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Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
This week's question is how do emotions work if you've built up emunah? If everything in the end is going to be okay, and you believe that everything Hashem does is for the good, how do emotions come into play? Are you supposed to suppress emotions? Working on this definition of emunah lead to a deletion in negative emotions. Is that healthy? Or do emotions come into play in a different way? I don't believe that having emunah means that a person does not get to experience the emotions that they have. In fact, I would tell you it's just the opposite. I once heard from a therapist that the definition of emotional maturity is being able to hold two conflicting emotions at once. A person can say, I'm angry and yet I'm going to remain calm. I'm sad and yet I'm going to be happy. It's possible for a person to look at things in a complex way and to have multiple experiences at once. What does it mean for us to have a Muno when things get difficult in our lives?
Does that mean that we can't have pain, that we can't experience sadness? No, I think it's just the opposite. I think the pshad is as follows. When we look at pain, the question is, what is that pain? Is that pain ultimately something that's good? Or is that pain ultimately something that's bad? When we understand the purpose of pain, so then we can be in pain and yet have faith, that ultimately this is part of God's plan. So if a person hears screaming in a hospital, context matters. If they're in the emergency room, they might think to themselves, there's a gunshot wound. But if they find themselves in the labor unit where women are giving birth, ultimately, while exceptionally painful, obviously I can't relate, but I have had, baruch Hashem, six children. So I've heard it before, I've been there before. But still, l'maysa, a person knows that this is for a good thing.
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When we say, kol manda aved, rachmana letav aved, when we say that everything Hakadosh Baruch Hu does is for the best, gam zu letoiva, it doesn't mean that we're not scared, it doesn't mean that we're not in pain, it doesn't mean that we're not sad. What it does mean is that we can understand that even with the emotions that we're feeling, we also know that this is from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and there is a level of acceptance that we can have. I think it's a very dangerous thing to teach people that they should not experience the range of human emotions that come into play. I don't think that we shouldn't be sad when sad things happen. That's inhuman. It's not normal. It's not healthy. To suppress or to delete emotions I don't think is a healthy thing. When we talk about emotions though, emotions need to be appropriate. And that's why the intellect has to ultimately control our emotions. Knowing that our Kaddosh Baruch Hu runs the world helps our emotions stay in check. today we live in a world where everything we feel must be felt immediately and we trust that feeling.
as if it's you know this is the ultimate truth and it's not always true we can have a feeling, and just because we have that feeling doesn't mean that feeling is appropriate so for example if a person is stuck in traffic and they're really angry that they're stuck in traffic because they had to have to get to a meeting and you see people they're just so frustrated and angry sitting in their car on the van wick because they just it can't be that this is happening in my life and they get so angry maybe that they even punch the steering wheel, that's not necessarily an appropriate emotion but it's okay to be frustrated it's okay to say. i know that this is for the best and yet it's really frustrating because i had somewhere that i need to be so saying call man it doesn't mean that we should delete our emotions but it does mean that our emotions should be guided by the intellect by the faith that we have that everything that our kodesh baruch who does is for the best
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