Q&A: Emotion as Reflecting the Whole Person
Emotion as Reflecting the Whole Person
Question
Hello, Rabbi.
In column 162, in the comments, you wrote that in your opinion a modest person should not immediately identify something bad in an erotic description if it is done in a platonic way. (I can’t find the exact quote right now; the Rabbi will forgive me.)
A thought occurred to me: although it is clear that emotions are involuntary, and a person cannot be obligated to feel one way or another, it may still be that emotions are a kind of reflection of the totality of a person’s actions and thoughts. A person who is preoccupied with forbidden sexual matters will naturally be aroused erotically when reading such a column, whereas a modest person can relate to such a column in a platonic way.
What does the Rabbi think about this? Can one infer from the response above that the Rabbi also agrees that a person bears some blame for the emotions that arise within him?
Then I thought again that this is connected to the column on aesthetic values: one cannot demand that a person feel certain emotions, yet it is still clear that if a person feels certain emotions, it can be said that he is a person of a lower level, because the emotion testifies to the totality of his actions and thoughts.
P.S. It hurt me מאוד that the Rabbi was suspected, (the pain deepened especially after reading the Rabbi’s poem; it seems that there really is a message that passes only through poetry…) and even though emotions are not the Rabbi’s field of concern, I feel compelled to note that I believe the Rabbi completely! I wrote my comment here and not on the column, because the issue here is not the column itself.
Answer
I completely agree. And if I am not mistaken, I wrote something like this in my article on emotions. A person’s inner world is also in his own hands, and the emotions that arise in a person are a function of that inner world. Therefore, indirectly, a person does have influence over his emotions. But from my perspective, emotion is not a value in itself (for it is merely a state). At most, emotion is an indication of processes that a person brings about within himself, and only those have real value.
Thus, for example, the hysteria around modesty is a mode of conduct that leads to immodesty, because it places these matters at the center and focus of a person’s attention. דווקא the platonic attitude creates a more modest state (and also expresses a more modest state). As in the saying about one who flees from honor and does not look back.