Emotions Are Rooted in Our Innermost Nefesh, Not in Outside Circumstances
The Chovos HaLevavos teaches us that “The ba’al bitachon will feel joy in every situation in his life, because he will trust in Hashem that He will only do what is good for him—just as a compassionate mother does for her child in bathing him and so forth, as Dovid HaMelech said, נפשי, עלי כגמול אמו עלי כגמול נפשי ודוממתי שויתי לא “אם I swear that I stilled and silenced my soul like a suckling child at his mother’s side, like the suckling child is my soul” (Tehillim 131:2).
To better understand this idea of the Chovos HaLevavos, and for us to be able to utilize it practically in our lives, let us elaborate on a yesod from the Chovos HaTalmidim (authored by Rav Kloynimus Kalman of Piaceszna, Hy”d), in his sefer Hachsharas HaAvreichim. This yesod is important in many areas of our lives, and especially in the area of bitachon.
He explains that when a person experiences a feeling—whether pain and hurt or joy and pleasure—he isn’t really sensing the events around him; rather, it is a feeling emanating from his innermost nefesh. When the nefesh encounters a painful or pleasurable situation or circumstance, or when it hears certain things, it becomes moved and affected —and this is what we’re really feeling. The more the nefesh is affected, the more we will experience feelings and emotions.
Less Nefesh = Less Emotion
For this reason, when a person is less conscious—that is, his nefesh is less awake—such as when he’s asleep, he doesn’t sense joy or sadness from his surrounding situations, even though nothing has changed; things are still taking place. This is because the primary feeling comes from the nefesh, and when it’s asleep, we will feel less. The less chiyus a person has (i.e., when the nefesh is less conscious and active), the less feeling he will experience. And indeed, when the person ceases to live, R”l, there’s no feeling at all.
We see this also when people are lost in deep thought, and they sense less of what’s happening around them. We ask such a person, “Why are you sleeping?!”–even though his eyes are wide open. Because his nefesh isn’t conscious. The less active his nefesh is, the less he will feel emotion. If you were to embarrass or shame him in this state, he wouldn’t be overwhelmed by it. He won’t feel the pain, because his nefesh isn’t being affected by it.
If you were to tell the same joke about him when he’s conscious and awake, it would cut like a thousand knives. He would feel almost physical pain. What’s the difference? Very simple: We don’t feel anything from the outside; rather, everything is based in the nefesh. Those outside events are merely triggers for the nefesh, and one will experience emotions and feelings only when his nefesh is affected by those events.
Why We’re Moved by Experiences
The same applies when we’re moved to emotion by witnessing a scene. It’s not coming from the external events taking place, rather the events are seen by our eyes, and they penetrate the nefesh, which is moved and affected by them. Our inner nefesh is stirred by what we see, and that arouses feelings within us.
Proof of this is that when we remind ourselves of an experience, we will feel those emotions all over again, as if we’re experiencing them anew. A person has the ability to bring those events back to his mind, because they’re really within him. It’s not about what’s happening externally.
For example, if a person was humiliated in public, and he later recalls that event, he will experience the pain again. He replays the entire scene in his mind, because the events are etched on his nefesh, even though the external physical factors have long ceased to exist.
This illustrates and proves that the feelings were never about those physical events. Your pain came from your nefesh, which was affected, and it was this trigger that caused you pain—and this is why it can be experienced internally over and over again.
When Old Thoughts and Feelings Are Reawakened
This yesod gives new meaning to the words of the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh, who explains that a person who has never thought improper thoughts or seen improper sights (מחשבה and ראיה) will never be drawn to improper actions.
The problems begin when a person was already פוגם with problematic and improper thoughts and sights, and they have taken up residence in his nefesh. Even if he has apparently long forgotten about them, they have entered and penetrated deep inside his nefesh.
Later, when something reawakens that thought—even if it’s something minor, which in and of itself wouldn’t trigger the person—the nefesh is affected due to the old thoughts and sights that have taken up residence there.
This mirrors the yesod of the האברכים הכשרת that we saw above: Our feelings and emotions are primarily animated by our inner nefesh.
Missing the Morning Coffee
There are many examples where we see this. A busy person may go until the afternoon without taking in a bite of food. On a fast day, he isn’t bothered by not eating. He’s so busy that he forgets that he’s fasting. But the morning coffee is a problem for him. Skipping it disturbs his entire equilibrium.
This underscores our yesod that a person feels his inner nefesh far more than the physical factors. If he’s accustomed to drinking coffee in the morning, and now he’s forced to miss it, his nefesh is disturbed. He begins to feel hungry, even though he may not really be hungry.
Feeling Energized All Night in Meron
Another example is a person who generally can’t function past 12:00 on an average night; his eyes droop and he can’t think straight. But when Lag BaOmer comes, he can be seen dancing with fervor at 3:00 in the morning—he feels no tiredness or exhaustion.
How did this happen? It is the same yesod. It’s not one’s surroundings that generate feelings of joy, pleasure, pain, hunger, or tiredness, etc. The environment simply triggers the nefesh to emanate an emotion to the person. A person’s feelings are completely dependent on whether his nefesh has been triggered or activated.
Awakening Old Traumas
This is also why people who have endured a trauma are triggered into re-living that trauma. They become extremely agitated and psychologically affected when experiencing events that awaken their trauma—because that event has etched itself into their nefesh. If the same thing were to happen to someone else, it would do nothing to them. But for the first person, it causes a very different reaction.
Yidden who endured the Holocaust, for example, were known to become deeply affected by certain noises or sights that awakened the experiences they had suffered through. They simply could not take it—because it awakened the deep feelings that had become etched on their nefesh.
Emotion Is Rooted in the Nefesh
Everyone understands that we all experience different events and situations—but everyone reacts to them differently. One person remains apathetic and aloof, while the second person is stirred to the heights of emotion.
The same applies to spiritual matters. One person is moved to tears of yearning and pining for Hashem in performing a mitzvah, while the second person moves through the routine with no emotion at all. What happened? It’s not the action or external event that stirs a reaction—it’s an inner movement in the nefesh, and every person’s nefesh is calibrated differently and animated by different things.
To summarize: Amazement and emotion take place at the deepest levels of the nefesh. Even if a person seems to us to be more aloof or unemotive—he’s logical and thought-based rather than emotional—he still has a nefesh that can be moved.
Now, this nefesh that stirs us to emotion has two parts: 1) the animal instinct of the yetzer hara, which pulls us to improper things. The emotions it may awaken include anger, sadness, despair, and so forth. 2) the positive side of Elokus, which is moved to emotions of joy, spiritual pleasure of closeness to Hashem, and so forth.
The Ba’al Bitachon Always Has Inner Joy
The Ba’al Bitachon Feels No Emotional Pain
With this yesod in mind, we can understand the teachings of the Chovos HaLevavos in a much deeper way.
The Chovos HaLevavos tells us that if a person works on his bitachon, and he will habituate himself again and again to live with thoughts of bitachon...he will constantly keep in mind that the Ribbono shel Olam helped him previous situations, and that He is a ומטיב, טוב He is good and He does good—then, even if he encounters events that have the ability to cause him pain, he will not sense pain. His nefesh will be unaffected by these events.
Regarding the rasha, we’re told that לרשע, מכאובים רבים many are the agonies of the wicked (Tehillim 32:10)—because the rasha is affected by events, and thus he feels pain. He was confident that he was going to make money... he already told all his friends that he’s earning 100,000 on a deal... and when it fell through, he descended into such a depression that he couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks. He’s mired in such feelings of humiliation and disappointment... “This always happens to me!”
But the next words of Tehillim are יסובבנו, חסד בה' והבוטח one who trusts in Hashem, kindness surrounds him. Even when he goes through challenges and difficulty, he isn’t lost or flustered or pained. It doesn’t arouse pain in him, and it doesn’t affect him on an inner level. Even when he, chas v’shalom, experiences physical pain, the pain remains superficial. It doesn’t penetrate his inner nefesh.
More Bitachon = Less Pain
Obviously, bitachon is like a ladder. The higher one goes, the less he will feel the pain of surrounding events. It all depends on a person’s level of bitachon and serenity. Tzaddikim attained such lofty levels of bitachon that everything mundane remained outside them; nothing penetrated to their nefesh.
We see this play out as people mature in life. Children are affected by silly and trivial things. A teenager matures a bit, and he’s bothered by more important things, and adults who mature even more have a different threshold of what bothers and affects them—which things tend to penetrate to their nefesh.
When it comes to bitachon, there are many levels: The rasha is affected by small things: Many are the agonies of the wicked. Then there are multiple levels of people between the rasha and the tzaddik. Some may have graduated from the לרשע, מכאובים רבים there are many things that no longer get to them—but the pinnacle is the level of the tzaddik, חסד בה' והבוטח יסובבנו, who isn’t affected even by real pain, because everything remains superficial and external. Nothing can touch his inner nefesh. To the contrary, he is joyful with every situation the Ribbono shel Olam brings him; pain awakens the good within his nefesh... his neshamah comes out of hiding, because he feels drawn close to the Ribbono shel Olam within the tzarah.
The Joy of Pain
Let us emphasize this point. It’s not just that a tzaddik only feels joy and pleasure in Torah and tefillah, and he doesn’t feel the pain so much because he has been refined, elevated, and purified. It is more than that. The same event that causes pain and hurt to the average person awakens within the tzaddik a great sense of kirvas Elokim, closeness to Hashem. Thus, he feels great pleasure within his greatest moments of challenge!
It is known that the Divrei Chaim of Sanz returned from burying his daughter on Friday afternoon, but nevertheless, as he was donning his tallis before kabbalas Shabbos, he recited נפשי ברכי with tremendous fervor and great joy. And the Rebbe explained: “Imagine that someone feels a resounding slap on the shoulder—but when he turns around, he sees that it came from his beloved friend. It was meant in a spirit of affection and love. Does he even feel pain?! Of course not! Similarly, when I turn around after receiving a blow and I see that it came from my beloved Father, our benevolent Creator, I proclaim, ה', את נפשי ברכי bless Hashem, O my soul.”
Tzaddikim derived a sweet feeling of kirvas Elokim precisely in the moments of suffering. The blow stung—but it caused them to turn around and attain such sweet kirvas Elokim! The pain and the pleasure came together—because the blow aroused such deep feelings of closeness from deep within their nefesh.
This aligns with what we have said above: Since pain and pleasure really emanate from our inner nefesh and aren’t dependent on events that happen to us, tzaddikim—whose souls are refined and elevated—don’t feel the pain, only the pleasure of being drawn close to Hashem. It’s all a matter of perspective and attitude. Of course, these are lofty levels of bitachon for which we must toil our entire lives.
Hashem’s Kindness Illuminates Everything
An important aspect of bitachon is to trust that everything is for our good. The ba’al bitachon, who trusts in the Ribbono shel Olam, knowing that everything He does is for the person’s good, has a tremendous gift—that even when he doesn’t understand how and why something is for his good, he is able to trust nonetheless. Because constantly meditates on how much kindness and good he has been given, and this helps him to trust that even the other things are also for his good. Through this, he is able to attain kirvas Elokim through his challenges.
It’s like a person who learned through an entire masechta in Shas, and he struggles to reconcile how the Rosh and the Ran follow their own opinions in some places. But when he reaches the end of the masechta, and he has encountered sixty disagreements between them that he did understand, this clarifies for him even the areas that he didn’t previously understand. It all comes together, and it all makes sense.
When the ba’al bitachon expresses his overflowing thanks and gratitude during חי כל נשמת on Shabbos morning, he goes back and gives thanks even for things he didn’t previously appreciate. He now feels that everything was chessed, everything was goodness and kindness. Through the good, he appreciates the challenges. And this brings him a tremendous pleasure of kirvas Elokim. This is the reward for the ba’al bitachon, as the Chovos HaLevavos tells us: The ba’al bitachon is joyful in every situation... due to his trust in Hashem that He will only do what is good for him in everything.
