PAIN, JOY AND "MARKING THE GOOD"

I recently came across this paragraph from The Commentator ("The Independent Student Newspaper of Yeshiva University"):

[Rabbi Avi] Berman, who had just landed from Israel, spoke about the University’s two-year efforts in advocating and praying for the return of the hostages held in Gaza. The return of all of the living hostages to Israel happened while Berman was in Israel, so he took a moment to reflect and thank Hashem. In discussing the halachic implications of making a bracha on the return of the living hostages while there are still Jewish bodies held in Gaza and much uncertainty on the stability of the peace plan in Israel, Berman looked to Pirkei Avot. He explained that “even when there is pain mixed with joy we still have an obligation to mark the good.” 

I have no idea which mishnah was in Rabbi Berman's mind when he was quoted here. Can anyone help me?

You can check out the full text of this article here.

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Joy and fear: can you feel both at the same time?

In his commentary on Avot 5:19, Maharam Shik throws in a discussion point that is not directly related to that mishnah at all, but which he considers important. He writes:

“Fear and joy are two conflicting feelings and, in a place where either dominates, there is no room for the other”.

Since he has made the same point on earlier occasions, the previous one being on Avot 4:24 (the context being Shmuel HaKatan’s caution not to express joy at the downfall of one’s enemy), this is clearly something that troubles him.

While neither joy nor fear are mentioned in Avot 5:19, both feature on numerous occasions elsewhere in the tractate. For those who love lists of references, joy can be found at Avot 4:1, 4:24, 6:1 and 6:6, while fear appears in Avot 2:11, 3:3 and 3:7, 3:11, 3:21.

The fact that joy and fear do not appear together in any of these teachings might tempt us to conclude, as Maharam Shik has done, that they are mutually exclusive: if you feel the one, you cannot in his view be feeling the other. But is this reasoning borne out by our own experiences as human beings? I do not think so.

After a gap of several decades, I can still clearly recall my feelings when I exited Dublin’s Holles Street Maternity Hospital with my firstborn child in my arms. I was literally shaking with sheer joy that here before my very eyes was the baby my wife and I had fervently wished for, coupled with a deep fear that I had just exchanged my comfort area for an adventure in parenthood for which I had no experience or training and in which, I felt, I was way out of my depth. I’m sure that many readers of this post may have comparable mixed-feeling sensations of being torn between the powerful emotions of joy and fear.

As a final point, I add that our feelings are given to us for a purpose: to serve as a reality check. Joy, fear, anger, love, hate, despondency and indifference are part of the emotional armory of every human. We do not need to look to verses from Tanach or to scholarly disquisitions in order to ascertain whether two or more emotions can be felt together. All we need do is look within ourselves.

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