the sick person to thank Hashem. The person’s positive attitude makes recovery much faster and easier. Thanking Hashem for an apparent calamity such as sickness is the highest expression of emuna, since the person recognizes that even his tribulations are from Hashem and part of Hashem’s personal and magnificent Divine Providence that’s all for the best.
One of the new students in our Yeshiva suffered for years from a severe chronic illness. No doctors or treatments helped, and not even his own prayers and efforts to rectify his sins, until he heard an emuna lesson that everything is for the best and that a person should thank Hashem even for his deficiencies and hardships in life.
The same student decided to devote his entire daily hour of personal prayer to thanking Hashem. For days on end, he’d thank Hashem for making him sick and for all the accompanying pain and suffering. He pondered how Hashem certainly does everything for the best and consoled himself that his pain from the illness was atonement for his sins. He realized that Hashem, like a loving father, was personally cleansing his soul. With tears in his ears – tears of joy – the student thanked Hashem profusely and sincerely for his poor health. He didn’t even ask for a cure. Within two weeks, the illness had disappeared entirely, without the aid of treatment or medications. The chronic illness that plagued him for years was now a thing of the past, all because of thanking Hashem. Gratitude to Hashem is the apex of emuna and conducive to good health. The opposite is also true, for a lack of emuna is often a root cause of disease. The strengthening of emuna therefore contributes to good health.
In reality, a person does not suffer unless his or her emuna is taken away. As long as a person clings to the belief that everything Hashem does is for the very best, he or she doesn’t feel any tribulations. Therefore, by reinforcing our emuna that everything Hashem does is for our ultimate good and we thank Him for it, we mitigate severe judgments. A sick person should consequently pray to Hashem for emuna that everything is for the best and that he’ll be able to sincerely thank Hashem for everything. Once he starts thanking Hashem, life makes a dramatic turn for the better.
Pidyon nefesh literally means “redemption of the soul.” In effect it is a sum of money equivalent to the numerical value of a person’s name that serves to mitigate severe judgments against that person. For example, if the sick person’s name is “Ari”, spelled in Hebrew aleph-resh-yud, then the numerical equivalent would be 211 (aleph=1+resh=200+yud=10). Spiritually, $211 would be the proper “pidyon” or redemption for Ari. He would give this money to a tzaddik that knows how to do a pidyon properly, and the tzaddik would use this money for charity.
