A friend of mine had tremendous aggravation from his son who wasn’t doing well with Shiduchim. He went to Rav Galinsky to cry his heart out, since he realized that his son would probably remain a broken Bachur for the rest of his life. R’ Galinsky Zatzal told him that his pain was unfounded. He had plenty of Nachas from his other children, so why isn’t he dancing all day about them?
R’ Galinsky Zatzal explained to him that people have a weird Geshmak in being sad, and they feel a certain (sick) importance about being a Nebach. Self-pity is a Yetzer Hara! And: עִיקָּר חִיוּת הָּאָּדָּם שְׁבִירַת הַמִדוֹת Our main purpose in life is breaking our Middos! (Gr”a).
The Orthodox community was always hurt by all those Anti-Semitic, self-hating Jews, like the N.Y. Times who love putting themselves down!
It’s all the same Midda: Let’s be negative and destroy ourselves! When the Arabs are busy blowing themselves up and hurting everybody, it is unfortunately the same idea. And just like we see the fallacy in their sick behavior, so should we realize that when we are sad, it is often the same idea!
Middos are tricky. Believe it or not, we all had a predisposition to secretly enjoy being a Rachmanus case, way before our actual difficult issue came up! You need to fight this all your life, by being happy to the extreme. I know a true Novardok story where they were happy during a terrible time. You need Mesirus Nefesh in working on Middos.
I know a Yungerman, that whenever he has any kind of difficulty in life (including physical maladies), he yells at himself and says: “You get what you secretly enjoy!” Stop looking for trouble! בְדֶרֶךְ שֶׁאָּדָּם רוֹצֶה לֵילֵךְ, בָּהּ מוֹלִיכִין אוֹתוֹ! He told me that this works magic! Sometimes he needs to persist until he sees results, and all kinds of problems disappear (including blood clots).
