Mussar Institute - Everyday Holiness: The Course

By Shirah Bell, Director of Everyday Holiness Program

Resignation and despair visited me recently, and in the middle of those feelings, I also saw the mysterious ways of Hashem. Negative states of mind can be obstacles on the spiritual path. From Netivot Shalom we read of the negative consequences of despair:

"The real goal of the inclination [yetzer hara] is not the [negative] behavior but the despondency that it leads to. In a state of despondency one succumbs easily to one's basest instincts without resistance. When one is in a state of mindful clarity, however, his awareness will save him even from the lowest depths."

I wake up one recent Shabbat morning under a heavy blanket of despair. Nothing has changed since the day before, except that I feel that I can’t face the day, much less the rest of my life. I am trapped in a bad version of a bad background – my waking nightmare. I seek comfort by thinking of the many good things in my life, but the background despair is too strong. Those “good” things just don’t matter this morning. Maybe some of you can relate.

In desperation, I turn to a book I open most mornings: Day by Day: Reflections on the Themes of the Torah by Rabbi Chaim Stern. He quotes one line from Psalm 4 which speaks to me, so I look up Psalm 4 in Stephen Mitchell’s A Book of Psalms. I find this:

Even in the midst of great pain, Lord,
            I praise you for that which is.
I will not refuse this grief
            Or close myself to this anguish.
Let shallow men pray for ease:
            “Comfort us; shield us from sorrow.”
I pray for whatever you send me,
            And I ask to receive it as your gift.
You have put a joy in my heart
            Greater than all the world’s riches.
I lie down trusting the darkness,
            For I know that even now you are here.

My tears begin to flow. I imagine what it would be like to stop resisting fear, illness, the state of the world, and to “pray for whatever you send me” and “receive it as your gift.”

Over the next few days I share Mitchell’s translation of the psalm with a number of people. Each is touched. One friend writes:

“The psalm as translated by Mitchell is both comforting and challenging. I know how fragile I am when it comes to facing real difficulty. I don't tend to want to accept, let alone praise. That's a very lofty ideal, and I am so often down below, looking up.”

I think back and realize that I don’t find the psalm challenging. Why not? I now understand that I am transformed in listening to it. Down through the ages King David’s song came to me, through Hashem’s minstrel Stephen Mitchell, which produces a shift in my interpretation of myself and the world around me.

How do these words resonate in your body? Remember a moment of despair, grief, resignation, and read the words again, carefully and slowly. What happens?

Many of the middot we study are related to what this sacred song deals with – gratitude, simplicity, trust, equanimity. When you are struggling to regain balance, where do you go for support and realignment? What practices, truths, and/or music reconnect you to inner wholeness? Or, as Rabbi Stern asks “What is it that the darkness I live in can help make me see that otherwise I would not see?”

I’d love to hear from you with reflections and questions: shirah@mussarinstitute.org.

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Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar