Journey to Joy

The passuk in Mishlei states, “בְּכָל עֶצֶב יִהְיֶה מוֹתָר” – “In every sadness, there will be profit.” The Baal HaTanya explains that sadness itself has no virtue, except for the profit, which he describes as “the true joy in G-d which follows the justified sadness over one’s sins, with bitterness of soul and a broken heart”.

In other words, sadness over our wrongdoings has a purpose: to bring us closer to G-d and to experience the joy that comes with that closeness. However, the Baal HaTanya reminds us that the feelings of sadness and regret must be experienced at limited, designated times to prevent them from leading to the despair that fuels our yetzer hara.

Today, we enter the fixed time in our calendar designated to be at one with our feelings of sadness and broken-heartedness over the collective condition of our people. Rosh Chodesh Av ushers in a period full of constraints, all designed to give us emotional and physical space to embrace our sadness, regret, challenges, and pain.

This year, our nation doesn’t need reminders to reduce our joy and embrace our pain. We are collectively living it moment-to-moment, working desperately to fake it, push it away, and carry on for the sake of our well-being and our loved ones.

My rebbe, Rav Michel Twerski of Milwaukee, often reminds his community of this idea: sadness, despair, and regret are healthy human emotions but only when contained and used for a purpose. He encourages us to take a short time each day to focus on these feelings, give them space, and then believe that “G-d pardons abundantly.” With this belief, we can move from sadness to joy – the true joy that comes from a healthy and engaged relationship with Hashem.

On a national level, the month of Av is our collective time to dwell, for a limited time, in the pain and sadness that is real and palpable, yet purposeful. We know that the month of Av is a step in the journey towards Elul, the time of our greatest access to Hashem, and then to Tishrei, where we will celebrate and bask in the glory of our closeness. Perhaps we can experience our current, incredibly challenging reality in that context – knowing that this period of sadness, too, will ultimately lead to profit: the true joy that comes from oneness with G-d, with ourselves, and with each other.