On Sadness

Sadness is essentially selfish, since it comes from the feeling that something spiritual or material that rightfully belongs to me is lacking. Such an outlook focuses only on oneself and not on others. On the verse "The Heavens belong to Hashem, and the earth He gave to man" (Tehillim 115:16), Rav Henich taught that the Heavens are heavenly in any case, and Hashem gave the earth to people so that they would make what is earthly into something heavenly.