The Strong Comeback

The Shovevim weeks are not only a time to enhance our personal holiness, but a wonderful opportunity to strengthen our joy in life. True joy and personal holiness go hand in hand.

It takes time until a person succeeds in rectifying personal holiness – it doesn’t happen overnight. Meanwhile, by virtue of the fact that the individual is striving for spiritual gain and self-improvement, he’ll be encountering many challenges and difficulties on the way. If he maintains his joy, his setbacks in life will be short and minor and his ability to recover will be so strong that his setbacks will turn into triumphs that propel him even further on. But if he doesn’t work on joy, his setbacks will become long, agonizing periods of gloom that could lead to even deeper falls. So if you’ve fallen, get back on your feet! Right now!

Joy and resilience go hand in hand. Agility is a wonderful attribute in serving Hashem. If a soldier falls in battle, he can’t think about what happened and why he fell; he must get back on his feet immediately and continue fighting. The same goes for the battle against the evil inclination; if someone falls and did something wrong, it’s over and done with! Get up and move forward! Even a fall is from Hashem and all for the best. But, if a person reacts with sadness and depression, a mere fall turns into total defeat. Yet with joy, a person can move forward, pray and do teshuva, and continue toward the ultimate victory of character refinement, building emuna and rectifying personal holiness.

The word hitchazkut in Hebrew literally means “self-strengthening”, but it refers more accurately to a person who encourages himself during times of difficulties and finds reasons to be happy. Throughout their teachings, Rebbe Nachman and Rebbe Natan speak about this type of self-strengthening. Once, Rebbe Natan was telling stories about the great tzaddikim. He said, “This tzaddik attained such a high spiritual level because he had the quality of hitchazkut. And, that tzaddik attained an even higher spiritual level because he had the quality of hitchazkut. And, the third tzaddik attained the highest spiritual level of his generation because he was a master of hitchazkut.”

Rebbe Natan merited to become Rebbe Nachman’s prime disciple by virtue of his own amazing measure of self-strengthening, keeping his spiritual and emotional head above water during times of indescribable tribulations. Never succumbing to sadness, despair or bitterness, Rebbe Natan doggedly held on to any and every tiny reason to be happy always. We see the results of his efforts in the volumes of his priceless writings that he bequeathed us.

Tikkun Habrit, personal holiness, is dependent on joy and self-strengthening. Self-strengthening is an entire subject in itself that a person must learn and pray for until it becomes second nature. The more a person is capable of strengthening himself in joy and emuna while encouraging himself, the faster he’s back on his feet after a fall. Joy, emuna and encouraging oneself are the key elements in making a strong comeback from any setback in life.

If a person is depressed because of whatever he has blemished, you can’t just tell him to be happy. At that moment, he can’t be happy. It’s like telling a poor person to get a million dollars right away. Especially, since personal holiness depends on joy – and the person at the moment is badly blemished – he doesn’t have the capability of feeling joy on his own. We must help him by adjusting the way he looks at things.

Rebbe Nachman says that desire is more important than anything. As long as a person has desire, he can dance with joy! Desire is not an instant remedy – you can’t become Moses in two weeks. But, you can desire to be an upright and righteous person, no matter where you are on the current spiritual ladder. No one can stop you from desiring! Here’s the main reason to be happy no matter where you are and no matter what you’ve done: Hashem doesn’t care so much about where you are now, He cares about where you want to be! Even if you’ve taken a steep fall, as long as you have the desire to improve and the desire to seek Hashem no matter what, you have every reason to sing and dance.

If we judge ourselves by the results of what we do, we all come up short. No one is perfect and everyone has blemishes. Is that an excuse for us to be sad and depressed? No way! We must pray to Hashem to help us hold on to our strong desire for holiness no matter what. We won’t become an instant tzaddik, but we will merit a strong desire that will help us serve Hashem in joy despite life’s ups and downs. Such a desire will enable us to laugh at obstacles and overcome setbacks. Hashem sends us challenges in life for the sole purpose of strengthening our resolve and desire.

Learning and praying strengthens desire. The evil inclination shows a person his mistakes and blemishes to sadden him, so that he won’t be able to pray or learn Torah. When that’s the case, Heaven forbid, his desire wanes and he’s really in trouble. But, when a person bounces back from a setback and says to himself, “Despite what happened, I still want Hashem! I still want holiness! Thank goodness I know I made a mistake. In the old days, I wouldn’t even consider what I did to even be a mistake. Despite my setback, I’m way past where I used to be. I pray for Hashem’s help every day. So what if I opened my eyes and saw something terrible that I shouldn’t have seen?! There were nineteen other times today that I didn’t open my eyes. Still, I want to be better and I know that Hashem will help me.” This is the type of true self-strengthening that makes a winner, a person who can be happy all the time. Such a person scores a knockout against the evil inclination.

If nothing stands in the way of a strong desire, then there’s never a need to feel down and broken. If you’re reading this article, you’re on the right path! You have a desire for Hashem and for the holiness to cling to him. Rejoice! Your desire is a major success in life and a reason to be extremely happy.