My rebbe, Rav Yaakov Weinberg zt”l, rosh yeshivah of Ner Israel Rabbinical College, urged us to cry when davening on Yom Kippur, even if tears could be generated only by focusing on sad thoughts. Once we begin to cry, he said, we could redirect our tears to the teshuvah process. For years those tears were elusive, just as they were when praying at the Kotel or when reciting kinos on Tishah B’Av. It was only when I had children that I found my tears when praying for their well-being; but I wonder whether those tears are actually about G-d, or only about my children. In any event, I still struggle to transform my tears into a teshuvah expression of remorse.
What role, if any, should emotions play in our avodas Hashem? I understand Chassidism to be a route to integrate emotions into religion, and perhaps the growth of neo-Chassidism reflects this yearning. But for those of us who have yet to imbue our mitzvah observance with deep feelings, we may compensate by living a Judaism built upon particularly powerful religious beliefs and intensive Torah study. But others are left spiritually wanting, keeping mitzvos and learning Torah but nurturing their primary connection to Torah Judaism built almost exclusively via social and cultural satisfaction.
Notwithstanding Rav Weinberg’s Yom Kippur advice, the emotional treasure that he and others nurtured was not a significant part of our yeshivah education. Both in our formal education and in the years thereafter, we are taught, admonished and cajoled into adopting behavior and thoughts guided by Torah and Chazal, but feelings are far less addressed, if at all. Perhaps we are expected to learn religious emotions by example, but it is on only rare occasions that we can observe others’ inner feelings. Moreover, learning emotions by example alone does not allow for examining, understanding and mastering our own personal emotional makeup. We tend to spend even less time on the emotional dimensions of our spiritual development.
Perhaps my experience is unique, but assuming it is not, why do we allow this to occur, and at what cost?
Inattention to the Profundity of Emotions
Obsession with detail is a central characteristic of Orthodox Judaism, as reflected in both halachic observance and Torah study. Halachic precision is evident in all that we do—from calculating the exact moment we welcome Shabbos to consuming the exact shiurim for matzah and maror at the Seder. Not only do we painstakingly measure the matzah and maror, but we must also focus on our body’s position while eating due to the obligation to recline while consuming some of the obligatory foods.
Similarly, Torah study involves paying excruciatingly close attention to detail. We analyze the words and linguistic patterns of Tanach, as well as those of seminal texts such as Rambam’s writing, enabling us to derive critical insights and deeper understanding. We vigorously debate the finest distinctions in Talmudic hypotheses, irrespective of their relevance to pesak (practical halachic consequences). The rigor of Talmudic discourse reflects the recognition that fine distinctions in thought and theory have spiritual significance and thus inform critical thinking and analysis.
By contrast, we rarely pay such attention to the emotional dimensions of avodas Hashem. Most of us wholly overlook the depth and complexity of human feelings.
That is not to say that we are cold and callous or that we suppress our feelings. Even those who describe themselves as “kalte Litvaks,” extend their dispassion only to religious engagement. We all otherwise experience intense emotions such as love toward family members or hostility toward those who threaten us. We feel grateful when receiving a gift or a compliment, and can, at times, get teary-eyed when hearing a particularly poignant story. We feel angry and afraid, confident and insecure. At times we care deeply for others, while other times we feel self-centered. We relish impassioned disputes centering on Torah study and, l’havdil, enjoy fiery debates regarding politics or sports.
But oftentimes we fail to employ the range of our emotions in our Torah observance. We interact with Hashem through prose, not poetry, and opt to care for the needy by writing a check rather than by actually visiting one in need and experiencing the emotional impact of the visit. We may celebrate the concept of ruchniyus, but not rejoice in its music. We ignore both the significant impact emotions should have on our religious development and the significant impact that our religious experience should have on our emotions.
Particularly during the Yamim Noraim many become riddled with unhealthy guilt, mistakenly believing they are thereby satisfying the teshuvah obligation to feel remorse or charatah.
Curiously, we often fail to infuse emotions even into those mitzvos that actually demand one to feel a particular emotion and are, by their very terms, an obligation to be emotional. There are mitzvos to love, to fear, to mourn and to be joyous. But unlike other mitzvos where we define terms and calculate exact requirements, we rarely examine how an “obligatory feeling” is to be gauged or measured. For example, what does the obligatory simchah on a yom tov feel like, and what is the minimum degree of joy one must feel to fulfill the obligation?
And though many of us acknowledge our difficulty in attaining even a threshold degree of emotion regarding certain of these obligations of the heart, we are rarely taught, nor do we press to learn, how to attain these elusive feelings.
For example, we pay close attention to the numerous practices and restrictions of Tishah B’Av and its preceding Three Weeks, and during Elul, we study the detailed process of repentance as presented in Rambam’s Hilchos Teshuvah or Rabbeinu Yonah’s Shaarei Teshuvah. But I suspect that I am not alone in being unsuccessful in capturing the feeling of mourning that is the essence of Tishah B’Av or the pangs of tearful remorse that should be intensely felt on Yom Kippur.
The Conspicuous Role of Feelings in Judaism
Feelings are addressed in several of the most fundamental mitzvos d’Oraysa (Biblical commandments). For example, premier among mitzvos is the obligation to both love and fear Hashem. We are also commanded to love the convert, to love our friends as ourselves, to not conceal hatred, and to hate immorality. We are commanded to be joyous, b’simchah, when serving Hashem, particularly on the yamim tovim.
Among the Aseres Hadibros, we find the prohibition of lo sachmod, forbidding the coveting of others’ belongings, most often understood as including the obligation to master one’s emotions. And emphasizing the centrality of emotions in spirituality is the Torah’s catch-all religious aspiration, v’halachta b’drachav (Devarim 28:10), our duty to emulate G-d, to the extent that our limited human perception of G-d allows, which includes replicating Hashem’s feelings, as it were, including empathy, mercy and kindness.
Both classic and contemporary sefarim address the significance of feelings in religious growth. And kabbalists, in particular, teach that cultivating emotions within the religious experience is essential to accessing our soul, and that such access is the gateway to serving Hashem.
Why, then, don’t emotions play a more significant role in our religious lives? I cannot be certain, but I can speculate.
Reasons We Marginalize Emotions
Below are four of the many possible explanations for the marginalization of feelings within our community’s religious pursuits:
• A matter of priorities. While appreciating the significance of emotions in religious development, we also recognize that we are restricted by a limited bandwidth. There is only so much time and attention available to focus on religion. Consequently, halachic observance and Torah study, which we understand to be of even greater significance, are prioritized at the expense of a meaningful focus on infusing religiosity with emotion.
• Discomfort. Conceptually we recognize the importance of linking emotions and religious growth, but many of us, particularly men, are simply uncomfortable talking about feelings, and even more so sharing our own. We fear the vulnerability of opening up emotionally to others and suspect that we will appear weak if perceived to be affected by our feelings. In our timidity and cowardness, we therefore forfeit the invaluable benefits of focusing on the role of emotions in the religious experience.
• It could be counterproductive. Elevating emotions in the religious experience can also introduce challenges. In particular, if one emphasizes feelings above other values, the feelings may begin to take priority over the dictates of Torah. For example, emphasizing love as a premier value could result in accepting halachically problematic loving relationships. Similarly, one who elevates empathy above other values may eventually tolerate various halachically problematic behaviors.
• It hurts too much. Some people process tragedy by working through their feelings while others cope by shutting feelings down. Perhaps we fear that if we focused on our feelings the collective communal pain of our golus would be intolerable and so we underemphasize our feelings to avoid, or at least defer, the agony. Through the millennia, sometimes our nation has wept, such as on the rivers of Babylon, after suffering the unspeakable. But sometimes we have stoically stifled our anguish to focus on rebuilding. And sometimes we may react as a dejected child, too angry and hurt to express our true feelings to our father, but too dedicated and in love to abandon him.
Detriments of Disassociating Feelings and Religiosity
If feelings are an essential component of avodas Hashem, their absence is inherently detrimental to our life mission of connecting to Hashem. All mitzvos, including praying, giving charity, hearing the shofar blasts and sitting in a sukkah, are by their very nature spiritual, but their religious impact is surely enhanced when accompanied by intense and authentic feelings. And certainly, a lack of emotion in religious engagement precludes achieving the fervent spiritual passion, often referenced as “hislahavus,” for which many of us yearn.
But there are additional downsides to failing to infuse both religion with emotion and emotion with religion. Below are but two examples.
• By nature, we are emotional beings. Emotions frame our relationships, attitudes and priorities. Overlooking the role of feelings in avodas Hashem and failing to have Torah values cultivate our emotions does not curtail our having feelings; we simply adopt and nurture our emotional persona from other sources. If we do not learn from Chazal how to love and fear, what happiness and joy look like, and how kindness and mercy feel, those and other emotions will, heaven forbid, be imbibed from the corrupt and primitive culture of societal surroundings. We risk having our emotions formed by secular music lyrics, irreverent media personalities and other profane influences. We either envelop ourselves and our youth with the richness, grandeur and excitement of feelings that should and can be generated through Torah and mitzvos, or we cede emotional development to the street.
• Failure to explore and become familiar with the details and nuances of emotions often results in misplaced feelings that can stymie, if not thwart, avodas Hashem. For example, despite their superficial resemblance, remorse and guilt are entirely different emotions. Remorse entails regretting performing an improper deed while guilt entails focusing on oneself. Particularly during the Yamim Noraim many become riddled with unhealthy guilt, mistakenly believing they are thereby satisfying the teshuvah obligation to feel remorse or charatah. Similarly, mournfulness and distress can be appropriate from a Torah perspective, while sadness (atzvus) is not. Clinical depression may be unavoidable, of course, but it is tragic when individuals inappropriately allow themselves to succumb to sadness, an emotion which, like guilt, is counterproductive. Both sadness and guilt can lead one to feel a sense of hopelessness and despair. On the other hand, feelings of remorse and mourning can be purposeful as they can help one internalize painful experiences in a manner that leads to a constructive future. Distinguishing between these and other interrelated emotions, such as fear and terror, disgust and loathing, anger and rage can lead to personal growth.
Finally, however uncomfortable we may be with confronting our feelings, we want to love and we want to be happy. And even more, we want our children to love and to be happy. As Orthodox Jews, it behooves us to learn from Torah sources what love and happiness are really all about, and how they are properly cultivated. We will thereby be better parents, spouses, children and friends. And better Jews.
Moishe Bane, president emeritus of the OU, serves as a contributing editor of Jewish Action.