 Writing in the early 14th century in France, the Jewish poet Bedersi observed that we are distressed about the past, perturbed about the present, and frightened about the future. The truth is we all recognize that there is no end to the things that worry us. We live with both inner pressure, we have a pressure cooker that rules our lives, and societal stresses as well. Among other things that get to us, financial pressures, family tensions, relationship issues, health concerns, we're overloaded with responsibilities in our lives. We struggle with concerns about our status, about our successes and failures. We have spiritual anxieties. How does God see us? We have to deal with the fast and overwhelming pace of modern life. We're anxious about global unrest and terrorism, apprehensive about crime, concerned about climate change and pollution, and we're stressed by the political turmoil in our countries, among many other things. And aside from these and other real issues, our imaginations often work against us. There's a Midrash, a rabbinic teaching to Ecclesiastes, chapter 7, the book of Kohelas, which says one who has been bitten by a snake is frightened by a rope. The toll that unchecked stress and anxiety can have and take on us is serious. The Talmud says in Tractagitan 7DA that worry saps a person's strength. And in the 12th century, Rabbi Moses Maimonides, the Rambam who was also a physician, noted in his writings that if emotional stress is maintained for a long period, one will definitely become ill. He writes that constant anxiety damages the body. And he writes that emotional experiences produce distinct changes in the body that can have an effect on the circulation of blood and functioning of one's organs. Non-science has obviously confirmed these observations, and we know that even low-grade anxiety can lead to severe headaches, chest pain, high blood pressure, digestive disorders, fatigue, restlessness, and insomnia. On the other hand, it's important to recognize that a certain amount of stress in our lives is normal. If you're hooked up to a blood pressure monitor or an EKG, you will see peaks and valleys on the monitor, highs and lows, ups and downs on the readout, but to have an all-even flat line is not a good sign. So life is not about getting rid of stress. Stress is part of life and evidence that you're alive. The question for us is not whether our lives will have periods of darkness and anxiety and stress, but the question is how are we to handle these bumps in life when we encounter them? Now, before we proceed with our discussion tonight, it's important that I make something very clear, an important caveat, which is we will not be dealing tonight with situations of clinical depression or mental illness that require professional medical help. That's not on the table. We'll be dealing tonight with normal run-of-the-mill stresses that we all face in life, and how are we to deal with them? The book of Proverbs written by the wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon in chapter 12, verse 25 says, When there is worry in a person's heart, they should suppress it. We sometimes get so caught up with the situation that we lose sight of the reality that there is more to life out there. There are bigger issues for us to think about. What about my relationships with my family? What about my relationship with God? Are those not important issues? There may be serious crisis facing the Jewish people today, like assimilation, anti-Semitism, threats to the security of Israel. My personal worries aren't so overwhelming in comparison. Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Weinrib, also a psychologist, wondered about the biblical prohibition against making idols of graven images and bowing down to them to worship them, and how this might be relevant in our lives today. We don't go around, most of us, I assume, making statues and praying to them. And Rabbi Weinrib suggested that in ancient times, people would focus on a single element in nature to worship. They would turn away from the vastness and complexity of the universe and isolate something that they had constructed or something in nature. And they would believe in it, and only it, and that it only is worthy of their adulation. Worrying can be a disproportionate attention to a single issue because it's only a small part of the totality of existence. Worrying suggests, Rabbi Weinrib, might be a form of idolatry to be consumed by worry narrows one's focus and attention to only one concern. We could be paying more attention to all the blessings that surround us, but no, we choose to focus on something and get overwhelmed by it. And that disproportionate focus by Weinrib says is problematic. So what does it mean when the Talmud suggests that we suppress worry? So suppressing our anxieties is the result of recognizing that number one, there's a bigger world out there because while a teenager might really believe that everyone is staring at their pimple, the truth of the matter is that they will hopefully come to realize that people have their own issues that they're worrying about. And number two, we can suppress our worries when we realize that we're not the only people that have these challenges. And this lessens the intensity of these challenges. Now there are other ways as well of suppressing our worries. Number one is distraction. There is an old Yiddish proverb, if you want to forget all your troubles, put on a shoe that's too tight. Now this kind of distraction requires a certain amount of out of the box thinking. There's a story I once heard about a person who was consumed with fear and was not able to sleep at night. He was terrified that there were monsters hiding under his bed. And he was going to a psychiatrist for years and years and years and the psychiatrist was not able to alleviate him of these fears and he was not able to sleep. And one day this fellow runs into his rabbi, he hasn't seen in many years, and the rabbi asks him how he's doing and he says, you know what, rabbi, not so well, I'm having this terrible problem and my doctor that I'm seeing, he's not been able to help me. And so the rabbi asks him, what's troubling you? And the fellow shares his fear that there are horrible monsters hiding under his bed and he can't fall asleep at night. And the rabbi gives him some advice and what do you know, that night he's able to sleep like a baby and he goes to his doctor the next day, he's furious, said I've been seeing you for so many years, I've paid you thousands and thousands of dollars, you haven't done a thing for me. And I bump into my rabbi and after a 10 minute discussion, I'm all better. And the doctor is flabbergasted and says, what did the rabbi tell you? He says, the rabbi told me I should saw the legs off my bed. Now Libyan Jews tell a similar story, that there was once a wicked king who made war against the Jews and in the heat of the battle, some dirt entered into his eye. He withdrew to his palace and he began rubbing his sore eye, but the pain only increased and numerous doctors came in to try to help the king and to try to treat him, but they all failed to do so and they were put to death and the king continually worried about his eye and he kept on rubbing it and unfortunately this only made it worse. One day a Jewish peasant came to the palace and promised that he could heal the king's eye. He told the king to undress and after rubbing his stomach, he announced that he could feel a tapeworm that was eating the king's stomach and growing bigger every day. He told the king that the tapeworm was a much bigger problem than his eye and he gave him a bottle of medicine and told the king to rub this medicine on his stomach every day of the week and on the eighth day the peasant promised that the tapeworm would die and he would feel much better and the king indeed became very worried about this tapeworm and he forgot about his eye and he stopped rubbing it. His eye of course quickly improved and of course the imaginary tapeworm soon disappeared as well. The king was extremely grateful. He rewarded the peasant and allowed the Jews to live peacefully in his land forever after. So the simplest way to suppress anxiety by distraction is by directing our mind to focus on something that's positive. The simple truth is that we are only able to think about one thing at a time. Our mind is only able to entertain one thought at a time. You can't think about two things at the same time simultaneously. So if we're getting stressed about something and feeling very anxious, we can make the decision to instead think about something that's positive. There are very simple and effective strategies like this that are explored in the fascinating book called The Marshmallow Test, Understanding Self-Control and How to Master It by Walter Michele that there are very simple ways of distracting our mind and focusing on things that are positive and we're simply not able to be preoccupied with negative self-destructive thoughts. Now our verse that we learned in Proverbs advised that we mitigate the negative impact of worry by suppressing it. However, the Talmud suggests that there is an alternative way of translating that verse. Again the verse says, and the Talmud says you can translate the word not to suppress but to discuss, to articulate. And so the truth is we're being advised here by King Solomon that if there's worry in the heart of a person, share your worries. Don't keep them to yourself because discussing them reduces them, venting your negative feelings and getting them off your chest can bring emotional relief. Discussing them can also help you gain insight and develop productive ways of dealing with your anxieties. And this is not only discussing them with a spouse, with a good friend or a spiritual advisor. We should share our worries with God as well. This is very effective. King David advised us in Psalm 55 verse 23, cast your burden upon Hashem and he will support you. There was a study recently of 246 people about to undergo cardiac surgery. Those who prayed before the operation were less anxious and were more optimistic about the outcomes of their surgery. Now there's an old saying that worry is the interest we pay on troubles before they are due. In light of this, one of the most effective ways of dealing with stress is based upon a teaching of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in Lakutei Maran Torah number 272. He writes the following, an important rule in the service of God is that one should only focus on today. When a person seeks to serve God, it seems like an extremely heavy burden. How can I possibly bear such a heavy load? However, when a person considers that he only has that day to deal with, he'll find that it isn't a great burden at all. The truth is that it's very easy to get stressed out when we are all trying to do the things that we're supposed to do as Jews. Let's just take one example. As Jews were supposed to study Torah, a person can get freaked out thinking about how much Torah there is to study. And rather than getting paralyzed by thinking about the entire Tanakh with its commentaries, the Hebrew Scriptures and the 63 tractates of the Talmud and the Midrashim and the codes of Jewish law and all of Jewish philosophy and Jewish history can be overwhelming. Rabbi Nachman says, no, just think about your learning schedule for today. Today, I'm going to study a chapter of the Mishnah. That's not too difficult and I can handle it. One of the things that our inner adversary does to sabotage us is to remind us of all our past spiritual failures or exaggerate how arduous our goals will be to complete. And that can overwhelm us. These thoughts come to rob us of our resolve to seeking and serving Hashem at the present moment. So the way to combat these intrusive thoughts is to ignore the past and the future and to focus only on the present moment. Rabbi Moses Maimonides wrote that contemplation can reduce negative thoughts. It can reduce anxiety and distress. He says that most of these debilitating thoughts come from one of two things. Either we think about painful times of the past, like the loss of money or the loss of a close friend or relative, or it comes from thinking about something that may occur in the future, like a possible loss or injury and fears that they might be coming. Yet Maimonides writes that it is known through rational observation that thinking about the past is of no benefit at all. Sorrow and grief over the past are activities of those who lack the influence of their intellect. There is no difference between a person who grieves over lost money and the like and someone who grieves because he's a human being and not an angel. Similarly, Ram Bam writes, any anxiety that results from thoughts about what may happen in the future are also pointless. Because maybe it will happen and maybe it will not happen. And the truth is that the opposite of what a person fears may actually happen. There's a famous medieval quatrain, the past is no more, the future is yet to be, the present moment is like the blink of an eye, so why worry? One of the most effective ways of overcoming depression is to change the way we think. The Holy Baal Shem Tov pointed out that rearranging the letters of the Hebrew word Mahshava, which is thought, results in the word Besimcha with happiness, that we're able to arrive at states of happiness and fulfillment by the way we direct our thinking. King David's son of Shalom rebelled against him, forcing him to flee. And David ascended the Mount of Olives, we're told in 2 Samuel chapter 15 verse 30, weeping as he went according to the Bible. However, David concluded that he was fortunate that the man who rebelled against him was his son because someone else would have killed him. And so ultimately King David rejoiced in song as we see in Psalm chapter 3, which says a Psalm of David when he fled from Afshalom his son. There's a famous story of someone who came to the market of Meserich because he was puzzled by how the Talmud could teach that we have to be appreciative in life of not just the good things, but we have to also be appreciative for the unfortunate negative things that happen to us in life. And this person said, I can't understand that. How is it possible for a person to appreciate both the good that happens and the negative that happens? Doesn't make sense. And so the Mognitive Meserich said, look, for that question, I can't answer it. You have to go to Ravzusha of Anipol. He's the one that can answer your question. So this person travels all the way to Anipoli and he asks the people in the town, where is the house of Ravzusha? And they direct him to the outskirts of the town and he gets to what looks like a very depressing little street. And he sees where he's directed this hovel, this terrible looking place. It's in shambles. You can't believe anyone even lives there. He knocks on the door and he says, is this the home of Ravzusha? And the person answering the door says, yeah, that's me. And he looks at this person. He sees inside this little house, this little hut, there's nothing in it. It's a broken down little hut. There's nothing in it. He's dressed in tatters. And he said, look, the Mognitive Meserich sent me to you because he said, you can explain how it is that the Talmud tells us that we have to be thankful, not just for the good things in life, but for the negative things in life as well. And Ravzusha looked at this person and says, I can't understand why in the world the Magid sent you to speak to me? Because truthfully, nothing negative ever happened to me in my entire life. My life is just one huge blessing. Ravzusha lived in a state of constant contentment. Regardless of his circumstances, he was able to be happy. There's a story told that on a hot day, the Rebbe and the Yeshiva needed some air. So he interrupted his studies, opened the door of the Yeshiva, and walked into the village street where he was surrounded by several of his devoted students. Across the street, the Rebbe and his students noticed Yuckel, the water carrier. As usual, Yuckel had a very heavy pole that was draped across his shoulders, two huge pales of water, hung down from the pole, and as Yuckel walked through the village street, the water in the pale slushed from side to side. Yuckel was complaining, not so softly either, as he made his way through the town. Say, Yuckel, my friend, the Rebbe hollered from the cross the street. How are you today? Oy, Rebbe, not so good. My shoulders, they ache from carrying this water year after year. I can't even count the years I've been schlepping water. And my children? You shouldn't know from it. Not one of them wants to go into the family business. They're all too busy studying Torah and the holy books. They have no time to help me. And my wife? Oy, she nudges me to do this and to do that. As soon as I get home, she's after me to do one thing or another. Oy, Rebbe, not so good, not so good. Blessings to you, my brother. Blessings to you, the Rebbe shouted after him. And the Rebbe's students intoned the same phrase. Blessings to you, blessings to you. Time passed perhaps a few weeks, and once more the Rebbe opened the door to the Yeshiva so that he and his devoted students could take in some fresh air. And what do you know? But who was across the street? Just as that moment, yockel the water carrier. Shalom aleichem, yockel. May peace be with you. How are you today? Asked the Rebbe. You know, Rebbe, not so bad. Not so bad. You know, my shoulders, they serve me well and continue to do so. They're strong. And as a result, I can bring water to all the people of our village. And my children, the Holy One, blessed be He, has blessed them all with bright and inquisitive minds. They're bringing me such nacha, such pride and joy from their studies. Their knowledge fuels my soul. And my dear wife of so many years, if not for her asking me to do things around our house, I wouldn't know how much she needed me. She does need me. And I need her. Rebbe, I am so blessed. My life is blessed. And thank you for asking. Borach Hashem, praise to God. The students gathered around the Rebbe, rushing to ask Him if this was the same yockel. The one who just weeks before had been so miserable. Yes, this is yockel the water carrier, said the Rebbe. Only this time, He comes to see His service, His burdens as a blessing. Everything in life can be reframed and understood in a positive light. One more story. There was once a man named Shlomo. Everyone in town knew Shlomo by the beautiful, beautiful coat that he had made. He wore the coat everywhere. He wore it in his house. He wore it when he was walking along on the road. When he went shopping, when he went to work, everywhere he went, he wore his beautiful coat. He just loved it. Then one day he noticed that the sleeves were starting to fray and the ends were getting really, really ratty. The coat looked horrible. At first, Shlomo didn't know what to do. He loved his coat so very much, he couldn't imagine getting rid of it. But fortunately, Shlomo was a tailor and he had a great idea. He went home and took out his scissors and he cut and he stitched and he snipped and he sewed and suddenly he had a most beautiful jacket, the most beautiful jacket you've ever seen. Now it was a little bit shorter than the coat certainly, but it was so lovely. And just as he'd worn the coat everywhere, he now wore his jacket everywhere. When he went shopping, when he went to work, but as it happened before, over time, the jacket started to get horribly, horribly worn. Now the sleeves had horrible tears and Shlomo knew that there was nothing he could do to fix them. There were also holes at the bottom of the jacket. Once again, at first, he didn't know what to do. Fortunately Shlomo remembered what he had done the last time. So he cut and he stitched and he snipped and he sewed and suddenly he had the most wonderful vest you have ever seen. He loved the vest and just as he had worn the coat everywhere and just as he had worn the jacket everywhere, he wore the vest everywhere as well. People seeing him walking down the street would recognize him immediately. It could only be Shlomo wearing that beautiful vest, but again, as it happened before, over time, the garment began to fray and wear out. Shlomo had spilled some food on it and he couldn't get it cleaned. It was a disaster. So he took out his scissors and he cut and he stitched and he snipped and he sewed and guess what? He made the most wonderful tie. And like the other beautiful things that he had made before, he wore this tie everywhere. He loved the tie so much that he even wore it to sleep. But again, over time, the tie too started to fall apart. This time Shlomo truly didn't know what to do. Already, he made a coat into a jacket and a jacket into a vest and a vest into a tie. And he looked around his workshop and he took out his scissors and he began to cut and stitch and he snipped and he sewed and he used the fabric from the old tie to make a button. Next he took the button and sewed it onto a brand new coat. Right where he would always be able to look at it. To Shlomo it would serve as a constant reminder of his wonderful coat, jacket, vest and tie. After that, every time someone saw Shlomo walking down the street, he or she too would be reminded of something. You can always take something out of nothing. You can always make something out of nothing. And what is unsightly to one person may be another person's treasure. Now there are several things that we can do to help establish a strong foundation for our lives that will help us maintain our equilibrium in the face of stresses and anxieties. One is the critical importance of self-esteem. We are a coin of Lublin, the famous Hasidic master taught that not only do we have to believe in God, but we must believe in ourselves as well. We were created in the image of God. We have a divine soul with infinite spiritual worth. And that should help each of us to feel that we are something important. The Mishnah in Sanhedrin chapter 4, Mishnah 5 says the following. Therefore, a single person was created in the world to teach that if you cause a single soul to perish, it's to God as if you cause the entire world to perish. But if you save a single life, it's as if you save the entire world. For a man stamps many coins with one seal, and they all look alike. But the king of kings, the holy one blessed be he, has stamped every man with the seal of the first person, yet none of them is like their fellow. Before the Talmud teaches, each person is obligated to say, for my sake, the world was created. This perspective can help us realize that our life is larger than our pimple. Our life is larger than our failures or our fears. And this kind of healthy self-esteem can get us through tremendous bouts of anxiety, stress, and depression. Another part of a strong foundation in life, an establishing one that can help us stand up in the face of challenges, was explained by Rabbi Dr. Akiba Tatz. Rabbi Tatz wrote the following. Find your path of self-actualization, what you should be doing in life. When our soul feels that it is moving productively in life, stresses become less stressful. Rabbi Shem Shun Rafaal Hirsch noted that the Hebrew word for growth, samayach, is similar to the word for happiness, samayach. And that's because we are most fulfilled and most happy when we are growing as people, when we're growing intellectually, when we're growing emotionally, when we're growing spiritually, when we're growing in our relationships with other people and with God, when we're growing in our character traits, when we're growing we are happy. That growth itself produces happiness and fulfillment and contentment. And it's that foundation of contentment and happiness that is able to stand us up in the face of the challenges and stresses and anxieties and worries of life. We know that in the beginning of creation, God put us in God-aidan, God put the human beings in God-aidan. A God is a garden, a garden is a place of growth. That's what we were put in because that's what we're supposed to do, we're supposed to grow. And the word aidan means delight or pleasure. Because ultimately the greatest pleasure, the greatest delight is growing. And when this is the big picture of our lives, when we're growing and we're focused on growing, worries and stresses don't easily wear us down. Rabbi Tatz writes the following, while the energy of creativity is flowing, depression and despair are impossible. The spiritual root of depression is lack of growth in the personality. When time ticks away and nothing new is being built, when all is static, the soul feels the cold hand of death. The cure for depression is activity, at first any purposeful activity. Leading as soon as possible to activity of the soul. Rev Cook, the first chief rabbi of the modern state of Israel, writes in his Orotah Chuvah, the Lights of Repentance, that Chuvah repentance, or returning really, returning to who we could be, that Chuvah is the life impulse of growth and self-actualization. That's what Chuvah is. Chuvah is not simply repenting of our sins. Chuvah is embracing a life of growth and self-actualization. And while optimally he says that this is spiritual, he writes that any positive change is a good place to start. Clean your garage. That's growth. That's improvement. Lose weight. Begin an exercise program. Get busy. Get working. These are the ways to overcome a life of inertia, a life of static. And it's that static and that inertia that depresses us. The Talmud says in the Dharim, 49b, great is work in that it dignifies its owner. In Psalm 128 verse 2, it says, if you will eat the fruit of your hands, praised are you and good will be yours. And finally for tonight, a third way of building a solid personal foundation that can stand us up in the face of stress is to cultivate bitachon. Bitachon is not Hebrew for bitcoin. Bitachon refers to having trust in God. Stresses often flow from an assumption that we are the author of our own successes and failures. We come to believe that it all depends on me, my decisions, my talents, my actions. The truth is that we are not in total control of everything that happens in our lives. Our choices do make a difference. But we don't run the show. We don't determine what ultimately happens in life. If we assume that everything that happens is under our control, we will have a lot to worry about. And we will feel overwhelmed by life. According to Rabbeno Bachaya and others, bitachon is the realization that God is in total control of everything and that nothing happens by chance. And the more we focus on this truth, the more peace of mind we will have in life. Not only does God control everything, God loves us and God wants the best for us. We need to try in life, we need to exercise initiative. But the results are determined by God. Again as it says in Psalm 55, cast your burden upon Hashem. He will sustain you. There's a young man who grew up here in Toronto who is today doing cutting-edge research in the interface between psychology and spirituality. And he says that his work in this area grew out of an experience during his sophomore year at college. He says he was feeling very anxious about academic stresses and had very, very difficult times falling asleep at night. So he spoke with a rabbi, who we study Torah with each week, if he should see a psychologist. Instead, the rabbi handed him a book called Chovot Halavovos, duties of the mind, sometimes translated duties of the heart, an 11th century classic in Jewish spirituality. And the rabbi said to David Rosmarin, today Dr. David Rosmarin, read this for 10 to 15 minutes each night. Rosmarin took the rabbi's advice. Six weeks later, he was feeling a lot better and was able to sleep. And the chapter that the rabbi asked him to study was the chapter on pithachom, the chapter on cultivating trust in God. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov famously wrote, kol ha'ulam kulo geshar tsarmiyod. The entire world is a very narrow bridge. The main thing is not to be afraid. We know that Rabbi Akiva was one of our greatest sages. And one day the Talmud says in Tractate Brachot 6db, he went to try to stay over in a town in a village, and he was refused lodging in the village. He had to go sleep in the forest, and he had with him a candle, a rooster, and a donkey. Unfortunately, everything went wrong. But each time something went wrong, he would say, everything that God does is for the best. When he got thrown out of the village, everything God does is for the best. When the wind blew out his candle and he couldn't see anymore, everything God does is for the best. When his rooster was eaten by an animal, everything God does is for the best. When his donkey ran away, everything God does is for the best. He woke up in the morning and he discovered that that town that he wanted to stay in was ransacked by these horrible army of people that either killed everyone or took them prisoner. And he recognized that had he been sleeping there that night, that would have been his fate. And if his candle was lit all night long, they would have seen him and captured him where he was sleeping in the forest. If his rooster was with him, it would have made noises and that would have alerted the people, the soldiers, to come and get him as well. And the same as if his donkey had been braying. Rabbi Kiva understood that God runs the world and that God has his best interests in mind. And Dr. Abraham Twersky explained that he learned about Bitachon from a young woman who was in a recovery program from alcoholism and drug addiction. And this woman shared with him the following. She said, Rabbi, I am a fanatic, a rabid fan of the New York Jets, the football team. And I will never miss a game. One weekend I had to be away and I asked a friend of mine to record the game for me on her VCR. When I returned, she gave me the tape and said, by the way, the Jets won. And this woman told Dr. Twersky, I began watching the game. And I was horrified by the terrible performance of the Jets. They were playing terribly. By half time, they were 20 points behind. Under other circumstances, I would have been a nervous wreck, anxious and hitting the refrigerator for sweets to settle my nerves. But this time I was perfectly calm because I knew they were going to win. When I entered the recovery program, I made a conscious decision to turn my life over to the will of God. I know that eventually it will all turn out all right because God is in charge of my life. Sometimes I'm 20 points behind at half time. But I don't panic because I know that I am ultimately going to win.