Someone left a message underneath THIS post that really rubbed me up the wrong way:

I have no idea who the person is, what they’ve been through themselves, for sure they were trying to be ‘helpful’, I acknowledge all that.

At the same time, the comment put me in a bad mood after I read it, and it took an hour of hitbodedut this morning to really figure out why that was.

Here’s the response I posted up, first of, so I don’t have to repeat myself pointlessly:

For some reason, this comment really rubbed me up the wrong way.

I didn’t want to respond before I did some hitbodedut on it, to figure out why it got that reaction, but now I have got a bit more clarity.

First of all, at this stage, anyone who is inspired by ‘Rabbi Shneor Zalman’ instantly puts me on the alert, that there is something not so authentic going on.

Chabad is VERY big on appearances, nice slogans, slick PR. The real inner work on the middot it non-existant. In fact, Chabad teaches that a Jew is part of God and so ‘perfect’ in everything they do. Without getting into the philosophy here, that’s clearly hugely problematic, on so many levels.

So, that was one niggle. Another niggle was this sentence: “Thanks to a long lasting tiny humble broken hearted ‘baruch HaShem’.”

There is for sure a time and place to say ‘Baruch Hashem’, but sometimes, God is sending hard circumstances and feelings as signposts and clues, to lead us out of the company and influence of some very negative people and thought processes and situations.

Just saying ‘Baruch Hashem’ and leaving it at that can mean a person is totally missing the signposts God is sending them, for how to really serve Him joyfully, as the authentic ‘them’, and not pulled down and misled by a million, billion wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Our world is shaped by narcs.

That’s the sad reality.

And just saying ‘Baruch Hashem’ is not going to make that go away, at least in our dalet amot.

As a temporary measure to get someone out of a bad mood, it can be very helpful. But it’s one tool in the box, and quite a limited one. Not ‘the answer’.

==

But the deeper point here is how ‘fake emuna’ responses like just repeating ‘Baruch Hashem’ like a robot can often do more harm than good, long term.

If people are touting this as the best response to a bad day, they are missing the mark by a long, long way. When I wrote that post, I hadn’t yet got the clarity that my ‘bad day’ was being fuelled by a whole bunch of bullies and draining people in my environment.

It’s taken me weeks and weeks of intense hitbodedut and introspection to really dig out what’s been going on.

Now that I’ve done that, or at least, begun the process of doing that, I am starting to feel way, way better.

Why?

Because that clarity has led to a series of actions and sincere teshuva and new understandings, that have literally transformed the whole picture.

Not least, I have stopped making it a ‘mitzvah’ to act like a co-dependent doormat for any bully with a sob story who is just looking for the next ‘audience’ for their pity party and inflated expectations of what other people ‘owe them’.

==

I know that sounds harsh.

Honestly, it is quite harsh.

But, King Solomon taught there is a time to just roll over and say ‘Baruch Hashem’ while the punches continue to rain down on you – and there is also a time when you stand back up, and start to fight back.

There is a time for ‘peace’, and there is a time for ‘war’ – and at least for me, I am moving out of the ‘peace at any price’ paradigm into standing up for myself, and the basic right to be treated appropriately.

==

All this is so nuanced.

Clearly, what I just wrote above could also be twisted and abused to terrorise children, dependents and other vulnerable people.

This is exactly the path a ‘victim’ treads to become a yucky bully themselves – unless they are seriously committed to regular, brutally honest introspection, aka an hour a day of hitbodedut.

Without an hour of hitbodedut, it’s very, very hard to maintain the balance, between being bullied yourself, and becoming the next bully.

==

But to return to the main theme of this post, i.e. fake emuna, and how it’s so often wheeled out as a spiritual response to our own negative and difficult emotions.

This is a HUGE problem, especially in the fake Anglo world, where ‘appearances’ is really all that matters.

Fake emuna teaches that you push your genuine feelings down, ignore what your inner child and soul are screaming at you – and just say ‘Baruch Hashem’.

Genuine emuna, as taught by Rebbe Nachman, is where you feel your pain, in all its gory dimensions, for an hour a day in hitbodedut.

You don’t just pretend like Baruch Hashem, my friend really just hurt my feelings very badly again… Or, Baruch Hashem, every interaction I have with that sibling, even the smallest, just leaves me feeling drained and unhappy and half-bonkers…

You go into hitbodedut, and you ask God to try to figure it out.

WHY am I feeling so hurt by that friend and confused about my reactions? Is is really my problem, my yetzer, or is something else also going on, here?

==

Usually, the answer comes back that there is a ‘joint problem’, a joint issue occurring.

Because there is no such thing as a dispute where only one person is 100% right all the time, and the other one is 100% wrong.

Even with my issues with The Vaccinator, I admit I have not always acted the way I would have liked to, especially when I was much younger and didn’t understand the dynamics of what was really playing out.

If I’d known I was dealing with a narc back then, I probably could have side-stepped a lot of the problems being caused in a more gentle way.

As it was, I had periodic ‘blow ups’ where I just couldn’t take it any more, and also lashed out.

==

Point is: hitbodedut, if it’s done regularly, and with a true desire to fix what’s broken, with God’s help, encourages a person to understand how much they are contributing to their own negative circumstances and ‘bad days’.

And to deal with those bad middot honestly and compassionately.

But then, after that stage is over, it also enables a person to understand hey, even with me owning up to my part in this, there is STILL a lot of stuff on the other side of the equation that needs to be addressed.

==

This is the stage where you get to the ‘make or break’ point, where you have to try and have it out with the other person.

And their reaction to this will take you forward to the next stage of clarity, and point the direction to how best to act and react going forward.

==

You can say ‘Baruch Hashem’ for a 100 years with an unfixable narc, but at some point, you have to make a decision if being used as their doormat and emotional punch-bag is worth it.

Some people, particularly spouses, may still hang in there, especially if they have small children to raise.

Others will finally have enough, and decide the message God is giving them is that they have served their sentence, and can finally ‘get out of jail’.

It’s very, very individual, it’s very, very nuanced, and it usually plays out over years and years and years, of trying to make something that is very broken, work.

At least, work enough, that you don’t end up with killer stress levels, heart attacks, clinical depression, etc, because you are being used as a doormat and emotional punch-bag by somebody else, who can’t or won’t admit that they are doing what they are doing, to others.

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So, this is where I’ve got to for myself, currently, to the ‘time of war’ against the bullies in my own dalet amot.

Even here, I have learned the hard way that the best way of promoting the ‘war’ is simply to fade out of the picture, and not to try and challenge these people with their bad middot and behavior.

They are narcs, after all, ‘pretend-perfect’ people who can’t do anything wrong, and who just project all their own bad middot on to everyone else.

And who like to give big speeches about ‘just having emuna’ when you’re being bullied and dragged down by them…

==

Real life is messy, it’s sometimes very uncomfortable.

It’s not full of golden ‘tzaddikim’ and ‘tzaddikesses’ who are pretend-perfect and have no bad middot.

If you don’t like that – go find something on the Chabad website that appeals to you more.

Breslov is about getting real, and dealing with your real self, warts n’ all, with Hashem’s help.

It’s a process that takes 120 years – at least.

And it encompasses way, way more than just saying ‘Baruch Hashem’ like a robot, when your heart is full of pain and your head is full of confusion.