Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Dealing With Spiritual Illness

I was off the derech yesterday... "off the D", as they say.  It wasn't so bad, I just had to mostly rest my knee, but also apply appropriate pressure to get it back in 100% working order.  I was able to handle this one myself, not like 18 years ago.  Whew!  That was so far off the derech that I needed professional intervention; three months of intense chemotherapy, a couple of blood transfusions, and then months of recovery and monitoring.

What's that you say?  Sounds more like illness and muscle strain than "off the derech"?  Yes.  In case you hadn't caught my drift, let me be explicit: I am making a point.  The Rambam, in Hilchos Dei'os, begins by noting:
  1. When a person is physically sick, things that are sweet taste bitter and things that are bitter taste sweet.
  2. The symptoms of spiritual illness are that things that are good for us seem bad and things that are destructive seem good.
From that point on, the Rambam treats spiritual and physical ailments, spiritual and physical health on equal footings.  The Rambam says that most ailments can be traced to either over eating or lack of exercise.  In a broader sense, he means (I believe), over indulging ta'avos (physical or spiritual) and lack of discipline/mussar (again, physical or spiritual).  The goal is not to be a religious person who exercises, nor a fitness buff who prays.  The healthy Jew engages in appropriate vigorous physical activity, intense prayer, deep torah study.  He also practices moderation in eating, sleeping, tzedaka, chesed, etc.  Any extremes are to be avoided, except to be extremely moderate.

And now to come full circle.  When my knee was aching, I was in pain... the whole me.  When I had cancer, I was in mortal danger... the whole me.  Klal Yisrael is one organism.  Complex, multi-faceted, extended over space and time; but one organism none the less.  When one Jew is ailing, Klal Yisrael is sick.  "Off the derech" means you got lost on your way to your in-laws.  A Jew who is not keeping Torah and mitvos is dangerously ill -- and that means Klal Yisrael is ailing.  Every Jew who increases his observance and care in keeping Torah and mitzvos is improving the health of the entire Klal Yisrael.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Sha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aru...
Post a Comment
Read more