בריאות הנפש: מטפלים ומצבים נפשיים

00:01 Okay, this is Igres, and today we are going to talk about mental health challenges. Uh, we've done a little bit of this in the past. We did anxiety and depression, I think. Uh, I believe we did loneliness at one point. So we have definitely talked about the Rebbe's take on mental health issues. But what I wanna do today is I wanna do two things that we haven't done up until now, and one of them is I wanna talk about mental health professionals, whether, uh, seeing a therapist is the same thing as going to a doctor, whether the whole idea of niche nishos l'rei fel'rapis, uh, whether the Rebbe says, "Go visit a rei v'yadid, you gotta listen to your doctor, you gotta do exactly what they say," whether the Rebbe seems to apply that equally to what a psychiatrist says, a psychologist or a therapist. And I also was able to collect a couple mental health conditions that I don't believe we've gotten to touch on yet. I have four on the screen here that are, uh, sort of, uh, standalones. Um, I have a letter about OCD, about obsessive-compulsive disorder, one about addiction in general. Although this particular letter seems to be about alcoholism, it really definitely applies to, uh, to any form of addiction since the Rebbe's advice on how to overcome addiction in general. We have a short letter on schizophrenia that isn't exactly about schizophrenia, as we will see, and a letter on suicidal ideation, on people who are thinking about,

01:02 uh, on thinking about suicide, and, uh, the Rebbe's response to that. So I wanna do all of that in one mega, uh, mega lecture on a, mega shiur on a, on mental health conditions. But without further ado, our first letter-- And by the way, there is a life hack here for anybody interested in medical Igres, that a lot of them still haven't made it into Igres, depending on when they were written or depending on, um, a bunch of different conditions. In the back of volume thirty-six of Likutei Sichos, they printed, I mean, it must be hundreds. It must be hundreds of letters from the Rebbe about medical things. And I don't know why it's in the back of Likutei Sichos volume thirty-six. I guess that was just the volume they were up to when they finally compiled all those letters. But if you go to Chelek Lamed Vav and you look in the back, half of volume thirty-six is just bits of letters that the Rebbe wrote about various medical issues. So one of them that we have on the screen right now, it's a letter from Alef Alef Tav Shin Yud Beis, and unless my search just wasn't working, I don't think it ever made it into regular Igres. So you will find it, though, in the back of Likutei Sichos, uh, volume thirty-six on page three twenty-six. And the Rebbe says here, "Keyvan asher leha na'an yodua derech zesh shshlach ti la'atakah hinuhu metzi dei tzadik leidi bevon diplomati im hayo etz orefon

02:12 miktsaze." So the Rebbe says, "I need to, I need to find out. There's a person you're asking me about, and I need somebody to poke around and find out in a diplomatic manner whether this person has seen an expert, uh, a doctor, an ex-- an expert physician in the particular field that they are suffering from." Haynu nerv-- I don't even know how to say that word. Anybody know what this word is? I know that it means a psy-- I know it means a mental health professional, somebody who's a ner-nervena, nirvana, nirvina, nerve people. This is someone who's involved in, uh, in psychiatry, psychology, unclear what field specifically, but something in mental health. So the Rebbe is saying, "I need to know whether this person has visited a mental health professional." Ma'amar lahem, "I need to know what this mental health professional told the person you're asking me, me about." Nimsha'al, "And whether that person is listening," u'malei acharei haras oref, "and whether they are following the advice of that doctor." Ki tanamei da'asa, "Because before I know whether this person is listening to the doctor they're going to," ein ydei tzlaas given mechtavi al hema derach inyana, "I don't wanna mention anything in my letter about what advice I would give them." Evada yesh nam bamachanai mumchim gedolim miktsais, "Certainly, you know people in your own camps who are experts in this field of mental health, who are particularly good specialists, and you can," kadai lashtadel leshual ba'atztecham lahem, "it'd be a good idea for

03:17 you to try very hard to ask the advice of one of them." Ki le'ezat, "Because up until now," ein ish chez hudavara gil, "as far as what you've told me so far," again, we don't have the mental health condition here, but this is apparently something fairly standard. The Rebbe says, "What you've written to me so far, uh, based on what you've written to me so far, the condition you're describing is pretty regular." Lefiaraf, "It's not a, it's not a wildly abnormal condition." Romi shibediesei en ikdivai miktsazer beis rozeh likam kam tzrufus, "There are all sorts of medications for it." So the Rebbe says, "Basically, I need more material." But what we can pull from this letter is that the Rebbe seems to be assigning pretty much the same, uh, the same authority that he gives to normal doctors, uh, this authority to mental health professionals, mental health physicians, that is psychiatrists, psychologists, whatever is in this catch-all phrase that the Rebbe's using here, because he's telling somebody that, "I wanna know, uh, I wanna know what sort of medications are available. I want them to follow the advice of their doctor. I want you to find other doctors to consult with." In our prior shiurim on, um, how the Rebbe deals with doctors, we're seeing all the same lashonus used for how the Rebbe's dealing with mental health professionals. So I think it's somewhat safe from this letter, not just from this letter, from other letters, this is just the one that I pulled up

04:17 on the screen, that at least when it comes to credentialed, credentialed mental health professionals, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or a, uh, or a credentialed mental health professional in some field, the Rebbe seems to give them, uh, more or less the same courtesy that he gives doctors. Uh, not just courtesy, but halachic courtesy that he gives doctors in that we have to listen to what the doctors say, and we need second opinions and third opinions, and, uh, we need to discuss different options with them, and a person should follow their advice. So in answer to the, uh, the initial and sort of softball, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the lob of this shiur, do we care what mental health professionals say? The answer is yeah, I'm pretty sure we do. Uh, this is not the only letter on this topic. Safe to say, the Rebbe's into mental health professionals, assuming they are indeed professionals. However, the Rebbe is cautious about them, and truth is, the Rebbe's cautious about doctors in general. As we saw, I think we had, we had a whole shiur on surgery, on surgery, where we saw that even when surgeons recommend surgery, the Rebbe's not always thrilled. Uh, even when, uh, radiologists recommend radiology, the Rebbe's not always thrilled. It's safe to say that the Rebbe has a certain skepticism of what one doctor says. The Rebbe tells us to ask multiple opinions from multiple doctors. So you see the same skepticism, maybe even a further skepticism, directed toward mental health

05:19 professionals in some of the Rebbe's letters. This is a particularly telling letter. The letter is labeled Ches, Tuv, Kuf, Tuv, Kuf. It is from the year Taf Shin Kuf Beis. It is in volume twenty-two of Igres. And here the Rebbe says, basically, um, "I'm hoping that this person's seeing a mental health professional, but I'm also hoping that it's one of the good ones 'cause they make some bad ones." And, uh, I, I, I think this is kinda needless to say that the same way that you-- the same way that we probably wouldn't want a surgeon who's not good at surgery doing surgery on us, we probably don't want a mental health professional who's not good at mental health doing mental health things on our brains. It's kind of pashut, but the Rebbe does bring this to the surface, that it is better to do nothing than it is to have somebody do the job poorly. So when it comes to therapists, you can't just take anybody. Uh, here's the Rebbe's discussion of therapists and which ones not to take. So again, this is Taf Shin Kuf Beis. Manan achtavim bachaf Alef Ear, "I'm responding to your letter." And he says, "I'm gonna mention you by the Tzion." And then he says down here, b'vad haduch l'meis l'haskil haras Chazal, "I certainly don't need to tell you," d'disa hayara fun Chazal, "you're not allowed to have yush, you can't give up." And our topic is really down here in this next paragraph. Veyd loir I also

06:18 need to point out, he says, let me make this nice and big. Furthermore, to point out, based on what you wrote, that the person you're writing to me about is, uh, visiting a doctor who's involved in . is, uh, almost certainly mental health. I doubt they are soul healers. This is mental health, a mental health professional. Even though it's not clear to me what kind of doctor you're talking about, and this is important because we can see here the Rebbe is being mechallel a little bit. I would like to know, says the Rebbe, whether you're seeing a psychiatrist, which is a medical doctor, or whether you're seeing some hack therapist. I, I just, I, I, I don't know who you're seeing. So the Rebbe says, "It's not clear to me what kind of doctor you're talking about." Uh, what's that abbreviation? Anybody know it? Opening it to the floor. You have to unmute yourself. Oh, there we go. That's good. But in general, when it come-- because of our great sins, there is a terrible form, that fits very nicely, there is a terrible form of therapist that exists, and these people, . There are some bad people, some bad therapists, and the way that they start their therapy is by talking first about belief in God, and about honoring Heaven, about honoring your father and mother, and things like that. I-- This is probably some sort of a sp-spin-off of the Freudian school, where they, uh, where a therapist or an analyst will sit

07:38 there and tell you that the reason why you have a whole bunch of problems is because of your parents or because of God, and that if you hate both of them, then you will, uh, then you will recover. So the Rebbe says there are some people like that, and it's, it's, it's a bad thing. It's our . It needs, it needs more investigation. Uh, . It's worthwhile figuring out whether there is really any benefit to this, uh, to these treatments at all. And the Rebbe says it's more or less the case. They usually end up losing. It's something worth investigating whether there is a greater loss than a gain as time goes on with this particular approach. So if you have one of these therapists and, uh, this, this therapist is encouraging a lack of yirat shamayim or a lack of respect for, for, uh, for parents, teachers, and the like, it might be that it's doing more harm than good. It's possible that many of these sorts of doctors, says the Rebbe, are totally fine. That they do heal people using upright measurement, u-up-upright ways of doing things. So the Rebbe's saying, "I'm not knocking the entire field." I'm saying when you pick a therapist or a psychiatrist, psychologist, an analyst, you have to figure out what kind of school of thought they come from. He says in Pashtat that if somebody is coming from one of the, uh, one of the better schools of thought where they are healing in an upright way,

08:52 the Rebbe says there's a certain professor, I don't know who, who has, uh, who has recently come out with the statement that, uh, that this-- that I believe the Freudian school is what he's referring to, the Freudian school of thought, uh, where you have to reject God in order to be productive, is something that is not true, and that to the contrary, somebody who believes in God and has faith can actually be a, can actually live a better life, that they can have, they can be good for their mental healing, et cetera, et cetera. So the Rebbe's saying there are some people who have come out against this school of thought and sort of pushed the other direction. Let's say, you know, lean into your faith, it will help you heal. And the Rebbe says, "I'm totally fine with those people. I'm just saying be careful of the, of the ones who are from the other school of thought." There are some doctors now saying that one of the best ways to heal from mental, from mental disease, mental illness, is to, uh, is to lean into your faith. The truth is this is not yet all that widespread. There still is a nice divide, says the Rebbe, and I believe that's true. That there's somewhat of a divide between mental health professionals, whether religion helps or hurts in the healing of a patient. Therefore, the Rebbe says, "I want you to investigate." Don't just take any therapist, don't just take any mental health professional.

09:49 The thing to investigate when it comes to a surgeon, I guess, is how good they are at surgery. And the thing to investigate when it comes to a mental health professional is do they promote or knock down, uh, our values? And that's something to be aware of. So not ev-- not, not-- We don't, uh, we don't trust them blindly. I don't think we trust any, any health professionals blindly. Uh, we definitely wanna look at their credentials. The Rebbe wants to know what kind of doctor you're dealing with, what school of thought he comes from, whether he's going to be knocking down your religion or saying you can't heal as long as you're frum, which unfortunately, some mental health professionals still do or tell people to take a big step back from their frumkeit in order to heal. The Rebbe says, "I don't want you involved with these sorts of people." But if it is a legitimate, a legitimate mental health professional who's not going to, uh, trash the faith in order to try to heal you, then we're on board. So we see here, I think, the Rebbe treating therapists very much the same way he treats doctors, with a baseline respect of along with a sort of, um, hesitance about throwing our lot with them lock, stock, and barrel without knowing exactly what they stand for and whether they're any good. The Rebbe in this letter back here said that he wants more opinions, wants you to go find more experts in the field,

10:50 very similar to the way he treats normal doctors. And by the way, psychiatrists are actually normal doctors. I mean, when I say treating like normal doctors, I mean, he seems to treat psychologists, clinical psychologists, he seems, seems to treat, uh, even therapists much in the way that he would treat a normal medical doctor, in that if they know what they're doing and they're well-regarded in their field, the Rebbe seems to want us to give them the similar, a, a similar level of, uh, of respect in their field. Okay, moving on to specific-- specific mental health conditions. I have today OCD, addiction, schizophrenia, and suicidal ideation. OCD is the one that I've been saving for a while. I don't think we ever actually read it, but I've had it on my, uh, on my sheet for a while because it's from last year. Remember last year we were doing tough gimel. I don't think we ever got to this letter. I think we were waiting for the opportunity. Today is our day. The letter is Yud Tav Tav Kuf Nun Alef. One of you who's, like, here all the time is gonna remember that we have done this in the past. I don't remember doing it. In any event, Yud Tav Tav Kuf Nun Alef, uh, this is the letter that is specifically about obsessive compulsive disorder. Certainly the Rebbe says your t-- your, your doctor has told you. Certainly your doctor has told you that many, many people have the same situation as you, as

11:56 the one that you are describing. And what is the situation? That it appears to them that they seem, they feel like they've done something not well enough. For example, and therefore they think, for example, that their hands aren't clean enough. And therefore, they feel the need to keep on washing their hands again and again. This is very much, uh, obsessive compulsive disorder. Not the thing, uh, m-- I don't know. Young people now say they're OCD, like, as a, as a joke, but, uh, but this is actual obsessive compulsive disorder. This person's writing to the Rebbe saying that they can't stop washing their hands. The Rebbe's advice is, "You should try very hard not to think at all about these things." Don't fight with them. Now this is classic Rebbe, right? The Rebbe says, "My advice is ." A letter that I'm not bringing to you today, but if you, uh, remind me, I'll drop it in the chat. I saw a letter where the Rebbe's writing to a, uh, to a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist says, "The Rebbe, I wanna know if you have any advice on how I should do my job." And the Rebbe opens the letter by saying, "Absolutely not. I am a, I am a rabbi, you are a doctor. You are supposed to know how to do your job. How dare you?" And then says, "He wrote to me. So if you're really putting me, uh, putting me up against the wall and asking me..." What exactly do I think

13:01 mental health professionals should do? I think Chesed Hadas works in a lot of cases, you guys should try it more. So this is certainly an opinion of the Rebbe we've seen in many, many letters. Ignoring the problem, not thinking about the problem, moving your mind away to other things and focusing on something else is, as we've shown in the past, the advice of the Friediker Rebbe, the advice of the Rebbe in many cases, even the Rebbe's advice to a psychiatrist. So in this case as well, the Rebbe says, "I want you to stop thinking about it." And when you stop thinking about it, it will weaken, this obsessive compulsiveness will weaken over time until it removes itself entirely. And when you do suddenly have a, have an urge to wash your hands, for example, don't make a big deal out of it. either tell yourself that there's no need to do it at all, or or wash your hands exactly once, and then immediately switch over to something that has nothing to do with hand washing to remove your mind from the subject. So the Rebbe is saying, either say no completely or say yes exactly once, and then run away and do something else that keeps you occupied. another thing the Rebbe says is one of the reasons for obsessive-compulsive disorder is is a general weakness in the body. The Rebbe says that, uh, another way to help cure this disease is just be healthier in general. I don't know if there's data on

14:14 this, but I also know that it can't be bad advice. He's saying that if your body's healthier, your mind will be healthier, healthy body, healthy mind. So maybe fix your diet, your sleep habits, and things like that. also to hurry up and speed it-- to speed up the repair for this, the healing for this, and of course, the Rebbe is giving a lot of really good mental health advice, telling them at Chesed Hadas, and only wash one time, and then go do something else, and strengthen your body, make sure you're getting enough sleep and eating. But unlike a lot of people who would repeat this message and forget the last line, the Rebbe always includes the last line, which is, "I also want you to go to the doctor. Please talk to a rofeh yadid, talk to a doctor who is a friend, and do according to what the doctor says." So the Rebbe is not, uh, the Rebbe does not offer folk medical cures. Uh, when the Rebbe says that somebody should check their mezuzahs, as far as I know, it always comes with a, uh, with a go visit your doctor, check your tefillin, and go talk to the doctor. And of course, here too, the Rebbe does have some mental health advice, but along with that comes, you have to go to your doctor and listen to what they say. And of course, a doctor for obsessive-compulsive disorder is not going to be a normal medical doctor. That's either a psychiatrist, uh,

15:14 which is of course a medical doctor, but you know what I mean, is a mental health professional, a psychiatrist, psychologist or, uh, or somebody else in the field. Again, showing that the Rebbe seems to use the same rofeh principles when dealing with mental health that he does with physical health, with body health, I don't even know what to call it, in that he says, "Go to a rofeh yadid, listen to them." This is again proof that the Rebbe seems to see mental health professionals in the same way that he sees physical health professionals. Still don't like the words I'm using, but what can I do? Uh, the addiction letter is long. Why don't we switch it to the end? We'll do it last. Let's do schizophrenia real quick. Schizophrenia isn't-- I, I told you in the beginning, it's not really a schizophrenia letter. This one is not in Igres anywhere. This one is also in the back of Chelek Lamed Vav of Likutei Sichos where they just printed letters from the Rebbe on topics of Rfuah. And here the Rebbe says, "I can't tell from this letter if the Rebbe is suggesting a cure for schizophrenia or saying that schizophrenia has a, has a similar problem to a problem people have in the world." So see if you can read between the lines in any event. The Rebbe says, "I want people to be, I want people to be careful about, uh, doing tefillin properly and, uh, putting on and, um, anybody needs a bracha

16:14 should be putting on tefillin, et cetera. There should also be understood that there's a shayas, there's a connection between the hanhaga, uh, that there's a connection between a, a equal connection between schizophrenia. That's a hard word to pronounce in Hebrew, schizophrenia. even though we don't know exactly what the reason for it is, in yana, what is schizophrenia? The Rebbe says, that is a disconnect between the matzias of what is actually going on in the surroundings and the way that the sick person perceives what's going on in their surroundings. That is, that a person could be frightened, as the Rebbe is going to say, by something that is not frightening or, uh, elated about something that's not elating. So that is that there's something going on in their environment, and they're not processing it the same way as everybody else. That's what schizophrenia is. sometimes they will have, uh, things that have to do with the head, that is that they-- everything will maybe, uh, be scary for them, and they'll be afraid that somebody's trying to hurt them. And then and then things will switch all the way to the other side. they will have a, uh, fear that's not based on anything and go from that to they will have baseless, uh, raising of the spirits, suddenly very happy days, suddenly very sad days. It's characterized by ups and downs, but these ups and downs are not based on what's going on in their lives or what's based on going on-- based-- they're not

17:33 based on what's going on around them. It's based on what's going on in their heads. their perspective keeps on changing, uh, and it's not fitting to the situation. Therefore, the Rebbe says tefillin, that is part of the mitzvah, and the segulah for the mitzvah of tefillin is is to take the heart and the brain and make sure that they are both, uh, meshave, that they are both subservient to God, which is truth. and not only is God true, he doesn't change. and that will automatically create a certain peace, a, uh, a synchronicity maybe between the sechel and the regesh, between the thoughts and the feelings. So I don't know if the Rebbe is saying here that tefillin is a potential cure for schizophrenia or if the Rebbe is saying, on the other hand, that schizophrenia is kind of, uh, what it looks like when somebody is pathologically without tefillin. I, I don't know. The Rebbe is definitely not saying that t-- that, uh, that not putting on tefillin causes schizophrenia. I know he's not saying that. But in any case, we do see the Rebbe perhaps saying that a segulah, of course, in addition to going to a physician and getting proper treatment and getting the medications that are necessary for schizophrenia, would be something like tefillin. I don't think we've ever seen this letter before. I don't remember reading it before, this letter on suicidal ideation. Somebody wrote to the Rebbe saying they wanted to kill themselves. And that is, uh, that is, that

18:45 is, first of all, quite a cry for help, and second of all, quite a letter to answer. The person seems to have written to the Rebbe that they have no choice, they're going to kill themselves. That is the context here. Wild. The letter is dalet taf taf kuf samech dalet, and it's from taf shin yod zayin, and the Rebbe writes, Shalom Uvrachah, I'm responding to your letter, uh- And the It's, it's shocking to me, says the Rebbe, you're asking my advice what you should do. And you're asking me how to act. Why? Because first of all, I've told you many times what I think about this, and then of course, this is the same answer right now. You write to me we gotta go below the line. It's a suicide letter. So the, uh, Rebbe writes, uh, "You write to me that it is-- that you believe that you must, that you have no choice, but to end your life." The Rebbe says, "It should be understood that this is not true at all. It is not true that you are obligated or forced to do anything." No Jew can ever be forced to do anything. Certainly, a Jew cannot be forced to do something which is against the will of God. And it is, and it is the will of God that people live. The Rebbe then adds pretty harsh words here, that you should know that, uh, this challenge will not have any . There cannot be an outcome for this. People think

20:00 that by killing themselves, they can escape a negative situation. The Rebbe says, as long as the , as long as the soul does not fulfill its task in this world that has been commanded on it from the giver of the Torah, they will come back and be reincarnated again and again until they finish their job. So there is no way out. If a person kills themselves before they have finished their task, then they will just have to come back and do it again. But since they have messed up a little bit, their Gilgal will be a worse reincarnation. The Rebbe says, "Let's not expand upon things. I don't wanna speak at length about something that is so painful, but recognize you're not doing yourself any favors. There are no easy ways out. The only thing you can do is make things worse." All the excuses and reasons that you are giving me why it's a good idea to end your life, these are all coming from your Yetzer Hara, they're not from you. They have no basis in actuality, in reality. that you will recognize the truth. Because the truth is good in spirituality and also in physicality. This is the Rebbe's specific advice to someone who was thinking about suicide. Um, suicide is not something you play with. This is not a . You gotta-- The, the only that we have from the Rebbe on how to deal with somebody who's having suicidal ideation is to send them to an expert who knows how

21:16 to deal with people having suicidal ideation. However, seeing the Rebbe's approach here, I thought was interesting. Last thing I wanna show you today, so we can end on a slightly higher note, is how to deal with addiction. Specifically, this letter is about alcoholism, but it's very clear from the context that this can apply to any kind of addiction. Somebody wrote to the Rebbe saying that they made a that they were going to no longer be addicted to alcohol. They're no longer going to drink so much or maybe at all, and it's not working out. So this letter is Tes Shin Chaf. It's from . Uh, it is in volume twenty-two of Igris on page one ten. And here the Rebbe says, "In responding to your letter from Chaf Dalet Tammuz, you wrote to me that you made a good , uh, that we spoke about in your prior letter, as will be clear from the context of the rest of the letter, it was about not drinking anymore." And then some time passed, and guess what? He's back to drinking again. So a person tried to quit something that was dangerous for them, and they're having trouble getting, uh, they keep on falling off the wagon, as they say. It's known what Chazal say in these sorts of situations. A person should not get upset or let their heart fall if they are unable to stand up to a test and they end up, uh, falling off the wagon. They certainly cannot give up. When

22:26 it comes to fighting the Yetzer Hara, to the contrary, giving up and and feeling sad about yourself is the weapon and the main, uh, the main, uh, the strat-- the war strategies of the Yetzer Hara. The Yetzer Hara mainly uses your fallen spirit to get the better of you. What I find really interesting about this is a lot-- I don't think a lot of people think of kicking their addictions as fighting their Yetzer Hara. I don't, I don't think they think of it that way. You know, if somebody, uh, if somebody is, uh, is, is drinking or smoking or doing drugs and they're trying to stop, I don't think a lot of them see the voice saying to do as the Yetzer Hara 'cause it's not necessarily a straight up Aveira, right? It's an Aveira to hurt your body, I guess, in a general sense. But the Rebbe here is- Depends what the addiction is. Huh? Depends what the addiction is. I'm sure it does depend on what the addiction is. Not all of them are Aveira. But, um, I do find it interesting, though, because cl- clearly the Rebbe does. The Rebbe says that if this is an, uh-- if this is something you're trying to kick, it's got the same rules as anything. You don't wanna be this- Right. I'm saying why people don't think that. Yeah, yeah. I just find it interesting. Uh, people don't think that way. And the Rebbe's saying all the same rules that you learned in Tanya for

23:23 how to beat your Yetzer Hara apply to beating your alcohol addiction. It's all the same rules. If you get sad, it's not gonna work. Um, when you give up, that is the worst strategy of your Yetzer Hara. Uh, let's go on to the next paragraph. I don't wanna spend too much time on this one. He says, basically, follow what it says in Tanya when it comes to beating your Yetzer Hara, and that will work for addiction. Now, the Rebbe gives three pieces of specific advice. In order to win in this war and come closer to victory, it would be most appropriate First of all, don't carry a lot of money on you. You know, it costs money to buy, to buy, to buy, uh, to buy alcohol in this person's case. He's saying, "I don't want you to carry a lot of money on you, only the small change that you need, maybe not credit cards, so that when you do have an urge to go buy something that's dangerous for you, you won't have the money to buy it." Second of all, connect yourself with people who are frum. Uh, and the Rebbe says, "Only . Make sure to as, as much as possible, to only spend time with people who are religious." Even though in general, actually, every Jew is commanded to spend time with the best people they can get around. You can, you can accomplish a lot by having good friends. It's good for a tzadik and also good for his

24:35 neighbors. The Rebbe says it's true, it's, it's actually good advice for everybody to choose their friends well, but especially somebody struggling, choose your friends well. And thing number three, There are many doctor-- There are many, um, many doctors who are aware of medications that can help a person to strengthen their willpower. Somebody who leans towards strong drink, they can make that urge go away. You should ask these doctors and do what they say. So this is very interesting. In answer to the question, I think this is, uh, I think this is buried in a letter. I don't know if, uh, I don't know if I would have known how to find this, but, uh, buried in this letter is the answer to the question: Should I be taking medications to help me kick an addiction?

25:15 Uh, this goes for everything from the patches that people who quit cigarettes wear to, uh, to, uh, Narcan. I mean, a-any of the things people use to get off of real hard drugs or alcohol or cigarettes. Is this appropriate? The Rebbe says, "Absolutely. Go get drugs to help you with your yetzer hara." Is that cheating? No, that's not cheating at all. You work on your yetzer hara, and if there's drugs that can make you stronger in standing up to your yetzer hara, go for it. Ask the doctors. If the doctors have medications that can help you get over your dis-- your, uh, your addictions, absolutely use the medications in tandem. It's not cheating. The Rebbe says, "I would also like you to work on a spiritual cure, become an expert in certain , certain and from time to time review them especially at times where you feel a particular urge. If you remember these Mishnayot and the Tehillim that you've memorized, that you've been working on, it'll also help you." And, uh, the rest of this letter is not necessarily shaiach to us. It's a different topic. So what we have here is some advice on kicking addictions in general, which is of course a mental health concern, the main one being not to, uh, to-- the main one being to use the same things that we learned in Tanya. Not to let your yetzer hara get you sad, not to be upset when you fall off the wagon and get right back on and

26:22 try again, uh, and not to let your spirit fall. In addition to that, the Rebbe suggests that if anybody has an addiction that is tied to them spending money to get what they need, whatever the substance is, they should carry less money. Second of all, they should hang out with better friends. And third of all, and I think really most interestingly from this letter, if there is a way to use a medical intervention, a pharmaceutical intervention, if there is a drug on the market that can help a person kick an addiction, take the drug. It's not cheating. It's absolutely helping. And we actually see this, I think, as a theme throughout the Rebbe, uh, the Rebbe's Torah on medicine in general, that if ther-therapies are available and medications are available, the Rebbe is usually a pretty big fan of trying medication. The Rebbe doesn't love surgery, uh, and the Rebbe certainly doesn't like new medications or new vaccines when they're out in their first couple weeks. We have a few letters about that in the very early days of new therapies. But once a therapy is established as safe and effective, the Rebbe is a big fan of taking them, and not only is it not cheating, it's acting , acting in line with what the doctor says. And as we've demonstrated, I think, doing what the doctor says applies also to mental health professionals. Okay. Thanks, everybody.