Wednesday, August 13, 2014

From The Depths

לזכות רבי אברהם יצחק בן אסתר לברכה והצלחה בכל מעשי ידיו

Interesting!:-)

Every tfilla must emanate from the depths of your soul and not just be external and lip-service [called in Hebrew מס שפתיים - Lip tax. So many taxes....]. But in tehillim there is only one perek that is explicity from the מעמקים - the depths, namely שיר המעלות ממעמקים קראתיך השם. Why is this perek different?

The answer [as is often the answer to questions of this sort] is to look at the context of the perek. It is all about tshuva. אם עוונות תשמור, כי עמך הסליחה. When we do tshuva, we don't merely uproot the actual sin but try to get to the root of the sin. What feelings caused us behave in this manner? What was the trigger? What is at the root of those feelings? What would have been a better reaction? There is a word for this in English. It is called "Psychotherapy":-). This doesn't mean that one must spend the 250 dollars on a professional who may or may not help [while the client is DEFINTELY helping the therapist in 250 ways...], but that one should peer into his/her own soul and try to get to the roots of deviant behaviors.

Indeed, ממעמקים. Proper tshuva requires depths.

[Maran HaRav Hutner ztz"l]