‘Rebbe, I’m Ashamed by Things That I’m Doing’

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel archives.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'm going to do the letters - we're doing now the letters of the Rebbe. Every week we're learning from the Rebbe, who has certain principles and certain ideas, and it's important to learn. Last week we spoke about depression - how depression is not a sin, it's not an aveira, but it brings about all the sins, all the aveiros. So today I want to share with you another letter about depression.

Somebody wrote this letter about depression - I don't know if this is real, but he wrote that he's embarrassed to tell people, and he suffers from being embarrassed, and he's ashamed to speak about it to people, but now he wants to break himself and tell the Rebbe, and he wants to do teshuva. When a person writes like that, you know he means it - it comes out from somebody's heart. It bothers him, it's always on his mind, and I guess once and for all he wanted to be open with the Rebbe and talk about it.

He writes what bothers him. He writes like this: he says many times he misses Krias Shema - he goes to bed without saying Shema sometimes. Also, he says sometimes he gets up late and he davens without a minyan. He knows that a minyan is very important, and he has the time - it's not that he has to go to work, he has the time - but he just, I don't know, laziness (he doesn't say the word "lazy"). Then he says sometimes he speaks loshon hara - not that he wants to speak loshon hara, he speaks it because somebody sits next to him and talks, and he knows you're not allowed to, and he feels guilty. Sometimes he's not careful, he wastes a lot of time. And he knows that speaking loshon hara is one of the worst things - it has an effect on him and on the one he speaks to, and on the person being spoken about - but it's not that he wants to speak; people are sitting and talking, so he also talks. He forgets, but he feels guilty.

This reminds me - I think someone once asked how is it that people are so careful about a beard, not even one hair, it's very important, a beard - but when it comes to loshon hara, sometimes they're not as careful about that as they are about not touching a beard. That's right, but the halacha of a beard, according to some opinions, you may shave - whatever the case may be. I think the Rebbe answered him this way: when a person speaks, does he actually sit down and say "let's speak"? No such thing - nobody sets a time to speak; you sit and you talk, so in the middle you forget and a word comes out, but you don't set a time for it. But the beard - you get up in the morning, and as we spoke a few weeks ago, you stand in front of a mirror with a machine or whatever, and you cut your beard - this is something you are deliberately setting a time for. So maybe that's the difference - that's what I heard at some point.

But this person says that sometimes he eats and forgets to bentsch - not bread, he says, cake or water - he does make the first brocha, but forgets to bentsch afterward. It bothers him, he doesn't want this. [unclear] He writes something near his bed - sometimes he does it, sometimes he doesn't - but because he's a frum person, he wants to do it, and it's always on his mind.

This is this kind of question, and I'm sure if he has this question, other people listening now probably have this problem too - they speak loshon hara, or they don't answer, or whatever.

So the Rebbe answers like this: first the Rebbe says he should learn Chassidus, and then the Rebbe says something which is the first time I've seen it written this way. The Rebbe answered him, "Look, this will help." Besides that you should learn, he says: man's life is dependent on the air around him. Without air he cannot live, and the quality of life is dependent on the quality of the air. In an atmosphere where there is [Torah and Yiddishkeit], there is healthy life; a person who lives in a Godless environment, his life is diseased, and one is constantly threatened with the possibility of being stricken with contagious maladies.

The first general step in healing is to purify the atmosphere. Purification of the air is the task of every person familiar with Torah literature, and it is affected through the letters of Torah. When reciting words of Torah - while in the store, or walking in the street, or riding the subway - one cleanses the air. Everyone acknowledging [G-d] must have something memorized, to have in mind.

So in other words, this is what the Rebbe says - always have in your mind words of Torah. This reminds me of something the Rebbe mentioned somewhere - that when a person walks in the street and doesn't have Torah thoughts in his mind, then the ground starts saying to him the word "bulah" - bulah means "bum." It says, "You bum, what right do you have to step on me? If you have [Torah], you have a right, you're higher than me, but if you don't have that, what right do you have to step on me?" That's what it says there.

So at all times and in all places he will be able to think and utter the holy letters of Torah, and when he does this, he'll get rid of this. That's it. Then the Rebbe said you'll get rid of the depression which the yetzer pulls you into, and that will bring you out of it.

So the answer to the people who feel guilty about certain things is that they should always know - they should start thinking about learning. Whether you go to business, or go to the store, or go anywhere, always have something to think about, and that will help you.

This reminds me - I used to teach in a yeshiva in Brooklyn, and there was a person - he wasn't a Rosh Yeshiva, but he was a melamed in the higher classes, a big lamdan. He once called me over and said, "I need to talk to you, very, very serious." He said he has to talk to me, he has to go to the Rebbe, he has to talk to the Rebbe, he has a problem. What's the problem? He said, "I'm talking about loshon hara regarding the children, everything," but he says the truth. So I said, "Why don't you ask your [rabbi]?" He says, "No, something like this you have to talk to the Rebbe." Anyway, I couldn't get him an appointment - of course, years ago - so I told him to write a letter. He wrote a letter, he gave it to me, I gave it to Rabbi Groner, and every day he used to come and ask me if there's an answer. After a week he got an answer - Rabbi Groner called me up.

So the Rebbe answered him a few things. Number one - and I asked him, does he drink - that's number one. Number two - always memorize things, always think, always memorize, always have that in mind, whatever you are doing, and that will help. Anyway, I gave him the answer. What helped was that - he said, "I'm amazed," he never saw such an answer. And then he says he looked up somewhere that if you drink, [it affects this] - so he's not so careful - but he says he's amazed that the Rebbe, such a great gaon, that he knows this - that's what impressed him, and he started to learn more. Why? Because what impressed him is that the Rebbe knew [unclear] - he never saw such a thing. Anyway, when I met his wife later, his wife said there's a big change in the husband - he was depressed, now he looks happy.

So anyway, there's always advice - there's always advice for what a person should do. So we see from all these answers that when a person is sad, we should follow what the Rebbe writes.

Next week I will continue our weekly program. Thank you.