The ordinary guy
Not so long ago, public interest was aroused by a new idea,
the use of the polygraph (lie detector) for investigating
public figures. Figuring only marginally in the media
coverage of the issue was a very interesting piece of
information: At every polygraph station where an individual
is being tested, a psychologist must be on hand. Why?
Polygraph methodology requires that before the defendant is
interrogated for his alleged crime, he must be interrogated
on personal issues. At the beginning of the interrogation he
is asked all sorts of questions about his personal affairs,
to find out how the polygraph will react when he tells the
truth, and to compare this with the way the polygraph reacts
when he tells an untruth. Only after it has been proven that
the polygraph is capable of determining when he is lying, are
they able to begin investigating the real issues.
What this means is that a person is forced at the outset of
his interrogation to confront his own character, his own
values and moral behavior, his particular traits of
personality, and so on, and all of these sincerely and
without bias. He has no choice of evading or of concealing
any personal aspect of the truth (after all the lie detector
will immediately register that he is lying!). In other words,
the individual is forced to confront himself, his own inner
world at every level and dimension. This is something that
most human beings never do, not even once in their whole
lives
A confrontation of this nature can easily bring the ordinary
guy -- who has spent his whole life escaping or at least
ignoring his inner world -- to a profound crisis. Foreseeing
this eventuality, the law requires a psychologist to be on
hand during every polygraph test, to help the individual
through his crisis of inner confrontation and to prevent his
mental breakdown.
The process we have just described is not exactly surprising
to anyone aware of the internal workings of the human
personality. There are people who investigate the inner human
life forces on a regular basis. So writes HaRav Shlomo Wolbe,
(Alei Shor Sec. 1, p. 136): "The majority of human
beings are completely oblivious to this inner world (of their
own selves). Most human beings live their lives directed
toward the external world, and they are afraid to turn the
direction of their lives inward, towards themselves, for even
but a moment, mainly out of recoil from this hidden and alien
world of themselves!"
Now lehavdil, if we can distinguish for a moment
between sacred and profane, between light and darkness, it
seems obvious that every single Jew who walks the path of
Torah, who involves himself in Hashem's service, is doing
just exactly this -- nonstop. He is involved constantly in
the attempt to be more fully aware of his inner world with
all of its multiple layers, of his particular traits, natural
tendencies, biases, the specific structure of his
personality, his own behavioral tendencies, and much more.
This type of awareness is the very root of the moral effort
toward the repair and refinement of character.
Getting to know your inner life is basic and axiomatic. Every
sefer mussar assumes this approach. (See Alei Shor
sec. 1, introduction to Gate 3.) In a word: The road to
self-improvement begins at self-knowledge, i.e. understanding
all layers of the vital inner forces that make up a human
being.
Now if this is true, it means that every Jew who has ever
walked through the door of moral effort, who has ever labored
over his middos, would be very glad to be tested by
the polygraph machine. He would be eager to test how far he
had gotten, how deep he had reached, in his understanding of
his own inner world. And the psychologist on hand, ready and
waiting, would not be necessary.
On Philosophers and Psychologists
For centuries philosophers and psychologists have been trying
to understand the inner mental forces that make up a human
being. Still, the unknown exceeds the known, there is more
mystery than knowledge.
For example: 2500 years ago Aristotle conceived of the notion
of "catharsis," i.e. emotional release and relief, in an
effort to describe the inner life. Aristotle claimed that
viewing violent events on stage provides relief for a
person's own feelings of violence: Viewing and connecting
with a staged violent event brings out and liberates a
person's emotions, thereby causing his routine, day to day
behavior, to become less violent. In the course of time other
opinions arose, including many different from Aristotle,
claiming that viewing violent happenings actually has the
opposite effect; that it actually reinforces an individual's
violent tendencies.
The controversy between these two basic approaches has
continued, and has never been resolved in the Western world.
Since no clear decision was reached for or against either of
these theories, viewing scenes of violence is not perceived
as an obviously dangerous activity.
It was only about thirty years ago that this age-old
controversy began to move toward a resolution, as the result
of a series of research efforts and experiments. One of these
(Berkowitz, 1964) attempted to test -- using controlled
laboratory conditions -- the relationship between viewing
violent movies and behaving in a violent manner. Berkowitz
found a clear and obvious correlation: The more that a
subject identified with the violent happenings he viewed, the
more violently he responded to his environment.
In his essay on this topic, Berkowitz notes other experiments
conducted by other researchers regarding the influence of
viewing scenes of violence upon children. Here too the
correlation was found to be evident and obvious. Young
children who viewed cartoons (!) containing violence,
exhibited excessively aggressive responses toward other
children at playtime, even during games of cars or blocks.
Furthermore, little children tended to imitate the specific
forms of the violence that they had seen.
Today laboratory experiments are no longer necessary in order
to prove this point. Practical experiments have been proving
it more clearly than anything else: Viewing violence causes
an individual to behave in a violent manner. Watching
television, movies , computer games, and the like that
contain violence reinforces and stimulates violence to a
significant extent at every age level and in every social
class. True, the age old argument has been resolved, but it
has been resolved by painful reality, by a soaring rate of
violence that has hit unprecedented heights. All of humanity
is today paying the price for this lack of insight into the
mental processes, the profound inner forces that motivate a
human being.
Lehavdil to distinguish, again, between sacred and
profane, between light and darkness, it would seem that every
Torah Jew is aware of this process. The Jewish perspective on
this topic is quite clear: Viewing any event (positive or
negative) leaves a powerful and profound impression, and to
some extent, takes possession of one's mental life. Therefore
viewing scenes of violence allows images of violence to
penetrate into a person's mental space. The result is
excessively violent behavior.
In the Torah it says (Bamidbar 15:39): "Do not stray
after your hearts and after your eyes." Rashi comments: "The
eye sees and the heart covets and the body does the deeds."
The source for Rashi's words is in the Midrash (Bamidbar
Rabba 16:6). The gemora explains (Sanhedrin
45): "The urge for evil does not rule except over what
the eyes see."
In Ibn Ezra we find (Devorim 23:14): "Everything that
is seen by the eyes that is disgusting, breeds a disgusting
image within the mind." Hence the prohibition (Megilla
28) against looking at the form or image of an evil
person, which the Maharal explains as follows (Nesivos
Olam, Nesiv Hatzedokoh 83): "For if he gazes upon him
then his eyes will be connected with evil and therefore it is
forbidden to look at an evil person." The Zohar writes
(Tetzave 18:1): "It is forbidden to look in the face
of someone who is prone to rage because by doing this he
becomes actually immersed within him." (The reverse is true
as well. Looking at the forms of kedusha such as
tzitzis or the image of a tzaddik connects with
kedusha and this too influences behavior.)
These things are all almost self-evident and obvious and well
known to every Jew
A further example: For many years psychology has been
investigating and researching the subject of rage and
aggressive behavior. In spite of this, psychologists have not
succeeded in uncovering the root of this phenomenon, the
cause of it, the source of aggression that lies in the inner
mental and emotional forces. All that psychological theory
has done is to analyze the circumstances under which a person
responds with rage and aggression. (Cognitive theory claims
that rage is a conscious reaction towards a society that the
individual feels is in conflict with him. Psycho- social
theory claims that rage is a response to frustrations such as
inadequate reward. Psychoanalytical theory claims that rage
is either an instinctive urge that demands release or a lack
of balance between the id and the superego.) Accordingly,
every theory offers to deal with the circumstances that cause
the individual to react with rage, rather than dealing with
the root of rage, concealed deep within the inner world,
within the forces that animate a human being -- and hidden
from the sight of psychology.
Dealing with rage in this way is called treating the symptoms
instead of the disease; confronting the effects of the
problem rather than the problem itself (like perhaps treating
an infection with a pain killer).
Lehavdil again, between light and darkness, every
Jew who has ever stood at the gate of moral effort and toil,
of tikun hamiddos, has seen immediately what
psychology has failed to see. It is written all over -- in
every sefer mussar, in every book that ever offered
to guide a Jew in Hashem's service: The root of rage, within
the forces of mind and emotion, is arrogance. Meaning:
whoever is infected with arrogance expects everyone to do
what he thinks they should do. The moment that things occur
against his wishes, he responds with rage.
Rabbenu Chaim Vital's Shaarei Kedusha (Sec. 1, Gate 2)
explains it in this way: "It is the element of fire from
which arrogance is derived and it includes rage because, as a
result of arrogance, a person works himself into a rage when
his will is not done. Whereas if he were humble of spirit and
aware of his own shortcomings, he would not bring himself to
rage at all. We find then that arrogance and rage are one and
the same trait." Which means that your simple average Torah
Jew knows how you treat rage at its roots: distance yourself
from arrogance and cultivate humility of spirit. And there
are many more such examples!
The Practical Difference
We have arrived at some very simple and basic points. The
theoretical conclusions that philosophy and psychology have
reached regarding the forces of mind and emotion, are not
useful to us. They do not have the tools to get to the bottom
of it, to the depths of the human mind. And so they grope in
the dark, in terms of any sort of real understanding of the
forces that are at work within a human being.
On the other hand, the need to cleave, absolutely and without
reservation, to the truths that Chazal have revealed to us,
seems more obvious than ever. Chachmei hamussar, the
sages of avodas Hashem, our leaders and teachers in
the field of spiritual growth, have gone much deeper, toward
real and profound knowledge of the workings of the human
mind. HaRav Shlomo Wolbe, writes (Alei Shor Sec. 2, p.
140): "Mussar is deep wisdom. It is the Torah's own
path towards self-awareness and self- education. It is built
upon a knowledge of the inner forces of mind and emotion that
the Torah itself teaches us. Mussar is the Torah's
psychology."
It is important to note that we refer here only to
theoretical psychology. We refer neither to research
psychology nor to applied psychology. While theoretical
psychology attempts to decipher the forces of mind and
emotion, applied psychology is built upon precise hypothesis
and experiment, definition, diagnosis and treatment of
specific behavioral symptoms, and in this respect it is no
different than the medical profession, and it is effective to
the same considerable extent.
If we were to make use of the conclusions that philosophy and
theoretical psychology have drawn in the areas of education
and socialization, we would have, in the best case, only
partial and unstable solutions (such as the treatment of rage
and aggression). In the less than optimal conditions, we have
social devastation and disaster -- as in the culturally
accepted practice of viewing violence.
HaRav Eliahu Dessler zt"l explains as follows
(Michtav MeiEliahu Sec. 3, p. 361, and cited also in
Mesilas Chaim beChinuch by HaRav Chaim Friedlander):
"How much must one exercise caution in everything that is
related to innovation by researchers in the areas of
psychology and education. One must examine thoroughly to
determine that such an innovation bears no contradiction to
the words of Chazal or of the rishonim or of any of
the Jewish minhagim that are in themselves Torah. If
there is any sort of contradiction, one must throw out all of
their filthy innovations!"
Regarding a specific example, Rav Dessler writes (ibid.):
"They reason that we must develop the children's
independence, and this is a rather major error. It is not
independence that they must develop but submissiveness. Even
if we develop the child's submissiveness and humility, he
will learn his own deadly arrogance. But to teach him `I am
important and nothing else' is the law of Edom, the law of
murder and robbery."
It seems necessary to examine a bit of what's going on in the
world on the issues of education, just so that we can be
grateful for the profound knowledge that we have been given,
and for the effective tools that we have been given for
dealing with our inner life. We can also give thanks to
Hashem yisborach, ". . . for having separated us from
those who err and for having given us the Torah of truth and
for having implanted within us everlasting life."
