Rabbi Abraham Twerski, December 15, 2009, Yeshiva University - Part II

[For Part I Click Here]

"People ask me how I wrote over 50 books and I answer that I didn’t write 50 books but that I wrote one book 50 different ways. Self esteem is my one theme. Freud, at about 80 said that there’s a death instinct, like a life instinct. This was not stated simply due to depression of old age as his students said. The Gemorah says that every day the yetzer harah tries to crush us. Despite our upbringing we all have a yetzer harah that tells us that we are nothing and that we’re only worthwhile if we get external approval.

Low self esteem is not anivus. The Chafeitz Chaim was not self effacing. Did he know how much he knew (kol hatorah kula) ? Yes. He took authority, but he didn’t feel he was better than others. In his generation there were other gedolim: the Rogochover, Rav Chaim Ozer, Rav Meir Simcha, Rav Menachem Ziemba and others and he wasn’t included in that league. They say a cute story – that the Chafeitz Chaim davened to not be considered a gaon, and his tefillah was answered. You may ask, “So, why didn’t he daven to not be considered a tzadik?” The answer is he didn’t daven for that because it didn’t occur to him that he’d be viewed as a tzadik.

Rabeinu Yonah says that a baal ga’avah actually acts great because he feels inadequate and can’t tolerate his low self esteem. He tries to escape the pain of feeling like nothing by acting better than others. Alei Shor knew to address this as a need of our times. We must fight that sinister force out to kill us by telling us things like, “You think you won’t sin? You think you will understand the Tosafot? etc.”

If you know how good you are, that “neshamah shenatatah bi tehorah hee” then you should have self esteem. The Zohar explains the words, “He breathed life into man.” When you breathe out, you breathe from within yourself, so we bear Hashem within us. Think of that. How can one sit in front of a screen and look at evil and put his neshamah in the garbage, unless he thinks he’s garbage? Self esteem is our defense against what is unbecoming for us.

The number one goal for a parent is to set up a home of harmony. The greatest gift you give your child is the love you give your spouse. True discipline for a child is to let him or her know that they are good and not bad.

I can’t let this talk go by without sharing my favorite memory, which goes back to the thirties when I grew up living over a Beis Medrash. People at that time were mainly horse drivers collecting scraps of metal and rags. Before minchah every day the men would sit drinking hot tea and playing chess. At five years old, I watched, learned, and played chess with the men. By nine I could beat all the local old folks. Once a visiting rabbi from Chicago challenged me to a game on Rosh HaShanah. He told me it was OK. Later the shamash told me that the Rebbe, my father, wanted to see me. He looked up from his sefer and asked me if I’d played chess and with a slight look conveyed that I shouldn’t have. I waited to be dismissed. I couldn’t leave without being dismissed. I stood there waiting to be told, “Gei gezunteheit.” Finally my father asked, “Did you beat him?” “Twice,” I answered. And then my father said, “Gei gezunteheit.”

The Baal Shem Tov noticed that a chazzan was saying al cheit with a happy niggun. He asked the chazzan why he sang al cheits with joy. The chazan explained that cleaning the palace for the king is reason to be happy! The Besht agreed- teshuvah includes self esteem.

With positive feelings of self esteem we can do so much. Even now, while we are in a situation almost like the crash of ‘29. People are depressed. Yet, we can find things to be happy for. On Super Bowl Sunday people with foreclosures on their homes cheered for touchdowns. There is what to enjoy. How does a touchdown touch putting on tefillin or bentching? Simcha for the zechut of doing a mitzvah, can greatly lift us.

A Rebbe said, “’Ki besimcha teitzei’u’ means that with simcha you can get out of any problem in the world.” But the yetzer harah knows and attacks us with sadness.

The question is asked why in the time of the neis of Chanukah they looked for pure oil given the principle of tum’ah hutrah betzibur? The answer is that they were ready to be moseir nefesh to use shemen tohar, wanting to act with the utmost purity possible. Then the seemingly impossible occurred.

Up until 30 years ago it was a fact that a human can’t run a mile in less than four minutes, that it was physiologically impossible. Then Roger Bannister did it in 3:59 and it was a world wide celebration. Now hundreds have done it in that time and some have gone down to 3:57.

Things are only impossible until they’re done. That’s important to remember. Within a range of the possible great heights are achievable. And we need to move way up, particularly in midos."