Thursday, August 30, 2012

And Now We Weep: Tanya Likutei Amorim 26

Rabbi Steinsaltz makes the following interesting statement.  I wish I had the discipline required!


There were times when prayerbooks instructed, in certain places, 'Here one cries.'  Difficult situations and bitter lives provided sufficient reason to weep, however it is not possible for a person to always cry.  Thus in certain places in the prayerbook permission was given: Here one may weep.  At that moment, people would weep, and weep prodigiously.  All people have good reasons to weep, be they sorrows or sins, for sadness and bitterness of the soul.  However one must keep this for certain appropriate times, such that these feelings do not come of themselves, whenever the Evil Inclination desires, but rather when the person himself wills it.