Question:
When I was very young I was diagnosed with chronic clinical depression. I’ve had long stretches of life, sometimes months or years, without being able to feel any kind of happiness.
This causes a lot of problems but the one that worries me the most is davening. In Ben Ish Chai Miketz 1:5, Rabenu Yosef Chayim wrote “asur lehispalel be-itzavon” (and gives the reason that the nefesh is unable to receive the ohr elyon that would be drawn toward it during davening). I haven’t been able to find anything more specific about this after months of learning and searching. How “sad” does one have to be to be considered “be-itzavon”? Is “asur” an exaggeration?
I’m worried most about my kavana, because so much of the time the only request I have is “please just let me die” going over and over in my head. This is the case even when I have therapy and medication because my life is so challenging and the people around me aren’t able to help much. I’ve heard that sometimes G-d gives us tsuros so that we will pray for his mercy, and that there’s the exemption for sick people from mitzvos asey, but I feel so guilty not davening or laying tefillin, especially when I feel so terrible for weeks and weeks. I thought maybe I should just put on tefillin and say Shema but even then my kavana is shameful, so I don’t know what to do
Answer:
You may and you should daven. Daven that Hashem should send you a refuah shleima, and that you should be able to do mitzvos and live happily. What the Ben Ish chai is most probably saying, is that someone who is temporarily sad, should wait until he will be happy, but not that if one will be sad for a while like in your situation that he shouldn’t daven at all.
May Hashem listen to your tefillos, and you should feel better.
