Help!

​   by Reb Gutman Locks   

HELP!

Ed asks for help:

      I have a situation going on that’s very serious to me. It’s not easy to say but I’ve been contemplating suicide and no one I have spoken to has been able to explain why I shouldn’t. I feel I can talk to you because you helped me a lot when I was coming over every Shabbos for that year I was in the yeshiva. I want to see the purpose to live but it seems it’s just useless because anything I do will end and I’m not content at all even when I accomplish something.

    My life is good, but I don’t feel good at all. I guess my question is why do I feel so empty and sometimes suicidal when I have everything and more, and am doing what I need to do? I get anxious and I have to be around friends just so I can take my mind off of the depression. I used to find being alone comforting and didn’t need to be around people all the time, now when I’m alone I start to ponder negative things that I shouldn’t and it seems I can’t stop. Some days are normal and some are not, but when they’re bad they’re BAD.

Gutman:

     You are feeling empty because you are pursuing an entirely physical life and completely ignoring the spiritual aspects of life. It is only natural to be depressed if you are involved with just the physical world, without spiritual awareness.

    Start putting on tefillin again every morning and after you finish the prayers recall that fulfilling a mitzvah opens a door in Heaven and you want to take advantage of that. Close your eyes and picture everyone you love with light on their faces and smiling and ask G-d to bless them. Then thank Him for all the good He has given you. Do you need a reminder of how well off you are? I see kids every day in wheelchairs unable to walk their entire lives. You can walk. Thank G-d. How many young men your age are being killed in arab countries just because they are not muslims? Thank G-d you are safe…on and on, the list could take an entire day to recall.

     As for suicide; it doesn’t work. It does not bring peace, not only to the ones you leave behind but not even to the one who is foolish enough to do it. You have been sent into this world to accomplish something. If you do not accomplish it you will have to return to the same situation over and over again in a different life until you do accomplish it.

     Try the tefillin and make Kiddush for your mother on Shabbos and see what changes in your life.

Ed:

     Thank you for the response, I’ll start to put on tefillin. How do I know what my goal would be? Would I feel that I’m doing it when I am? How do I find out? What should I do when that depressive mood falls on me and I’ve already put on tefillin that day?

Gutman:

     Did you put on tefillin today? Certainly continue your physical objective of education so you can find a decent job, but the goals in life are even greater. But to accomplish the goal of making the world a better place you have to have a decent job and a wonderful family.

Ed:

     I have been putting tefillin on for the last three days. I don’t necessarily feel any different but I assume it will take some time. You didn’t completely answer my question about finding out what my goal in life is. How do I find out and will I know that I’m doing it if I’m doing it? What’s the whole point of creation anyhow? You said it was seeing kids smiling a few times but I know it’s more than that. Like why am I here? What is the purpose of me being here and getting a job and a family? Why is that important? How do I start to feel the holiness or G-d’s presence more? I know He is everywhere and everything but I’m not aware of it. I just understand it logically. 

Gutman:

     Everything in creation has its unique purpose in having been created what it is. You are a man and as such have certain purposes related to being a man. You are a Jew and you have certain purposes that relate to your being a Jew. To succeed you have to fulfill all of what you have been created to do.

     Man has been created to tend the Garden. This means to help to make the world a better place. He has also been commanded to be fruitful and multiply i.e. to make a family.

     A Jew has been created a Jew to reveal G-d’s presence in the world and to be a light unto the Nations.

     It is a wonderful blessing that you became depressed when you were not trying to accomplish your spiritual goals in life. That depression led you to search for something more than you were finding. Had you not become depressed you might have (G-d forbid) been satisfied with your physical life and never had sought more.

     When you put on tefillin or do any other mitzvah, remember that that act is making you holy. What more in life could a Jew want? The more holy you become, the more you elevate yourself from an entirely physical perspective, and the more you gain a spiritual perspective. The entirely physical perspective causes man to lead the life of an animal whose only concern is satisfying its animal inclination. When you gain a spiritual perspective you do not throw away the physical perspective. You elevate it. You learn to use the physical to reveal the spiritual. You will feel successful not by gaining physical possessions but when you see that your work is revealing G-d’s presence more and more.

     It is a lifelong work and not something that you just do one day and accomplish it. Each day, again and again, you try to remember and to help others to remember the real reason we are here.

     Even the slightest spiritual success removes sorrow. Do not expect a free ride, though, where life goes only up. Life is a struggle. We have to work to remember, and the reward is measured according to the effort.