One of the reasons why there is a lot of suffering in our lives, is not because of the circumstances or the unsettling feelings that we may have, it has very little to do with that, in fact it may have nothing to do with that at all.

We live in a society that approaches the remedy to stress, or upset, or mental illness with just this one perspective: "I know why you are feeling the way you feel, it's got something to do with your circumstances, something to do with your thinking, and we need to get on top of that. We need to begin to move the pieces of your life around so that you can feel better, or introduce medication so you can feel better, or change where you live - so that you can feel better."

And this natural response derives out of our current way of understanding where experience comes from. "It comes from the outside. The outside, or my genes, or my biology or my past - all these things are responsible, they are catalysts of how I get to experience life in the way that I do."

So naturally, and logically, out of that perspective, there is going to be a philosophy that says there are good feelings and there are bad feelings; there are feelings that indicate wellness and mental health, and there are feelings that indicate mental illness. And you want to have one and not the other.

And that's the current state of affairs.

What we have been doing, and what's so profound for us, is not that we found a new way to feel better, it's that we've gone back to re-examine how we understand what human experience is in the first place.

We are having a conversation, an exploration, a self-discovery, for each of us individually, regarding what the human experience is. What does it stem from fundamentally? How does it work?

And what we ran into were these 3 principles. Over and over again, we saw that the only thing that was responsible for all human experience were these 3 principles. Nothing else, in the most literal sense! Nothing else that we examined, could we honestly say, was responsible for which particular experience was occurring within us.

So the way we found ourselves relating to our experiences, going forward, was that experience is, metaphorically speaking, for all of us, an expression of a Divine energy taking shape as us, and our mental lives, our psychological lives.

This was a huge breakthrough, because, for those evolved in this direction, it ruled out the possibility that anything else in this universe had the power to make us feel good or bad, bad or good. It ruled out the idea that particular feelings were a sign of mental illness. It's also ruled out that particular feelings were a sign of being right or true.

It ruled out the idea that I could enslave myself to a particular set of circumstances, because it will make me feel better. We kept coming back again and again to getting recentred to ... "Wait a minute! I know I've seen (and you've seen) that the way I'm experiencing my life at any given moment, has nothing to do with my life. It has to do only with how I happen to be experiencing my life, through these Divine principles.

And each time we reincluded that fact when relating to how we felt, it set each of us on a different trajectory, a different logic, a different come from, a different way to think about and relate to our experiences. And that, in turn, changed the way that way we responded to our feelings, and it changed the way we responded to other people.

But that's been happening to us on its own. This new relationship is a logical direction that flows from what we have learned about life. And the real leverage has come from appreciating, realising, becoming aware of, waking up to the fact that we are experiencing life through this singular system, this systemic fact, and we've found ourselves reincorporating a knowledge of this system when trying to make sense of our lives.

We've been waking up to that again and again.

We keep pointing back to the fact that there's something bigger going on here. There's something much bigger than "I'm depressed - it’s got something to do with my chemistry, or something to do with the water, or that maybe I'm broken, or maybe you are broken." These terms start to fade away.

Thus two colossal governing needs begin to wilt away in us. One - is the incessant need to mess with our circumstances, so that we can feel better; but better than that - way better than that, is the dissipation of this urge to want to feel differently than the way that we currently do.
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That need starts to disappear.

During Bein Hematzorim, and particularly in the 9 days, we are sadly reminded once again, how we are still suffering due to the sin of Sinas Chinam, the lack of Eiyin Toiva, and the absence of compassion for others.

And yet, the question remains ... how can we elicit true change? How do we bring ourselves to love people who we deem to be unworthy of our love?!  ​

Not easy, right?

Rabbi Avrohom Katz of Gateshead explains that sinas chinam emerges when we do not see Hashem as a part of the equation. The Torah in ויקרא says: לא תקם ולא תטור - do not take revenge and do not bear a grudge and the posuk finishes with the words 'אני ה - I am Hashem. See! Hashem is in the equation!
 
Rabbi Katz continues: Looking at someone with a malevolent eye and with hostility, as if he or she is to blame for whatever misfortune has befallen us, is reprehensible. Taking revenge and bearing a grudge only occurs when our stance is: whatever has happened to me, you are the culprit, you are to blame. Naturally, I am going to get my own back through revenge - or I will nurse a grudge against you and keep it festering in my heart, for you surely deserve it! 
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I think Rabbi Katz is pointing us towards a profound appreciation of how a person arrives at sinas chinam and grudge bearing. A hater forgets that his station in life is explicitly designed by Hakadosh Baruch Hu. This ignorant perspective leaves Hashem out of the picture. It ignores the fact that while unbecoming behaviour exists, my personal loss or pain is divinely orchestrated. 

​אמר בן עזאי: בשמך יקראוך, ובמקומך יושיבוך, ומשלך - יתנו לך! שאין אדם נוגע במוכן לחברו - אפי' כמלא נימא" (מסכת יומא דף ל"ח) 

And said Rabbi Chanina: A person cannot as much bruise his finger down below unless so has been declared upon him from above. 
  
I would like to further explore this idea of keeping Hashem in the equation. 
  
Many of us have been learning about the fundamental principles that produce our experience of life. We have been coming to a clearer understanding of what it takes to have our unique reality. 
  
It has been extremely helpful to recognize and understand the one source of all our feelings. That nothing and no-one, bichlal - at all, has the power to get into us and make us feel anything whatsoever. 
  
The Torah's view on psychology is clear and unequivocal: our experience derives from the Divine, from the only Being that has any power at all in this world to make us experience anything - from the כל יכול - the All Capable One. Our feelings are an inside job, created by Him. 
  
They are NEVER from "out there". 
  
Appreciating that each person sees the world only as far as Hashem grants them to see, also forces us to recognize that each person has their own separate reality, tailored for them by Hashem. Knowing this opens the door to taking perceived offenses less personally, creates more space for love, opens the possibility for compassion and allows us to better understand where other people are coming from. 
  
And then, כמים פנים אל פנים כן לב האדם לאדם, just like water reflects the face which gazes into it, so too the hearts of mankind mirror each other. As you and I change by finding love in ourselves and expressing it to the world, we daven that Hashem will respond by reciprocating that ahava in others, bringing about the achdus, the unity that is so sorely missing. 
  
May we all be zoiche, Be'H, to witness the Geulah Shleimoh Bekoroiv!

Mrs. Rosella Grunbaum & Tzvi Werther

Hi Rabbi,

I am repeatedly humbled, as I continuously find myself needing to go back to the basics of the 3 Principles. 

Here is just how I understand it today. 

All feeling is utterly and completely a product of my own thinking. The thinking (and feelings they create) I have at any given moment is free. Free from circumstances or the past. In other words, circumstances do not dictate what thinking I have. I can think/feel anything, anywhere, anytime. ​