- Self Esteem
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- Moshe Ben-Chaim
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- Reader: How does a person deal with low self-esteem and raise
his confidence in a true sense? (i.e., without creating false senses
of security)
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- Mesora: Self-esteem can be lost
based on a lack of approval from others. It can also be generated out
of an internal judgment of oneself based on his own criteria. That is,
you might lose a job and feel depressed that you aren't yet
successful. You might want to date someone, but get rejected. There
are many areas in life where we will not achieve our goals, and this
is throughout life. So how are we to keep our self-esteem throughout?
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- We are always to first look to the Torah as a guide, even in this
area.
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- Regarding financial success, God is the One who determines each
man's fate for each year as we recite in the New Year prayer, and in
the Talmud Beitza, at the very top of the page on 16a. Another Mishna
states that after the destruction of the Temple, "men of
faith" vanished. Rashi in Sota I believe states that "men of
faith" are those who never worried about their income. They lived
truthfully, awaiting God's continual sustenance - never worrying about
their income. A friend told me of his learning, where he had read that
the raven teaches man true faith in God: The mother raven by nature
abandons the young at birth, leaving her young solely dependent on
God's kindness. How then is this species still around? Don't the young
die, as they cannot yet fly to catch food? The answer is that God
designed nature in such a way that bugs fly into the mouth of the
raven fledglings. Perhaps due to where the mother instinctually nests,
it is a location of insects. Whatever the reason, we should be assured
of the truth of God's promise to "satisfy every living
creature", as we say in Ashrei three times everyday. A Rabbi
taught, the manna in the desert for 40 years was also to teach man to
depend on God, and have perfect faith in His word. Charity is also a
display of faith in God's promise to add to our wealth when we are
charitable. There are many teachings of the Torah pointing to this
essential concept.
- So man's level of sustenance should not be a source of low esteem.
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- What about man's self image as derived from other's approval? Again,
if one follows the Torah system, this is all the approval he should
need, and if he surrounds himself with friends who are Torah
observant, he will in fact be praised by such friends.
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- If one is rejected by a possible date, provided you are living a
Torah lifestyle, you should be assured that there is no reason to feel
bad. There are many personality types, and for each one, there is a
match. If you are rejected, it can simply mean that your personalities
are not a match. This is not a judgment of you as a person. It
certainly feels bad not to court someone you desire, but eventually we
all find someone compatible. We should focus on a larger time frame to
weaken the focus on the present let down.
- If we reflect and see we are not inline with the Torah system, and
are therefore not accepted by another, let it be a blessing that we
came upon such recognition, and let us change our ways. It may even be
a gift from God, as King Solomon states, "He reproves whom he
loves".
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- As a rule, our self image should be derived not from what others
judge as what is good, bad, right or wrong, but what God judges as
such.
- He is the Only One who we should be concerned with impressing, and
on Him should we rely with complete confidence. To Him we should pray
with all our heart felt concerns as the Rabbis teach.
- Such confidence in His promises to us must be where we derive our
security, and thereby never feeling low esteem. As we conclude the Uva
L'Tzion prayer each morning, "and there will trust in Him those
who know His name, because He will not abandon those who seek
Him".
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