The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

Rabbi Moshe Dovid Valle in his commentary on Tehillim (Psalms) 3:6 describes what I have been experiencing over the past few days. He explains that when a person is undergoing difficult times he loses his מוחין דגדלות, literally big mindedness. All that remains are his מוחין דקטנות, small mindedness, which means the person is essentially asleep. But when the person recognizes his loss and cries out to Hashem his words are heard and the מוחין דגדלות are returned; he is like a person who has awakened from a deep sleep. He suddenly feels a strength not only about the present but even about the future, and does not fear those forces which seem to be assembling against him.

Hurting Someone's Feelings vs. Mitzvos

Some stories about prioritizing. Do you criticize someone who is making a mistake in doing a Mitzvah, if doing so will embarrass him?

Becoming a Triangle

Rav Kook writes that there is a fundamental disticntion between Torah study and the study of other topics. He explains that whereas Torah study has the ability to change the inner workings of a person, the study of other topics does not have the same effect.
This brings to mind a well known story about Bertrand Russell. Whereas he was a very famous professor of philosophy, in his private life his morals were quite corrupt. When questioned about this dichotomy he responded that if he was a geometry professor, would he be expected to look like a triangle?!
Clearly he did not expect his study and teaching to have an effect on who he was as a person. Why is Torah study different?
Rav Kook explains that this is because when one studies Torah one is connecting to the eternal wellsprings of life. The connection to the source brings new life to the person constantly and enables a person to undergo renewal regularly. This is not the case when one is engaged in the study of other topics.
Is this true from personal experience? I cannot say that Torah study has always, or even usually, had that effect on me, or from what I see, on others. At the same time I have seen people turn their lives around without the benefit of Torah. How does this work?

WWGD

There are times when righteous people have difficulty accepting those who are less righteous than they are. The result is that they end up dealing with such people in a way which ends up distancing them even more from the path of Torah. That is not what God wants. He wants the righteous to love others and accept them as they are. Even if God himself is angry with someone He wants the righteous to pray on their behalf and draw them close. Rabbi Nosson of Breslov

Getting rid of the scorpion

The true service of God is giving one's self over to God's will, whether or not the person is successful in performing all of his actions properly. When he is not successful at walking in the way Of God, he can still deepen his own self-nullification to God. He can play even by the lair of the scorpion and find the light of God there, and realize that despite what he may, or may not, have done, God is still with him.

The forces of evil Mt. Seir, is really just a ball of hair (שעיר - שער) which has no substance. It is just the voices of negativity that attempt to convince a person that whereas he may have had a life of meaning in the past, he is presently incapable of such a life. This is false. One needs to work on having a childlike approach. Just like a child is always aware of his parents' presence, so too we must make ourselves aware of the presence of God.

Lean Into Discomfort

I was reading a book entitled Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and found the following on page 68:

Rather than avoiding a feeling, your goal should be to move toward the emotion, into it, and eventually through it... even for boredom, confusion, or anticipation. When you ignore an emotion... you miss the opportunity to do something productive.

This approach is quite different than that which I was taught growing up and in Yeshivos. We were always taught to quash negative emotions. If you are learning and bored, something is the matter with you; you should feel guilty about it. Change you attitude.

Many great works of Torah based self-improvement will tell parents to minimize the emotion shown to a child, and tell of stories of how great men controlled and overcame their emotions for example when losing a child on a holiday. Anger should be banished.

The only place I recall seeing a vestige of the concept expressed here is when the Baal Shem Tov teaches that if one has an improper thought during prayer, rather than banishing it, as others teach, he should go with the thought and elevate it.

Honestly, I am still trying to truly understand what the Baal Shem Tov meant, as well as what this books means. But I have tried the book's advice a few times over the last few days to get a new experience. Rather than run from what it is that I am experiencing, I have allowed myself to think about it and let the feeling take me to its conclusion. By that time any negativity in the feeling has usually dissipated.

Rely on Who?

The following comes from the commentary of Rabbi Moshe Dovid Valle on Mishle (Proverbs) 3:2.

Many people become full of themselves when they acquire knowledge; they feel they can rely on their own unnderstanding in order to succeed in all areas of lifeBy doing so they lose out because they stop placing their trust in God, the primary source of success without whom success is impossible. This is why Shlomo HaMelech warns us "Trust in God with all your heart, and on your understanding do not rely." There is no bread for the wise, no riches for the understanding and no favor for the knowledgable. Rather, it all comes from God.

Man's understanding is too limited to achieve his destiny. Trust in God with no understanding is more productive than understanding lacking trust. We can see this from King Solomon's own life in which he transgressed the word of Hashem in having too many horses, wives and too much money.