Emuna from the Depths

I had the most amazing revelation during hisbodedut this morning. I have been fighting tooth and nail to maintain the upperhand against the Yetzer and depression, and fighting a losing battle. I was overwhelmed with this sad, overwhelmed, pained feeling. My heart was blocked. I tried to talk to Hashem, but all that came out were various scenarios of how shocked people will be when they hear the news. Despite my best efforts to smile, despair and hopelessness were setting in. I was miserable.

Then I found a fantastic parking spot by the train, all the more meaningful since it will help me get home faster and easier for Shabbat. I said “thank you Hashem, Hashem loves me!” And it hit me like a lightning bolt – “HELLO!!! Hashem LOVES me! He’s doing this for my best, even if it’s painful!!! Why are you sad? Why haven’t you been using the lesson you learned in ‘Hashem Loves You’?”

Then I realized: emuna isn't only for when things are good. You have to be happy even – especially – in times of crisis. I had been giving myself a bit of a pass, thinking “I'm trying to be happy. H’ understands if I just can't do it – it’s too hard. This crisis is just too hard. Everyone understands that I'm miserable right now.”

Of course that’s not true. This situation is a test for me too – will I have emuna through it? Will I fall apart? In fact, why on earth WOULD he do teshuva when he’s got me angry, sullen, depressed and bitter all the time? Has pounding someone into teshuva ever worked? Where the heck is my emuna? Maybe it’s my emuna that’s going to turn this thing around in the first place – it all depends on me! Moreover, is there some sort of heter in the Torah that says that you can be mean and criticize someone just because he’s done something really terrible to you and you're hurt and angry? I've felt justified in doing so – mistakenly.

In fact, I've been depressed as if the verdict had already come down. OK, I'm being a realist – but has H’ ever worked by “realism”? If so, the Jewish people would be long gone and many of the miracles I have seen in my own life wouldn’t have happened – because by the natural course of the world, they “shouldn’t” have happened. So why not here? Again, where’s your emuna?

So I pulled out my Tikkun Klali and started saying Tehillim – not with a broken, crushed and depressed spirit, but with joy and emuna in my heart. And these words popped out at me from Tehillim Mem Beis (the translation may not be exact, but these are the words I said to myself from the Hebrew):

“Ma tishtochachi nafshi? U’ma tehemi alai? Hochili l’Elokim! Ki od odeinu yeshuot panai v’Elokai.”
Why are you saddened, my soul? And why do you feel downtrodden and walked all over? Hope to Hashem! Because you will continue to thank Him for the miraculous salvations He brings you, and He is my G-d.

I repeated it over and over again and tried to get it to sink in. After I was done with Tikkun Klali, I said Tehillim 20, 23, 121 and 143, my personal emuna favorites. And then I sang in my head songs from those Tehillim as I walked to work and I feel much better. B’H” it’s going to be a good day! The biggest thing is that the heaviness on my heart is gone. Now my biggest prayer is that I can keep this up.