In the service of G-d, sadness is damaging and unhealthy. A person must serve G-d with joy and agility; only then can he overcome the evil inclination. Sadness must be eliminated. How does one avoid sadness or combat it when it arises? To answer this question, we have to distinguish between sadness concerning material difficulties, sadness concerning past sins, and sadness concerning present spiritual condition.
If the sadness concerns material matters (children, health, sustenance), one should recall that everything comes from G-d. A person must remind himself that, whatever is happening is actually coming from above, regardless of its appearances. Consequently, since no evil can come from above—even though the situation might feel bad, wrong, or painful—the events, necessarily, are ultimately originating in kindness, albeit a higher form of kindness from the concealed world. Whilst we perceive the events as painful and negative, what we are in fact receiving is a greater kindness, and such events will bring about a greater closeness to G-d. This awareness, whilst not necessarily taking away the pain, takes away the sadness associated with a negative interpretation of the situation. A person can rejoice in the closeness that this higher level of kindness brings with it.
If the sadness relates to spiritual matters: concern, regret, and worry over past sins, such sadness has its proper time but is not appropriate for times of prayer, study, service, or work. If it happens during the day, too, the individual should be suspicious of this sadness, because concern over sins should be the result of a fear of G-d or a love of G-d that has been aroused in the heart, and if, during the business day, he suddenly feels regret or remorse over sins, it isn’t coming from an increased love of G-d or an increased fear of G-d but from the yetzer hara [the evil inclination], which wants to make him uncomfortable and drag him down into indulging unholy activity. He should therefore not legitimise this sadness; he should not think it is a holy or kosher or positive thing to be worried or concerned over sins; for that, you need special times. The response to such sadness is this: now is not the time. What is the right time? When he has presence of mind, when he has capacity, when he sits down at a pre-determined time and thinks about the greatness of G-d. If, in the light of that awareness, he feels the inappropriateness of his past behaviour, that is true and genuine concern for sin.
What about when the sadness concerns not past sins but one’s present condition? For instance, unholy thoughts occur involuntarily yet are not being indulged in practice; rather, as soon as he is aware of the presence of such a thought, he is effective in dismissing it straight away, meaning that there is no sin involved. In such instances, the involuntary thought is not itself sinful, as he cannot control its occurrence. This is the predicament or the plight of the beinoni [the in-between person—someone who is short of a tzaddik or holy man because he has unholy thoughts but does not act out on them so is not an evil man either], namely thoughts arise from deep below, from the animal soul within him. The purpose of this turning away from such thoughts is that he thereby weakens their source. This is his service of G-d. Sadness over the occurrence of such thoughts is misplaced. It is really the expression of arrogance, in which the beinoni is unwilling to accept his lot as a beinoni and begins to imagine himself a tzaddik or a near-tzaddik. He is offended because such thoughts are occurring to him, whereas they do not occur to a tzaddik. He thinks he should not be having such thoughts in the first place: he feels demeaned by them. The Rebbe dismisses and delegitimises this form of sadness and shows that it is unholy. What should the beinoni then do? He should remind himself that this is the precise way in which he serves G-d, by being effective and successful in subduing the yetzer hara, by saying ‘no’ to it and thereby revealing g-dliness.
Rabbi Yehoshua B. Gordon, from a class on Tanya
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