If you are feeling blah, really down, sad or any other comparable version of just plain yucky, you’re in atzvus mode which is one of the biggest roadblocks to Avodas Hashem.
So says Rabbi Yisroel Brog, and citing Sefer HaTanya he puts forth the following klal gadol:
Just as someone who possesses great physical strength, but lacks proper motivation will lose to a weaker opponent who is sufficiently motivated, so it is with the battle between the Yetzer Tov and the Yetzer Hora. Even though the Yetzer Tov is the stronger of the two, you can’t win if you are in atzvus mode, because your Yetzer (Hora) is always pumped for peak performance.
It’s basically no contest.
In EmunahSpeak: Nothing but Thoughts, we spoke of the War of the Inclinations (Yetzer Tov vs. Yetzer Hora) in terms of our character traits being manifestations of the thoughts that we carry in the precincts of our mind. These thoughts/traits are an end unto themselves in the sense that, by way of the Yetzer that gets the upper hand, they pretty much speak to our essence and define who we are. It’s all about our internalizing the right thoughts.
The battle that Sefer HaTanya speaks of is a step earlier in the process. It’s not the end game itself, but rather the preliminary skirmish that may well make the final outcome inevitable. It’s not the War of the Yetzers per se. It’s more about whether or not we’ll be able to take our place in the front line of that war.
Someone who is depressed has lost the Battle before the opening shot is fired because it is IMPOSSIBLE for a person in that condition to survive an encounter with the Yetzer. But how is one to avoid the depressions that follow, like clockwork, on the heels of life’s speed bumps?
The Tanya gives us two lines of attack. The first is to separate from anything that has even a shmeck of worry or sadness. This is a very deep topic, which we will IY”H soon revisit a little further down the road, but for our present purposes the Tanya is saying that we should begin seeing the good in what is presumed to be bad in reference to the things that happen to us in the course of our lives. In this way we set the terms on those of life’s negatives that we are forced to deal with.
And the second is zerizus (alacrity). The Tanya here is referring to the atzvus that comes to us by way of missteps or just plain lack of success in milei d'Shmaya (ruchniess concerns like davening, learning, avoiding aveiros etc.) One needs zerizus to win the battle, and that comes from simcha. As such, our marching orders are that we should be b’simcha upon waking up in the morning. The alternative is to spend the day tip toeing on an internal high wire with every prospect of falling off.
Nice words these, but how does one make it work? We’ve been told that the antidote for atzvus is zerizus born of simcha. So by what means to we generate the requisite simcha?
Rabbi Brog gives us the prescription of the Tanya, which is atzvus.
Atzvus?!
If a person messes up on something and then starts beating himself up about it, it’s nothing in terms of a positive benefit. In fact, it’s worse than nothing because it’s actually dangerous.
If, however, you came to atzvus over something in the realm of milei d'Shmaya, and in reaction thereto you pushed it out of your head, and then put your face into a mussar sefer, and kept it there until you felt like the two cents that you currently value yourself as being worth for doing whatever it was that you foolishly did, your job is now to take the sadness that was induced by your mussar session and turn it into simcha.
The simcha that comes to a person that heals his broken spirit is a bigger simcha than one that is not preceded by sadness. It's the simcha of having zeroed in on your weakness and of having made of it a strength.
The simcha that comes to a person that heals his broken spirit is a bigger simcha than one that is not preceded by sadness. It's the simcha of having zeroed in on your weakness and of having made of it a strength.
This is the only good atzvus because it was planned, says Rabbi Brog. You made it happen and you know its source, so you can therefore safely go in the direction that this induced state of atzvus is taking you.
A flow chart of the Tanya’s battle plan would look something like this:
Expunging atzvus connected to Sin/dejection from our minds>mussar>broken heart /sadness/atzvus>simcha>zerizus>winning the battle with the Yetzer.
Rabbi Brog tells us that if a person has truly a broken heart over the fact that he sinned to Hashem, and it comes from mussar, then he can break the mechitzos between him and Hashem.
And that’s the only way.
If he’s in atzvus mode with the sadness derivative of his depressed situation, rather than from mussar, then he has to know that the Yetzer Hora is setting him up for even a bigger fall as part of an endless series of battle losses that will eventually morph into a lost war when the curtain comes down on a life not truly lived.
