Prozac Nation

MyLife Essay Contest 2015

Prozac nation.  Fast-food society.  Binge eating.  Drinking.  Stuff.

We are empty.  We seek substances to help us feel full.  We fill our stomachs to cover our emotions so that we don’t have to feel our pain.  Some fall into the trap of full-blown addiction, but all struggle with the pull towards things: more shoes, a new house, or another pint of ice cream. How do we reconcile our drive to be spiritual with our constant, sometimes torturous, temptations and desires?  The key that Chassidus gives us is that desire is power. We must switch our mindsets and stop thinking of our desire as our trap or our downfall.  Rather than repress our desires, we can harness their power and desire those “things” in our lives that connect us to spirituality.

Sounds simple.  But chocolate tastes better than hard work.  Ice cream cones are more soothing than acts of goodness and kindness.  That is what we think.  But Chassidus and personal experience proves otherwise.

How does Chassidus view the concept of desire?  What is the practical method toward applying this perspective to our lives?  This essay tackles the Chassidic approach to desire, and presents a systematic method for integrating the power of desire into our personal growth as a society.  With this understanding, we can move toward a world that fills its emptiness with spiritual connection rather than with transient goods.

According to Chassidus, the thirst for materialism is driven by the animal soul.[i]  The animal soul is not bad.  The evil inclination (yetzer hara) is bad[ii] .  There is a crucial difference between a person’s animal soul and the evil inclination.  While the evil inclination is inherently negative, the essence of the animal soul is neutral[iii].   While its core can be degraded as a materialistic force, it can also be channeled toward more elevated pursuits.  In other words, the animalistic inclination is a core of powerful desire, which we can unwrap from pure physicality and clothe in an elevated form of interacting with the materialistic world[iv].

The steps to turning consumerism into a powerful and meaningful drive begin with this thought process.  We must understand:

1. When we indulge in materialism, we condemn and feel guilty about these desires. Instead, we can recognize that these desires are a source of power. They belong to our animal soul, which Chassidus describes as an ox that pulls a heavy load with its brute force[v].  This is because, on a certain level, spiritual force cannot compare with physical strength.  When we channel the animal soul positively, we enhance our spiritual service with the power of animalistic strength.[vi]

2. This power of desire comes from the essence of Godliness. God created the world out of his desire, which is beyond reason[vii], and gave us this faculty of desire to use. He gave us the animal soul, which come from the “animals” that, according to the prophet Ezekiel, carry God’s chariot[viii].  The Godly power that connects His desire for this world’s creation to our daily life is perceivable in our drive toward materialism.

3. Once we take responsibility for our consumerist drives, we become empowered, literally. Now we must recognize the difference between consumerism and physicality.  Consumerism is the drive to obtain, to drown ourselves in materialism, which is called chumrius.  Chumrius is different from gashmius[ix].  Chumrius refers to the coarseness of physicality while gashmius includes physicality with the potential to be elevated: this physicality does not block Godliness from penetrating our world.   Chassidus gives the mashal of klipah, a peel[x].  The core of desire is the seed.   Yes, we must undress the layers of coarse temptation but we are not required to replace it with lofty spirituality alone.  We are able to channel it into using the physical world itself as a connection to God’s inner desire.

The Jewish perspective on desire is often confused with Christian models of asceticism.  But in reality, when we repress desire, we turn into rebellion or resentment.  If Hashem has desires, why can’t we?  In truth, God wants us not to deny, but to own our desires and harness their power.

Now we get it, but what do we do with it?  What does it mean to channel our animalistic desires toward physicality in a spiritual way?

Let’s get back to the problem of temptation: as much as we would like to channel desire toward good motives, instantly gratifying pleasures like indulgent foods and risky behaviors are far more tempting.  How will the Chassidic approach to desire help us curb the pull toward immediate temptation?

To curb temptation, we must understand its shortcoming.  Temptation stems from emptiness: a desire to fill the vacuum with substances outside oneself.  According to Chassidus, physicality does contain the potential to fill our innermost core, but only because it itself contains the deepest essence of Godliness.  Godliness is reflected in physicality: physicality is the ultimate feeling of a distinct self.  It is said that if a rock could feel, it would proclaim to be a self-standing and independent existence.  This nature of matter shares the attribute that seemingly belongs only to God: a form of existence that depends on nothing outside of itself.

What does Chassidus want us to do with objects of desire?

Once we internalize this truth, we can no longer see physicality the same way.  We come face to face with the reality that when we engage in substance use or even abuse, we are not only abusing ourselves, but also abusing the substances that we are drowning in.  We are selling these substances short because we are failing to recognize what they are.   Once we remember the Godliness they contain, they can no longer swallow us: they are calling to be revealed for their potential.

According to Chassidus, the reason substances seem to superficially fill us is because in reality they truly can fill us.  They are the channels through which God’s innermost desire penetrates this physical universe, and therefore are the only conduits through which we can spiritually connect to God as beings that are essentially both spiritual and physical.

We have the ability to “dress” the animal soul’s core in befitting garments.  According to Chassidus, the honorable garbs of the soul are thought, speech, and action involving the teachings of the Torah and its practical applications.  These are the garbs of the Godly soul, but once we undress the core of the animal soul and clothe it in these as well, we are infinitely more powerful.  Our two internal forces of desire, Godly and animalistic, are both joined in the mission of connecting to a force higher than ourselves.  This joint effort is the channel with sufficient power to truly fuse materialism with spirituality.  In practical terms, when we undress our consumerist and acquisitive drive, we are faced with a power with enormous potential.  Rather than repress desire, let us recognize it for what it is.  Let us encounter an unknown power that we did not know we had: the power to use this same desire toward things that uplift us.  These things are elucidated in the Torah, the studying Torah and Chassidus we can access them.

This society is drowning itself in its obsession with things.  By changing our relationships with these objects of desire, we shine a light into society’s future and its potential to transition from consumerism into a world where physical desire becomes the ultimate route to spiritual connection.  The marketing message in this society will change: instead of buying into what substances can do for us, we will recognize what we can do for the substances we buy.  By recognizing what they contain and why they lure us so powerfully, we harness their power into divine deeds that cannot be matched in any spiritual realms.   To harness the power of physicality, we recognize that temptation is not evil.  It contains a neutral core – the drive of desire.  At the same time we recognize that physicality expresses God’s essence and innermost desire.  Once we see physicality for what it is, we can no longer abuse it.  We come to see that our purpose lies in delving into physicality with the lust and gusto of temptation channeled by a Godly perspective.

We eat a sandwich, burn the glucose, and fuel the acts of goodness and kindness that come our way.  No angel in all of spiritual lore has eaten a sandwich, and for that gratification the angels remain jealous.  Not for the “supersized” indulgence, but for the “supersized” universe where the strength and space of physical existence become a greater expression of Godliness than spirituality alone could ever radiate.

[i] Tanya, chapter I

[ii], Az yibuka kuntreisim alef

[iii] Zachor samech hei, zachor tof shin chai

[iv] Tanya, Perek IV

[v] Likkutei Torah, Vayikra Beis

[vi] Tzion B’mishpat Tipadeh mem aleph

[vii] Hemshech tuf reish samach vov

[viii] Lekutei Torah, Adam Ki Yakriv Mikem, Parsha Vayikra

[ix] Samach Vov, Vayomer Hashem El Moshe Lech Lecha

[x] Tanya Perek VII