The idea that a person can genuinely experience “mixed” feelings is relatively new.
Well into the 20th century, many psychologists believed that positive and negative emotions existed only sequentially. Researchers assumed that one could not feel good and bad at the same time. Even today, people often speak about happiness and unhappiness in this way—as if the presence of one necessarily implies the absence of the other.
In the 1960s, new psychological research began to gather evidence that positive and negative feelings can, in fact, be experienced simultaneously. Neuroscience later supported this hypothesis when scholars discovered that positive and negative emotions largely correspond to activity in different hemispheres of the brain, and therefore can coexist. (For many people, negative emotions are associated with activity in the right hemisphere, and positive emotions with the left—Prof. Arthur C. Brooks.)
This Shabbat we will read:
“And Jethro rejoiced over all the goodness that G-d had shown Israel, in delivering them from the hand of the Egyptians.”
וַיִּחַדְּ יִתְרוֹ עַל כׇּל־הַטּוֹבָה אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה ה׳ לְיִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הִצִּילוֹ מִיַּד מִצְרָיִם (Shemot 18:9)
Our sages, however, were not unanimous about Jethro’s emotional state.
“וַיִּחַדְּ יִתְרוֹ” — “And Jethro rejoiced” — is its literal meaning (חדוה – joy).
Yet a Midrashic interpretation explains that his flesh became covered with goosebumps (חדודין): he shuddered in horror and felt grief over the destruction of Egypt.
Thus, we learn here—long before the 1960s—that Jethro experienced happiness and sadness simultaneously.
I truly believe that very often, when we read the weekly Parasha, we uncover a lesson for life.
Sometimes—hidden in the double meaning of a single word.
May we, with G-d’s help, experience many occasions of pure joy.
Warm regards and Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Chaim Michael Biberfeld