Healing or Subscription?

As King Solomon wrote: “It will be healing for your body and fresh strength for your bones.” A Leak in the Roof Picture a house with a leak in the roof. Every time it rains, new stains appear on the floor. The owner buys rags. He measures the stains. He puts a bucket in just the right spot. He is very busy. But the roof is still not fixed. The leak is still there. So ask yourself, my young married friend: what are you busy with? Are you healing? Or are you paying for a “subscription”? Two Kinds of Healing Modern medicine knows how to treat a symptom. It shrinks a tumor with radiation. It manages anxiety. It reduces pain. Yet through all these treatments, the root stays where it was, untouched and unhealed. A person who only manages his symptoms stays a “customer” forever. Whoever treats the root makes the illness melt away. The Talmud records the blessing a sage would give when a friend of his fell ill: “Peace upon him, so that his leg will not be cut off.” Notice this. The blessing is not “may his leg be healed.” It is “peace upon him,” upon the whole person. The healing is aimed at the person himself, at his wholeness. And because of that, the limb is saved. Healing flows from the inside out, not from the outside in. The Parable in Serving Hashem And now, let’s go deeper inside. A Jew can keep the commandments beautifully. He can set fixed times for Torah study. He can fast on the fast days. And still he can feel stuck. The same weak points keep coming back. It is the same evil inclination, the inner voice that pulls us toward wrong. It is the same character trait and the same feeling of emptiness. He puts out fires every day, but the leak in the roof is still there. This is the basic difference that the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains in chapter 12. It speaks about the “in-between” person. He does not sin in action. Even so, the forces of evil in his heart have not been transformed. He stands up to his evil inclination. He holds it back and pushes it away. But the inner root stays where it was: the animal soul and its traits, still unrefined. What does a person like this do? Usually he adds another class. He takes on a stricter practice. He makes a good resolution. These are all good things. But if they don’t reach down to the root, they only arrange the stains on the floor. They are a “subscription,” a monthly payment that keeps him where he is but does not heal him. Healing from Within The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, taught that nothing in the world exists without a spiritual root. Every physical event is a sign from Heaven, and illness or hardship most of all. It points to a need for inner repair. Healing does not begin at the pharmacy. It begins in a person’s inner self. The Tanya teaches that there are two kinds of inner work. One is subduing the dark side, conquering the evil inclination from the outside. The other is transforming it, turning it around from the inside and refining your character traits down to their deepest root. Subduing can go on for a whole lifetime, an endless war with the same inclination. Transforming is a process that reaches the root and changes it. The tool for this is deep reflection. Sit down and ask: What is the root of this trait? Where do the anxiety, the arrogance, the jealousy come from? Don’t just manage the symptom. Look at the root, touch it with the light of awareness, and repair it. This is Hasidic teaching as healing. It is not a list of outward practices. It is inner work that shifts a person’s center of gravity.