7. I could show you that clear thinking has power over emotions and desires in any number of ways.
8. However, I can do this best by showing you the heroic courage of those who died to preserve their moral character: Eleazar, the seven brothers, and their mother.
9. By ignoring their pain to the point of death, all of these persons showed that clear thinking had complete control of their emotions.
10. On the anniversary of these events, it is appropriate for me to praise the moral achievements of those who died along with their mother to preserve their virtuous character. I would also call them fortunate because of the honor in which they are held.
11. All people, including the ones who tortured them, were amazed at their courage and patient endurance. What’s more, they caused the defeat of the tyranny that had oppressed their nation. They conquered the tyrant by their endurance. As a result, their homeland was purged of its filth through their actions.
12. I will say more about this shortly. First I will begin with my main point, as is my custom, and then I will return to their story, giving glory to God, who possesses all wisdom.
13. So we are exploring the question of whether clear thinking has full power over the emotions.
14. We need to define what careful reasoning is, what we mean by emotion, how many different kinds of emotions there are, and whether clear thinking has full power over all these things.
15. Clear thinking then is the mind-set that uses plain logic to choose the life of wisdom.
16. Next, wisdom is the knowledge of divine and human behavior and what causes the behavior.
17. This knowledge in turn comes from the instruction provided by the Law, through which we learn about divine matters reverently and human matters to our advantage.
18. The different kinds of wisdom are good judgment, justice, courage, and self-control.
19. Good judgment is the ruler among these kinds of wisdom, because clear thinking controls the emotions with it.
20. There are two general categories of emotions: pleasure and pain. Each of these shows up in different ways in the body and in the soul.
21. Several other emotions accompany pleasure and pain.
22. Desire comes before pleasure, and joy follows it.
23. Fear comes before pain, and grief follows it.
24. Anger is a mixture of both pleasure and pain, as anyone who thinks about the experience would agree.
25. With pleasure there is a tendency to form bad habits, and this is the most varied of the emotions.
26. In the soul, bad habits show up as pride, love of money, thirst for honor, delight in conflict, and envy.
27. In the body, they show up as eating anything and everything, the tendency to overeat, and indulging in binge eating in private.