We live in a
much fractured society, and in such an environment any rational concept of
shelaimos is on the endangered species list.
And to further complicate the situation on the ground, we’re looking in
the wrong places for the little shelaimos that is recognizable as such, for as
the Kotsker Rebbe says, there is nothing as whole as a broken heart.
Rabbi Moshe
Weinberger, in the name of Rav Kook z”l, explains that a broken heart is like a
fire that purifies the soul and restores it to its healthy basis of natural joy
(when employed in the right proportion).
Not so the
person who is sad.
Rav Kook warns
against the danger of sadness, which prevents the light of teshuvah from
penetrating to the depth of the soul.
Moreover, sadness
is the trait of the angry person, states Rebbe Nachman, who at his core is
resentful that Hashem is not giving him what he wants. Whereas the broken hearted individual is
upset with himself over his tendency to walk a crooked mile in lieu of a
straight path with Hashem, the sad person is upset with G-d. If life’s not going his way then it’s
Hashem’s fault. And it doesn’t have to
be anything big either. If he so much as
stubs his toe he’s smack in the face of the Heavenly Judgment with a
counter-claim.
Rabbi Weinberger tells us that a broken heart is the opposite of sadness and
depression. Citing Rebbe Nachman (Sichos
HaRan), he says that when a person has a broken heart, he recognizes his
flaws and focuses on the imperfections that have kept him distant from the One
Whom he loves. He is able to see the
reality of his condition because a broken heart proceeds from humility which by
its very existence renders moot the distraction of the ego.
But in a one hundred
eighty degree journey from the humility that drives the broken heart, the sad
one’s anger is nothing but the outward manifestation of his gaiva, for as we recently
said in EmunahSpeak:
Watch Me Now:
In a certain
sense, ka’as is a reactive mechanism that is put into play when one’s gaiva
(arrogance) hits a speed bump. A person’s gaiva causes him to want his way,
and when his way is not forthcoming he loses it in almost as many different
permutations as there are people.
Or put another
way, one with a broken heart ponders as to what he would like to give to Hashem
and/or what he has heretofore failed to put before Him. A sad person, on the other hand, focuses on
what Hashem has failed to give him.
And as we said in EmunahSpeak:
Who Do You Put in the Center of Your Picture?, he puts himself in the center of the picture and says:
“gimme.”
But isn’t one
with a broken heart sad? How do we
distinguish between the two?
Sadness is in
and of itself the problem while a broken heart is the cure.
