TheYeshiva.net - Rabbi YY Jacobson

Can Anxiety Become My Friend?

Noach's Solution to the Raging Floods of Anxiety

28 min

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Class Summary:

This class was presented on Tuesday, Parshas Noach, 30 Tishrei, 5783, October 25, 2022, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

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DCNG
Dr Chaya Nesya Glogauer -10 months ago
BS"D Rabbi Jacobson BE"H is helping each person by giving us to tools to achieve our own personal Geulah
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- YJ
  YY Jacobson -10 months ago
  Thanks so so much. it means so much to me. May we all do our part.
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Anonymous -1 year ago
Amazing insight! What a fresh perspective on Noach and the flood. I appreciated the message very much. Knowing that anxiety is the body's way of alarming the soul in order to, ultimately, bring it to a much higher level was beyond soothing.

Thank you for another eye-opening shiur!

Shabbat shalom!
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Anonymous -1 year ago
Where is the beginning part of this shiur?
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Anonymous -1 year ago
Where is the beginning part of this shiur?
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R
R.W. -1 year ago
Yasher Koach Rabbi Jacobson.

This shiur is pure oxygen.

Thank You for gently tuning in to the very core of Hashem's human beings. ,.

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AS
agi streicher -1 year ago
Question for Rabbi YY
How can i respect and appreciate my parents when they just ruined my life? i feel like they should thank me for coming down on this world so they can have pleasure.
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AS
agi streicher -1 year ago
Question for Rabbi YY
trying so hard to connect to hashem and its just not working. Why cant hashem let me feel the pleasure of having a relationship with him? isnt this the reason why were on this world?
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- Anonymous -1 year ago
  Great question. I understand your feelings. You should realize your are not alone. Everyone experiences these feelings.
  
  In the Sefer Hayashar written by a great sage even he too discusses about 'the days of hate'
  
  see below about this topic. hope it will help.
  
  Sivan – The Month of “Walking”Every month has a special power in it, and the special power found in the month of Sivan is “halichah” – walking.[1]This is not referring to physical walking, but walking with our soul. What is walking with our soul? It is not just another ability we have, but it is a power which encompasses the full spectrum of our soul.When a child grows into an adult, at a certain point he stops growing. A woman at a certain point in life stops being fertile. Physical growth is limited - but spiritual growth never ends. When a person studies a profession, like if he studies to become a doctor or a lawyer, he learns much knowledge, and there comes a point in life where he has reached the peak of how much he can know about these fields. The growth in areas of knowledge eventually stops. Here we will speak about a kind of growth that never stops: our spiritual growth.Endless GrowthChazal say that Torah scholars are always advancing to another level, and they never stop[2]. The kind of walking that is the power of the month of Sivan is this kind of endless walking – halichah - it is an ability in a person to have endless growth.There is no person who doesn’t have times of growth in his Avodas Hashem (spiritual improvement and service towards G-d). We all have a desire to grow in spirituality. But most people experience this desire only temporarily, and then people usually go back to their routine in life, and then they stop desiring to grow. Even when people do restart their spiritual growth, it is not a continuation from where they last left off, but they have to start all over from scratch.We need to find a place within ourselves that enables us to have endless growth – to never stop growing in spirituality. As one of the Sages said, “I have seen those who grow spiritually, but they are few.”[3] There are people who are constantly advancing in their spiritual growth.The question is: don’t we all need to rest sometimes? How is it possible to always be involved in growth? Don’t we need to relax…?How To View BreaksHere we come to a great fundamental in life. All of us go through stages in our life – we go through times that are hard either physically and emotionally. One who constantly grows spiritually learns how to grow from these situations, while a non-growing person falls apart from difficult times.One who wants to constantly grow more in his spirituality knows that he has to relax as well, but he understands that resting is in order to re-energize so that he can have return to progress. A non-growing person, however, relaxes so he can sit back and take it easy – he does not desire to continue his growth. When he relaxes, he disconnects from spiritual growth.It is impossible for a person to constantly be in growth mode when it comes to our spiritual progress. This is because we all have times that are simply too difficult. We all have times in which we are slowed down to a halt, times in which we feel like we can’t go on anymore. So we all need to take a break sometimes from our progress - but the only issue is how we view these situations. Are we looking at these breaks as a way to give up on our growth – so that we can sit back and just take it easy - or are we looking at our breaks as a way to refresh ourselves so that we can have more energy to go on?That is the question we should ask ourselves: we need to realize how we view our necessary breaks, with what attitude are we going about it.Holding Onto Our “Fire” When We Go DryThere is another way to deal with the times in our life in which we don’t feel any drive to grow.[To illustrate the concept we are about to mention], let’s say a woman is cooking supper for her family, and suddenly she realizes she needs to leave the house to take care of an errand. Either she can put out the fire on the stove when she leaves, or she can lower the flame a little. What’s the difference? If she turns off the flame completely, the food gets cold, and she may have to start cooking it all over again when she comes back. But if she just lowers the flame, the food will stay warm, and when she comes back, she can continue cooking from where she left off without having to start all over again.The same can apply to our own personal situations in life. When we have to “stop” sometimes and take a break, we need to be able to hold onto our inner “flame” of growth, and not to put it out just because we’re relaxing. That is how we should go about our difficult times, in which we lack the motivation to grow: by knowing that even though we can’t grow fully, at least we can grow a little. Hold onto your “flame” at least a little, even though your flame isn’t being ignited so much – and in this way, you retain your aspirations and hold onto them even as you’re not actively involved in spiritual growth. You can do this by remembering the times in which you did grow.Good Times and Bad TimesRabbeinu Tam writes in Sefer HaYoshor that every person has “Days of Love” and “Days of Hatred” – in other words, we periodically have “good” times and “bad” times. Our “good times” are when our soul feels opened, and we thus feel good about ourselves. During our good period, our emotions and our thoughts are positive. Our “bad times” are when our soul feels closed up – when we feel negative about ourselves, and we aren’t experiencing positive emotions and thoughts.What are we supposed to do during our bad times – our “Days of Hate”, as Rabbeinu Tam describes it?Rav Chaim Shmulevitz zt”l said that the way is to hold onto our inner fire, as we described above. We should hold onto our previous growth even though we are currently in a time when we aren’t growing. In this way, we connect our current dismal period with our uplifting periods. By holding onto some of our growth even as we take a break, we form a connection between our “bad” times and “good” times, and then we can survive even the bad times!For example, if a man always was used to learning five pages of Gemara a day when he felt that he was in a period of growth, and now he finds himself in a period where he feels that his willpower has weakened, he can still learn four pages of Gemara. He can tell himself that although right now he’s not up to it to learn five pages of Gemara, at least he’s able to learn four pages of Gemara.Another example: If someone learns with a chavrusa (study partner) for ten minutes a day and then a day comes where he doesn’t feel like learning with his chavrusa, he can at least learn with his chavrusa for two minutes a day.If someone has ten a minutes a day in which he or she sits quietly and talks to Hashem, and then a hard day comes in which a person feels that he/she has no motivations whatsoever to do this, then one can at least do it for two minutes. That is something one can do no matter how hard of a period he/she is in.In this way, even if you aren’t actively involved in a period of spiritual growth, you are still somehow involved in growth, in spite of the dismal period you’re going through.We Need Both AttitudesWe mentioned two ways how we can survive difficult times in which we don’t feel like working on ourselves. Let us summarize them – and we will see why we in reality, we need both.The first way is that when we are in a hard time, we can tell ourselves that really we want to grow right now, but we are just taking a break so we can re-energize and have more strength to later progress. The second way is to take some small growth with us even into the times when we don’t feel like growing, “lowering the flame”, as opposed to putting it out totally.We need both ways simultaneously. Everything in life has an external layer to it and an internal way to it. The first way we mentioned is the external layer of our avodah here, while the second way is the inner layer of the avodah here.Let’s say a person only uses the second way, which is the inner way. The person is in a rut, so she decides that she will grow at least a little, even though she can’t grow fully. This alone won’t be enough, because a person has to realize as well that her break from growth is really a way for her to reenergize. A person has to realize that even if I can’t grow fully right now (because I am growing through a very hard time right now and I am too stressed out to work on myself), I am taking a break right now so that eventually, I will be able to return to my growth, reenergized.And if a person only uses the first way, which is to view the situation as only a temporary break – but she doesn’t try to grow at all during a hard time – it will also not be enough. When a person completely stops Avodas Hashem and gives up totally from continuing – even if it’s only a temporary period of total despair - then the person’s desire to grow in Avodas Hashem may become lost totally.So when we go through a hard time in our life and we don’t have the strength to work on ourselves and grow, we need two things: we need to look back at the times of growth even as we are not actively growing, and in this way we hold onto some growth even as we’re in a rut; and we also need to know that although right now we are taking a break from growth, the plan is really to return to eventually return to our growth.Failures Are Not FailuresFinally, there is a third step we will add onto this and clarify.When a person is in a difficult time and he doesn’t feel a drive to grow, there are two attitudes he can have. One attitude is to completely give up: “That’s it. I’ve had enough, and I can’t take it anymore. Today is a bad day, and I’m only going downhill. I can’t work on myself today.”But the other attitude he can have is to have a different perspective on the situation: “My soul needs a break sometimes. I can’t always be growing. It’s really not a bad day – it’s a day that I have to go through, because it’s normal for my soul to feel closed up sometimes, [since Rabbeinu Tam has written that] everyone has these “Days of Hate”.”We can compare this to going to sleep. Although sleep is not productive, is sleep a bad thing? No one looks at sleep as unproductive, because we all realize that we need to go to sleep in order to reenergize. We can’t function unless we get our sleep. Taking a break is part of life, and we must not look down at ourselves for this.The difficult times in our life are thus really not “difficult” or “bad”. Rather, they are like our sleep. It is necessary for us sometimes to pull back from growth, and let us not beat ourselves up that something is wrong with us that we don’t feel any willpower to grow spiritually. If you have those days in which you don’t feel like learning or davening or making any spiritual progress, realize that it’s normal, and that it is actually a necessary part of your growth to go through these times in which you lack motivation.This can change our whole attitude about life! Our soul needs to rest sometimes – we can’t always grow and reach higher levels. This is not a fall from our level – it is a necessary part of our growth. “Failures” are thus not really “failures” – they are needed for our growth.This is important to know even while you’re in a period of growth and you feel fine. You need to prepare yourself for those times in which you will find it hard, by telling yourself that in order to grow, we need to go through a constant cycle of rising and falling from our level.In ConclusionIn the month of Sivan, we didn’t just receive the Torah. We received the power of a Jew – the power to always grow, no matter what we feel like we’re in. Our difficult times are like times in which we go to sleep.This power is revealed in the month of Sivan, but we must take it with us to the rest of the year: remember that no matter what, a Jew never gives up.
  
  https://bilvavi.net/english/droshos-what-do-when-you-are-down
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- K
  Kj -1 year ago
  Have a relationship with Him? Really? As the chabad rabbis will tell you, make G-d to want you.....or something like that!
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