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He experiences disgrace.
He becomes squeamish.
He experiences pain in the heart.
His enemies are elevated.
He is polluted by nocturnal emissions.
His animalistic power of imagination grows stronger.
He cannot be fervent on behalf of Hashem, and it is
very hard for him to pray.
His mind and awareness are in exile. He cannot settle
his mind, and he cannot repent. He experiences losses in
all areas. He loses peace in his home, he cannot properly
educate his children, and he suffers. All of this constitutes
a disconnection from Hashem, which draws onto him all
of the troubles and sufferings in the world.
We Learn and We Are Inspired
These examples of the good qualities of joy that I gathered here
are very few, the tip of the iceberg. Much more than this is written
in the holy books. From this brief compilation, you may see that
if you just study these books for a few minutes you will find many
pearls that you can study over and over. By learning and reviewing,
you will realize that joy is the primary and most necessary condition
to progress in life, because everything depends on the trait of joy.
Every day, you must read the summary that you have made,
and you must continue to gather more material from other books.
In this way, you will receive tremendous inspiration to want to
distance yourself as far as possible from the trait of depression and
to work on acquiring the trait of joy, because you will see that
Hashem is not together with a person who is depressed. Therefore,
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if you are depressed, you will not succeed in anything, your prayers
will not be accepted, and you will suffer damage to your marital
relationship, your income, your children’s education, and so forth.
On the other hand, when you attain joy, Hashem will be with you,
and you will maintain a connection and bond with Him. Therefore,
you will attain all abundance and success in all areas, whether
physical or spiritual.
Such learning will fill you with a very strong will to work on
acquiring the trait of joy and distancing yourself from depression as
far as you can. And once your will is aroused, the first and foremost
step in acquiring the trait of joy is to set a time to engage in the
work of the will every day (as I explained in previous chapters).
In practical terms, the two central pieces of advice to
acquire every good trait are a) learning in the way I modeled
here and b) engaging in the work of the will.
We Learn and Pray
You must constantly continue learning about the topic of
joy and you must continue to seek practical advice on how to
acquire joy, such as recognizing your good points and rejoicing in
them, recognizing the many ways in which Hashem helps you in
different areas of your life, thanking Hashem for everything, being
lighthearted and humorous, singing and dancing. And the principal
way is attaining the inner wisdom at the core of joy and transforming
everything that you learn into prayer. Here is an example of a short
prayer on the topic of joy:
Master of the universe, I have learned that
when I am depressed You are not with me. Help
me distance myself from depression as much as
possible. Help me remember that depression is a
great sin and that You hate it. Help me remember
that I cannot succeed at anything when I am
depressed. Completely eradicate my depression.
Have compassion on me. Help me work to acquire