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Musar classes are contributing to my depression or is it my feelings toward the rabbi?

So I attend a get togethers at my synagogue and every Monday night they have a 20s/30s get together where there’s free snack, then a rabbi from the rotation (Rabbi A) gives a speech, then free pizza and then another singular rabbi (Let’s call him Rabbi B) gives a class on a singular subject for a few weeks by taking excepts from the Torah and other rabbinical sources . Two months ago it femininity/masculinity and now it’s Musar.

The issue is that the way the Rabbi goes about his Musar classes only leaves me in a depressing mood at the end because he’s capping it off with a talk about how we as Jews are barely scratching the surface of our real potential and a long winded indictment of materialism and the material world. He also uses extreme examples of great rabbis exhibiting the soul traits to show how much there is to achieve.

I’ve struggled a lot with being comfortable with who I am and my place in the world as a person in general. I still deal with a lot of insecurity about not being good enough for any social situation. I take comfort in the stupid stuff in life like fandoms, pop music, and all of that stuff because it’s a distraction from the serious stuff in my life that’s typically demanded of me, I’m Shomer Shabbat but I lack a lot of skill in davening so I typically just pick and choose what prayers I know down pat and listen to the rest. But it’s Rabbi B’s classes where I’m feeling hard on myself for no reason. Even the recent class on Gratitude made me feel inadequate.

I also find myself disagreeing on Rabbi B’s decisions to inject personal views and opinions into his classes and sermons. The big things are the idea that specialized efforts/programs/initiatives are needed for certain groups (I’m interning at an Asian American nonprofit) and the fact that he feels the need to inject his comments about asking for pronouns (during a sermon about saying how words matter no less). I do not think Rabbi B is a bad person but he rubs me the wrong so much so that I wouldn’t want to get to know him as more than a rabbi (if that makes sense)

And I included this because I’m wondering maybe I’m projecting my feelings of him to the Musar class or the Musar class is not conducive to where I need my mental health to be at this moment and I should just leave the get together after the free pizza. I have friends who stuck around for the whole thing and I’m worried they are going to ask why I started leaving early

submitted by /u/pretty-in-pink
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Source: Reditt