Getting Our Hearts and Minds Aligned

Hi friends,

A couple of weeks ago, I sent out a newsletter about the frustration we feel when we act, think, or feel in ways that contradict the values we know to be true. I explained that we shouldn’t be surprised—or even all that disappointed—when jealousy, anxiety, pettiness, or any number of unflattering traits show up in ourselves. The work of being a neshama in a guf is, essentially, spending a lifetime taking what we know to be true and gradually pulling it down into lived reality, inch by hard-won inch.

That said, we were left with a question: how?

Because I find it fascinating that we spend so much time in school teaching yedeios—this is what we believe, this is how we should feel, this is what we should do—yet we rarely teach the skill sets needed to actually develop a felt sense of those same ideas. We can quote the pesukim and every meforash, but we’re far less practiced at breaking down the how-to’s of translating them into our lives.

So let’s talk about those how-to’s, shall we?

Sometimes, a piece of knowledge migrates from a hypothetical test answer into a lived experience all on its own. A flight is canceled, a job falls through, a treatment plan fails—and suddenly, unexpectedly, we’re filled with a deep certainty, even amid the pain, that Hashem is holding us and that everything is unfolding according to His plan. Or someone cuts us off in traffic or makes a hurtful comment, and for reasons we can’t explain, our neshama whispers loud enough to hear: They’re just messengers, delivering something you needed to experience. And we refrain from targeting the shlichim, because that’s all they are.

These moments are gifts to treasure. Often, what seems like a random breakthrough is actually the result of a lifetime of slow, steady drip-down messaging.

Which brings me to the first technique for bridging this divide:

Repetition.

My high school principal, Mrs. Zlata Press, once told me that repetition is the most underappreciated teaching method in the classroom. After more than 25 years in the field (nothing like pulling out the numbers to make you feel old), I’m inclined to agree.

Those Chazals we chant over and over—not the ones we memorize for a final and forget thirty seconds later—have a way of resurfacing in the very moments we need them. If someone in your life was passionate about a specific mitzvah or middah and repeated it to you again and again, it likely embedded itself deep inside you, ready to be drawn upon. The same way a well-practiced perek of Tehillim rises to the surface automatically in a moment of fear.

A couple of weeks ago, I was struggling to process some painful feelings, not very successfully. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, I was struck with a visceral realization: I’m just a neshama, experiencing things in this life. Some experiences are good, some painful, but all incidental to the eternal neshama I truly am. It’s hard to describe something so experiential in my clumsy language, but what I can say is that I suddenly felt myself as an untouchable neshama, clothed in a body, encountering pain but not truly affected by it—because as a neshama, this was simply a nisayon I needed to undergo for reasons beyond my understanding.

It brought tremendous relief and, even more importantly, sorely needed perspective. Only afterward did it occur to me that I’ve been teaching (and therefore learning) Mesilas Yesharim for over a decade, and yet never fully absorbed the words
כִּי כָל עִנְיְנֵי הָעוֹלָם בֵּין לְטוֹב בֵּין לְרַע הִנֵּה הֵם נִסְיוֹנוֹת לָאָדָם
until that moment. I understood it in my head, yes—but this time I understood it with my life.

So you want to change a middah? Control your reactions? Stop speaking lashon hara?

Learn about it. Over and over. Through different sources, different mediums.
Read about it. Listen to shiurim. Write a two-line poem, a ditty, a mantra—repeat it every time the situation arises:

• Hashem’s in control.

• Tatty’s got my back.

• I have exactly what I need.

• I’m staying cool and calm.

• I can only control my own actions and reactions.

And for the truly brave: if you really want to feel an impact, don’t just learn and practice—teach it. :)

There’s more to say about bridging the head–heart divide, and I intend to say it in future newsletters, but I’ve heard some feedback that my newsletters are a bit long for our modern attention spans. I’ll do my best to stay concise in respect for everyone’s busy lives. I mean, this time. No promises on next time.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Mrs. Aliza Feder