Rebbe Nachman of Brestlov (1772-1810) is well known today for his teachings on depression based on his own personal struggle. In this text from Likutey Moharan he speaks about מָרָה שְׁחֹרָה morah-shechorah which for our purposes we will define in this text as "gloom" or "the blues" as opposed to clinical depression.
The big idea: In Gd's world sadness still exists. This is a bold and unique teaching from a Hasidic master.
Keep in mind: Nachman is teaching from his own time and his Jewish tradition, e.g. Tanach, Midrash, Talmud, and Kabbalah. He was not a student of modern psychology.
An analogy: Sometimes, when people are happy and dance, they grab someone standing outside [the circle of dancers] who has the blues. Against his will they bring him into the circle of dancers; against his will, they force him to be happy along with them.
It is the same with happiness. When a person is happy, gloom and suffering stand aside.
[Here Nachman will introduce a text from Tanach in order to further prove his point]
This is the concept of “They will attain gladness and joy, as sadness and sighing flee” (Isaiah 35:10). The sadness and sighing flee and run from joy. For at a time of joy, it is the nature of sadness and sighing to stand aside. Yet one actually has to pursue them, and to catch-up with and reach them, in order to specifically introduce them into the joy.
- According to Nachman can sadness be transformed? How?
- Thinking of the "circle dance" example, is happiness contagious? Is this how the blues works?
- In what ways have you seen sadness transformed in your own life?
From The Tormented Master by Art Green
The central issue of [Nachman's] religious life, his constant awareness of the absence of Gd from the ordinary universe of human experience, still unique for a Hasidic master, was to become dominant in the lives of generations of Jews who came after him, most fully so for those who lived through the years of the Holocaust. His struggle, at some points with guilt and thus with his own unworthiness to evoke the presence of God, at other times with doubt, or the absence of God from those lives and moments that did seemingly merit Gd's attention, remain a single struggle. [...]
Nachman not only was a figure who personified the crisis of his age and who fought internally with issues that his contemporaries had not yet learned to articulate, but also [...] was conscious of his role as such a figure and sought the words to assert such a claim for himself.
This is a very popular quote from Nachman. It can be seen all over Jerusalem on bumper stickets, t-shirts, graffiti, and more.
It is a great mitzvah to always be happy, and to make every effort to determinedly keep gloom at bay.