What Torah Does For The Person
By Rabbi Ephraim D. Becker
Issue No. 5
December 25, 1997
A delightful reader asks:
I was wondering...
Shouldn't the Torah itself be able to help a person attain mental health
and the ability to grow?
Thanks!
Dear Reader,
You've touched on a wonderful question. We are all looking for a way to
live which promotes healthy thoughts and feelings and it would certainly
seem that the Torah, G-d's plan for Creation, should infuse, in one who
internalizes it, ideal states of mental health and the ability to grow. I
believe that an exploration led by your question can shed considerable
light on the relationship between Torah (its existence and its study) and
mental health.
The premise which I will operate with is that actualization of Torah would,
indeed, lead to the ideals of thoughts and feelings for the one who
internalizes it. The key to taking advantage of this most precious tool
lies in understanding the tool and our needs for it.
The process of growth through the Torah follows a pattern of what might be
loosely associated with behavioral and cognitive therapy. The process
proceeds from behavior (doing that which the Torah prescribes) to
affirmation of that behavior (a cognitive process). When we start out, our
behaviors are dictated by our parents. As a parent, we are instructed to
shape the behaviors of the young child towards conformity with the Torah's
norms. That approach is basically behavioral since the Torah does not
presume that a young child is yet capable of independent choice. As such,
the performance of positive precepts and the avoidance of inappropriate
behavior is to be conditioned by the parent, without significant recourse
to the "reasoning" of the young child. What a person does today serves as
the backdrop for his choices tomorrow. Since we are dealing with Divinely
ordained norms, there is no fear that we might have "bought" a behavior
which is detrimental.
If I may be permitted an aside here, I would say that all too often I see
parents attempting to cajole their children into subscribing to the
disciplines which a parent normally imposes upon a child. With great
flourish they try to get the child to recognize the validity of this or
that directive, often becoming frustrated with the child who persists in
his unwillingness to see the wisdom of cleaning his room before going out
to play. Clearly missing is the basic principle that adults choose and
impose those choices upon children. The goal of such choice is so that the
child will, in turn, affirm those behaviors to which they have become
accustomed.
The adult proceeds to affirm his or her conditioned behaviors, only to
discover aspects of those behaviors which are rote/mechanical or, in some
cases, in error. He is thus working on two planes. On the one hand he is
attempting to infuse his Torah-compatible behaviors with personal intent,
putting the "self" into the otherwise mechanical act. At the same time he
is altering Torah-incompatible behaviors in much the same what that the
parent molds the behaviors of the child. He thus embarks on a behavioral
program of change which is designed to condition his own responses. Then,
once those behaviors are in place, the person, in turn, contemplates those
behaviors in order to infuse the mechanical acts with focus and intent,
known in Hebrew as Kavannah. In this manner the person is ever
conditioning the "child" within him or her self to the appropriate
behaviors, and always infusing those conditioned behaviors with the breath
of life, focused intent.
The person would continue this way for a lifetime, were it not for a number
of land mines which lay in wait for him along the road. The list is as
long as it is fascinating. We will try to explore some of them in future
postings.
It pays to note that as one proceeds along the road of
behavior/affirmation, he is continually altering his area of focus. That
is, those behaviors which are already part of the person's automatic
repertoire need to be addressed insofar as their deficiencies of Kavannah.
Moving beyond those behaviors means that one puts them into the background
(a maintenance approach) and sets out to instill or improve other
behaviors, cycling back to discover that yesterday's Kavannah is a but a
rote behavior in light of the insight developed in other spheres and
behaviors.
BEHAVIOR a -> KAVANNAH INFUSED INTO a -> BEHAVIOR b -> KAVANNAH b ->
RE-EVALUATION OF a -> REPEAT TO INFINITY.
Best wishes.
