Daily Tanya Chapter 26 Part 3: How to rid oneself from melancholiness due to guilt of one’s spiritual failures (Monday, 22nd Shevat)

22^nd Shevat

1. How to rid oneself from melancholiness due to guilt of one’s spiritual failures:

• The above advice to rejoice during times of sadness due to suffering only holds true with regards to physical suffering. However, regarding the sadness that can result from spiritual downfalls and struggles that one may have, this requires a different type of advice in order to rid one’s soul of this consequent sadness.
• Negation of sadness during times of Avodas Hashem: It goes without saying that during times of service of G-d, in which one is required to serve G-d with joy and gladness of heart, that there is no room for this sadness which relates to one’s spiritual state, but furthermore even during one’s mundane and day-to-day activity there is no room for this sadness.
• Negation of sadness or spiritual guilt during hours of mundane activity: If during one’s day-to-day mundane activities one is overcome with feelings of sadness and depression and worry because of one’s spiritual state, one should know that in truth these feelings are coming from the evil inclination.
• The guilt and sadness comes from the evil inclination to make the person succumb to his lusts: The evil inclination is attempting to cause the person to later succumb to his lusts and fall to sin as a result of his melancholy state, and hence is doing whatever he can to make him feel sad, including to make him feel sad due to his spiritual failures. The proof for this is because in order to experience true and real feelings of guilt and remorse for sinning, the person must contemplate and arouse love for G-d, or fear of G-d. Certainly, one did not contemplate and arouse love or fear for G-d in the middle of his day-to-day business, and hence the fact that these feelings of guilt and sadness are showing up instinctively without any stimulation is a sign that it is coming from the evil inclination.

2. The message to tell oneself to get rid of the spiritual sadness and guilt:

• Whether the sadness and guilt are being felt by the person during his service of G-d, such as Torah study or prayer, and whether it is being felt during other times in which one is not serving G-d he should tell himself the following message:
• Now is not the time; Establishing a time for such feelings: Now is not the time for feeling true regret and sadness and broken heartedness for sins, including not even for severe sins heaven forbid. Rather, for this we need to establish a set and auspicious time, to arouse these feelings of regret and remorse, through first contemplating the greatness of G-d whom one has sinned against. This contemplation of G-d’s greatness is necessary in order so one’s heart become truly broken with a true bitterness and broken heartedness, as explained elsewhere the time that is proper for such an exercise.
• Experiencing joy after the broken heartedness: Even during these established times for feeling true remorse and broken heartedness for one’s sins, one must immediately afterwards completely remove the sadness from his heart [and bring himself to experience joy], through believing with an absolute faith that G-d has forgiven his sin, as G-d is great in His forgiveness. This is the true joy in one’s connection to G-d that is achieved after the sadness that results from the sin, as explained above.