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September/October 2007 Featured Stories
Rebooting: Defeating Depression with the Power of Kabbalah

by Yehuda Berg

Yehuda Berg

Depression is a serious malady, affecting about 18.8 million Americans or about 9.5 percent of the U.S. population. And these numbers represent only those who have actively sought help, not the millions of others who remain undiagnosed.

Through the practice of Kabbalah, those of us who suffer from depression - no matter where we are, what we've done, what faith we follow, or how educated we may be - can defeat this condition if we just take the time to understand its true source. Conventional methods for treating depression attempt to control its symptoms, an approach that certainly has its merits. Kabbalah, however, provides the tools to truly face the challenge of depression on a daily basis and beat it. Kabbalah uncovers depression at its very root.

From a kabbalistic point of view, I want to point out that there is a difference between sadness and depression. Sadness may well accompany depression, but it is not the same thing. Perhaps you might think it unnecessary to define sadness. After all, everyone knows what it means to feel sad, right? But do we really? Kabbalah says that people experience sadness in different ways. Moreover, some people go through life so far removed from their emotions that they might not even recognize what sadness or happiness feels like. Fortunately, kabbalistic wisdom can help us get back in touch with the multitude of emotions that make life worth living. And believe it or not, sadness is one of the most important of these emotions.

So what is real sadness? Sadness is:

• A natural and healthy reaction to a painful experience.
• A short-lived process that passes as you address and transform the circumstances that caused your experience.
• Essential to spiritual and emotional growth.

Unlike sadness, depression is not one of the steps to personal development, although you will grow by leaps and bounds when you use the tools of Kabbalah to overcome it. Depression is a pervasive feeling of physical and emotional numbness or fog. Depression feels like a tunnel with no light at the end, or a dark cave that lacks any illumination. Kabbalistically speaking, depression is an absence of desire.

Depression arises when we constantly feel like victims of our experience rather than directors of our lives - when we feel helpless and hopeless about our ability to effect change. Depression rears its ugly head when we don't want to face our "garbage" - those unconstructive aspects of ourselves that are crying out to be noticed and turned into gifts. We all have these types of traits, and most of us would prefer to ignore them. But depression is a sign that the cost of doing so has become too great - that it's time for a change. And Kabbalah is meant to be a technology to help you make such a transformation.

According to conventional medicine, one of the outcomes of depression is lack of desire. In other words, lack of desire is an effect of depression, according to many doctors. The conventional medical model tells us that when we are depressed, we subsequently lose desire not only for our basic needs, such as food, sleep, work and cleanliness, but also for things that once excited us - activities such as long runs, travel, knitting, crossword puzzles, sex, political activism or watching our favorite NFL team play on Sundays. According to the prevailing approach toward depression, if we treat the depression, the desire for these activities will inevitably return, and any other negative by-products will eventually dissipate as well.

But according to the Kabbalah, conventional medicine has it backwards. And this is why:

Kabbalistically, lack of desire is the cause of depression and not the effect.

To be absolutely clear here: The lack of desire comes first; it's the root of the problem.

From this perspective, we don't need to set off on a long and difficult quest to cure our depression in order to feel desire again. On the contrary, we can fight and overcome our depression by bringing desire back into our lives. This is a dramatic, exciting and ultimately empowering distinction. If we are depressed and believe we need to overcome our depression in order to reignite our desire, we might spend many years searching for the source of our depression. But with this new kabbalistic perspective, we already know the source of our problem: we have lost our desire. The amazing news is that this is a state we can remedy. After all, simply knowing what we have to do takes us halfway to our goal. And, as it happens, there are many actions we can take to reconnect with our desire. When you reconnect with desire, you reconnect with life and with all of its depth and richness. Before we delve into specific strategies, however, let's discuss desire in more detail.

Desire often gets a bad rap. Many people believe that in order to be on a spiritual path, one must first be free of desire - that desire itself is what wreaks so much havoc in our lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. According to Kabbalah, desire is the most important force in our daily lives. It is what animates us, and it is therefore essential to our existence. It is our desire for water that causes us to go about finding ourselves something to drink; our desire for rest that leads us to find a means for sleep; our desire for love that causes us to search for a partner; and our desire for greatness that prompts us to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles in order to accomplish great things. Even the desires that lead us astray are vital to our path - for without them, we would never grow and change.

Desire leads us into action. We wouldn't lift a finger if we didn't desire something. Depression arises when we lose contact with our desire, and this is what we are here both to explore and to remedy.

Kabbalah tells us that there are four levels of desire:

1. No desire at all.
2. Trying: We're giving it a shot, but not with everything we've got.
3. Going the extra mile: We're making a sincere effort and keeping focused on the goal.
4. Making it happen no matter what: We do everything in our power to attain the object of our desire. No other result will do.

Most people function at the level of trying, occasionally mustering the energy to push toward level three. But those of us who are afflicted with depression are stuck at level one. We are living at a level of consciousness in which no desire exists at all. And this is merely existing, not living, because joy cannot arise in the absence of desire. When there is no joy, we feel as though we are living in darkness.

The question becomes, how do we rid ourselves of the darkness? It's simple. How do you transform a dark room? You switch on the light, of course. The light allows us to see the varied colors and textures of a room that no more than a second ago was shrouded in black. In a brightly lit room, real living can commence. In kabbalistic terms, the light that has the power to illuminate a dim room is a metaphor for something much more brilliant.

The light, according to Kabbalah, is every positive emotion and every blissful moment you can possibly imagine, and it flows directly from our Creator. This means that we have an endless supply of this amazing stuff, and we just need to find the light switch in order to activate it. The good news is that this goal is much closer than you might think. In fact, the key to conquering depression has been right under your nose all along. That's because the cure for depression presents itself to us in the form of our daily struggles.

Yes, our daily struggles.

Minor and not-so-minor mishaps. Difficult interactions with children, spouses and friends. Work deadlines. Experiences that just don't feel easy. You know what I'm talking about. Believe it or not, it is these struggles that provide the very fodder we need to transform our personal pain into unconditional and limitless joy. Without fertile soil, there is nowhere for a seed to grow. And the beauty of it is that our daily challenges are perfectly designed to maximize our spiritual and emotional growth.

Needless to say, we don't always handle our day-to-day hurdles with the grace we would like to muster. Sometimes we fall short of our own expectations or those that others have for us. Sometimes we feel as if we have failed, and perhaps this sense of failure is what caused our depression in the first place. According to Kabbalah, however, part of our purpose as human beings is to fall.

What do I mean by falling? Falling is saying or doing something hurtful - cheating, not being honest, gossiping about a friend or relative, or making poor choices that affect others. In other words, falling is making a mistake - the sort of mistake every human being makes. Yes, every human being - even the great kabbalists.

Although falling down may feel uncomfortable and even painful at times, there is a great deal of beauty in it - if we make the choice to learn from our mistakes and move past them. In this way, falling actually gives us the opportunity to grow and develop, as well as to be more than we were before we fell. It's really the only way to move forward.

Think about this for a moment. It's a simple thought, but it's also one of the greatest truths I've learned - a truth my parents taught me, and one that dramatically changed my life:

Every time we fall and get back up, we create a greater capacity for joy, or Light, to enter our lives.

In fact, the process of falling, brushing ourselves off and moving on brings in more Light than would be manifest had we not fallen at all. In the face of this all-powerful Light, the darkness of our depression will cease to exist. The truth of the matter is that there is no such thing as failure when we view our mistakes as part of the growth process rather than expecting perfection from ourselves. In Kabbalah, there are no mistakes - only opportunities.

Based on an excerpt from Yehuda Berg's Rebooting: Defeating Depression with the Power of Kabbalah (reprinted with permission by Kabbalah Publishing). Berg is a bestselling author, renowned Kabbalist and co-director of The Kabbalah Centre worldwide. Berg offers free 24-hour phone support for people suffering from depression at 1-800-KABBALAH. Visit www.kabbalah.com.