Fixing Your Earth - 012 Countering Laziness

Introduction

We have begun to explain that the nature of laziness is caused by a heaviness that the soul feels. There is laziness that can be coming either from our earth-of-earth, our water-of-earth, our wind-of-earth, or our fire-of-earth.

In the previous chapter, we explained four kinds of sadness that earth-of-earth subdivides into: earth in earth-of-earth, water in earth-of-earth, wind in earth-of-earth, and fire in earth-of-earth. What all have these had in common is that they can cause the soul to feel heavy, which will manifest in laziness. We have so far explained that the root causes for laziness, but we have not yet said the solutions.

We will first discuss sadness that is caused by our earth-of-earth-of-earth – which is when a person doesn’t like to move.

Countering Laziness With Its Opposite Element

Generally speaking, we can solve every problem with its opposite element, similar to how a man reaches his perfection through his eizer k’negdo, his “helpmate opposite him” (his wife). When we discover the element that is responsible for the laziness, we can counter the laziness by making use of an opposing element.

1-A] Solving Laziness Due To Lack of Movement: The Advice of Reb Yeruchem Levovitz zt”l

Reb Yeruchem Levovitz zt”l gave two alternative methods to counter this particular kind of laziness, in which a person doesn’t feel like moving.

One way is to get used to moving around even when you don’t need to get something done; a person should do three small acts a day, in order to get used to it.

An alternative method is that a person can get used to moving quickly, and he should practice this for three times a day; these should also be acts that a person doesn’t have to take care of, and he is doing them specifically because he wants to overcome laziness.

There is also a third solution, and that is to get used to doing things quickly which we need to take care of. We will come back to this solution later; first we will focus on the first two alternative solutions.

Methods 1-2

In either of the first two solutions – doing something we don’t have to do, or doing something quickly - we must emphasize that the solution can only work if a person does something that he does not have to take care of. The point is to get used to doing something even when you don’t have to take care of something.

Of course, it is commendable to take care of things you have to do, but if we only move in order to get things done, we won’t solve laziness. Our needs and necessities can make us overcome our laziness; when we need to get something done, we will naturally overcome our laziness.

For example, if we need to do errands before Shabbos, it is natural for us to overcome our laziness, since we need to get things done.

So if we want to overcome laziness, we will have to get used to doing things that we don’t need to take care of [using either of the two methods we have presented]. We should get used to doing these exercises for three times a day.

Understandably, a person should only start making sensible changes, and he should not do weird things in order to go against his nature. (We also have to make sure that we aren’t damaging other areas of our soul, such as our thoughts, and therefore, we have to do actions that are not thoughtless.) The point of this exercise is to get our soul used to the idea of movement, which counters the nature of our laziness.

Method 3 – Doing Our Obligations Quickly

A third solution is that when it comes to doing things we have to do, we should get used to doing them quickly. The best area to work on this is when we get up in the morning – we should quickly pull ourselves out of bed. It is the first halachah in Shulchan Aruch: “Yisgaber K’ari – “Be strong like a lion” when you get up in the morning.

If someone doesn’t have a problem with getting out of bed in the morning, he can still use any of the other approaches on other areas in his life where he finds that he gets lazy. Each person can find areas in his life where he knows that he gets lazy.

How is this working? Laziness is from our element of earth, and when earth gets too dominant, it slows down our movements. The element that opposes earth is wind, because wind is the moving force in Creation. When we get ourselves to move, we are essentially using some wind to counter our earth. Even if a person has a particularly dominant element of earth, he can access some of his “wind” and get his soul used to moving.

Summary

To summarize, when a person is lazy because he doesn’t like to get himself moving, there are three solutions. The first solution is to get used to doing things that you don’t have to do. A second solution is to do things quickly, and these should also be things you don’t need to do (or else it defeats the whole purpose). The third solution is to carry out our obligations quickly, such as quickly getting up out of bed in the morning, as well in any obligation of life in which we find ourselves getting lazy in: do it quickly.

The point of all these alternate approaches is so that we can get our soul used to the concept of movement.

1-B] Solving Sadness To Water-of-Earth-of-Earth: Light Eating

Until now we discussed laziness coming from our earth within earth-of-earth. Now we will discuss the next kind of laziness, when it is coming from water-of-earth-of-earth. This is referring to the heaviness a person feels in himself when he is losing control over his very physical desires.

We are not referring to the actual physical heaviness a person feels after he gorges on food or when he weighs himself on the scale afterwards. We are referring to an inner kind of heaviness. The physical feeling of heaviness can spread to the soul as well, and we are addressing the heaviness that the soul feels from this.

For example, when a person tends to indulge in food a lot, he feels lazy inside, because he feels heavy inside. Why does he feel an inner heaviness? It is because his very desire for the food makes him feel heavy.

Of course, there is no one who does not have any physical desires. We all have desires, but some people have a stronger amount of physical desires in them than others do, and they feel heavy inside from this.

To counter this inner heaviness, the outline of the solution is to do light movements. The light movements will counter the inner heaviness.

For example, on Shabbos, we have a mitzvah of oneg (pleasure), and we must enjoy the Shabbos food. But instead of gorging on the food, we should instead taste a little of the food and no more. Oneg Shabbos is not about gorging on the Shabbos food; the point of Oneg Shabbos is to taste new foods – to taste them, but not to indulge in the food and get stuffed from it.

Shabbos is a taste of Gan Eden, and “Eden” means “refined.” The food which we eat on Shabbos is meant to give us pleasure, but only if we eat the food in a refined manner. Oneg Shabbos is not about getting stuffed; it’s not about eating - it’s rather about tasting. Taste is a different kind of pleasure than eating, and it is a lighter kind of desire.

Therefore, the solution is to curb the desire. We need to refine our physical desires and calm them; we can do this by tasting things. We should taste new foods, and we should enjoy the taste - but we should simply taste it, and not more than that. This “lightens” the heaviness caused by desire. The point of this solution is to get used to enjoying the taste of a food, rather than just gorging in the actual food for the sake of eating it.

When we learn how to enjoy a taste – as opposed to enjoying the eating – we access a lighter kind of desire, and we learn how to find enjoyment in light kinds of pleasure. The more we get used to enjoying light pleasures, the less we will need to engage in heavier kinds of pleasure.

We should mention that we aren’t discussing now about how to uproot our physical desires; that is a separate discussion, and it is also something commendable to work on. Here, we are discussing a different point: the heaviness that a person feels from his desires. To counter this inner heaviness, a person needs to get used to lighter kinds of desires, such as tasting.

The more we refine our desires, the more we will lighten our inner heaviness inside. This will give us two gains. Firstly, we will feel better that we are eating lighter. It will also help us gain more self-control over our desires. But in addition, it improves our soul as well, because it takes away the heaviness that our soul feels inside from all our physical desires.

From using this solution, a person will be able to see how even his mind has improved as well, because when we remove our physical desires for indulgence, our mind becomes refined in the process, and we are then able to think better, and our emotions as well will become more subtle. Generally speaking, the more a person refines his physical desires, the better he can think and feel (However, we are only mentioning this a side point, and it is part of a separate discussion).

1-C] Solving Laziness Due To Wind-of-Earth-of-Earth

The next kind of laziness is rooted in wind coming from earth-of-earth, which we explained is the despair that is caused by having many, contradicting desires. The despair that a person feels from his contradicting desires breeds on laziness.

There are levels to how much a person can fall to despair, of course; but despair always comes from unfulfilled desires, which makes us feel an inner contradiction: we want something, and we aren’t getting it. This makes us despair, and that in turn can make us lazy.

Every person has many desires, but we all have an inner [G-dly] will of the soul which is the source of all our desires. This inner will is universally applicable to every person’s soul. As long as we haven’t yet revealed our inner will, our various other desires we have will clash with each other and cause us to feel many inner contradictions.

When a person gets to know his soul better, he is able to recognize that he is an inner will, and he also sees that he has many other various desires. But at least he is self-aware. Understandably, each person is at a different level when it comes to this, but all people who have become familiar with their psyche are able to identify that we all have various desires that contradict each other. If we at least become aware of all our desires, we have begun the remedy.

Therefore, discover your strongest will, and realize that everything else you want is not as strong as your deepest will. With the more and more you do this, you will be able to slowly extinguish all your desires, when you measure its importance to your strongest will. This will weaken the despair you used to feel from all your unfulfilled desires.

Eventually, when you keep doing this, you will be able to discover your innermost will of the soul (Retzoneinu Laasos Retzoncha – “It is our will to do Your will”) – and you will realize that all your various desires are not as important as your innermost will. This will make all your desires vanish, and this in turn takes away all the inner contradictions you were feeling.

This can help even if you discover what your strongest physical desire is. For example, if you discover that your desire for honor or for money is your strongest desire, you can see how all your other desires pale in compare to this deep ambition of yours.

However, it is not the way of the Torah to remain with your strongest physical desires, and you must uncover your inner will of the soul and realize that this is really your true desire in life. But the point we can take out from this is that by discovering what we want the most in life, this can extinguish all the other desires we have. This will eliminate the despair we used to feel from all those desires.

1-D] Solving Sadness Due To Fire-of-Earth-of-Earth

The next kind of laziness we will address is laziness which comes from fire within our earth-of-earth. As we explained, this is when a person feels very comfortable, and then he doesn’t feel like moving from his place as a result. He feels ‘warm’ from all the comfort he is getting, and then he gets lazy from this and doesn’t want to away from his comfort zone.

Warmth is a nature of fire; the fire can get too dominant, resulting in non-movement. This is how one’s fire\warmth can work together with earth [in a detrimental way] to increase his element of earth\non-movement. He doesn’t feel like moving because he likes being in this warm and comfortable place he is in. 

The solution for this (for those who identify with this problem) is that a person should try to avoid those situations in which he feels too warm. For example, if a person can’t get out of bed in the winter because he’s enjoying the warmth of his bed, he can try going to sleep without his feet covered, and in this way, he doesn’t get too warm. (This advice is brought in the words of our early Rabbis). The point is to get used to decreasing our indulgence in a desire.

When a person fulfills every last drop of his desire, he gets too comfortable in his situation, and then he can’t escape it. Therefore, a person should make sure that he never gets 100% physically comfortable in any situation, because if he gets too comfortable, he won’t be able to escape his comfort; he gets too pampered.

How To Work With Our Soul Faculties

This leads us to the following point – a general point about how we work with our soul. First we will describe this idea in the general sense, and then we will show it applies to the particular detail we are discussing.

We have to constantly be making use of our different soul abilities. As we say in Tefillas Maariv, “He changes the times.” We have to constantly wear and then remove our various abilities of the soul; if we use any one of our abilities too much, it will become too dominant and overtake us.

If we are using any one of the soul’s abilities all the time and we are never making use of our other abilities, what will happen? Our element of earth will overtake us, and we will be restricted to our “earth.” This is true when it comes to any of the elements of earth, water, wind and fire; if we use any of the elements too much, and we never make use of the other elements, then it will always increase the earth of the soul, and we will be overtaken by our earth.

For example, if we use our element of wind all the time and we never learn how make use of our other elements, then the constant use of our soul’s wind will in turn make our earth overtake us. Our element of earth will then be controlling us and it will completely dominate, which is of course detrimental.

When it comes to working with our soul, we have to make sure that we are never overtaken by any of the four elements. We have to constantly be making use of the other elements, back and forth, so that none of the soul’s elements are controlling us too much. This is true even for someone who perfected any of his soul elements; even if any of one’s soul elements has become perfected – that element still should not be allowed to take over. We need to constantly be making use of all our various positive abilities.

To illustrate, we go through many different kinds of Yomim Tovim throughout the year in which we do different mitzvos. On Sukkos we shake lulav, on Pesach we eat matzah, etc. Not only in time do we pass through different actions, but in our soul as well, we have to pass through our various abilities all the time.

This concept is only true when it comes to making use of the positive uses of our soul’s abilities. As for the negative uses of our soul abilities, we should not be accessing them. The fact that we have to always be using our other abilities is only true when it comes to using the positive uses of our soul.

The more one improves in working with our soul, the more he will be able to pass through his soul’s abilities all the time, making use of all of them.

This will give us two gains. The first gain is that this will help us realize that our soul’s abilities are just garments of the soul, and that they are not our soul itself. The second gain in this it will help us be in control of our soul, as opposed to our soul controlling us. When we are in control of the uses in our soul and we don’t let one particular ability become too dominant in our life, it decreases the inner heaviness of the soul.

Without doing this, what will happen? A person will get trapped by even his good abilities, and he will find that he’s stuck due to his own qualities. For example, you can have a person who teaches Torah to others and he also does great acts of kindness with others, and if it ever comes a day that he has to stop from all this, he will find it unbearable. Why? It is because he never trained himself to detach. People don’t always understand that detachment is necessary even from our good qualities. If we never learn how to detach from our good qualities, then we will be trapped by them. And then it will be very difficult to come out of these situations.

So we need to train ourselves to not let any of our qualities become too dominant in our life. This will help us be able to detach when times come in which we can’t use those qualities, because we will have already trained ourselves to make the transition to new situations.

This is the general way of how we fix the inner heaviness in the soul, caused by the element of earth.

Using One Kind of Evil To Fight Another Kind Of Evil

Now that we have explained that point, let us go back to the case we were discussing, which is when a person has a hard time leaving a warm and comfortable place. The problem is really that he has become stuck. What he can do, practically, to get out of this, is that he should leave the warmth of the room and go outside, where it is colder. The person should get used to the idea of passing between warm and cold places, back and forth. This will get a person used to the idea of cooling off his warmth sometimes, and therefore, his laziness will decrease as a result.

If a person gets used to this, he will discover that his desire for warmth will increase, as his needs for warmth go up after being in the cold. Yet, although his desires to be in a warm place will get increased as a result, the gain is far better, because he will have trained himself to be able to leave warm places, and this helps him weaken the inner heaviness of the soul that’s causing his laziness. This reflects the concept we have been describing, that when we work with our soul, we have to constantly be making use of our soul’s abilities, back and forth.

Even if a person is doing this with the intention that it will increase his pleasure he gets from being for warmth and comfort – which awakens the base desires of one’s nefesh habehaimis (animalistic drives of the soul) it is still an achievement if he is able to leave warmth and go into the cold. If a person is more spiritual, he will do it with the intention that he is trying to overcome his laziness; but even if he isn’t doing it for that reason and he’s doing it for personal gratification, as we said – it is still a constructive solution.

Sometimes we have to counter evil by using good, but sometimes we can use evil to counter another kind of evil! The above example is a case in which a person is able to use evil to counter evil; he’s using the evil of desiring more physical gratification [and therefore he’ll leave the warmth where he’s enjoying himself] to overpower the evil laziness.

Of course, one should not be careful not to do this in a dangerous way and be too drastic with this. We just mean that as a general idea, one should get used to the idea of passing between warmth and cold, so that a person’s need for physical warmth shouldn’t get too strong.

As long as the person is aware that he is doing this so he can overcome his laziness, even if he knows he will end up enjoying the warmth even more as a result, it is still constructive. If he is someone who has a particularly strong need for physical warmth, then he will of course use this solution as a way to increase his physical desires, but this is okay for now, as long as he’s doing it because he also wants to uproot his laziness\inner heaviness at the same time. It should be viewed as a situation of mitoch shelo lishmah, ba lishmah – “From ulterior motives, one can lead to pure motives.”

Eventually, at a later point, a person should also work to uproot his excessive physical desires, but right now we are not working on this point. For now, we are working on how to uproot laziness, and we are saying that a person is able to use his physical desires and gratification as an incentive to be willing to uproot his laziness. So even if a person is using this solution (of passing between warm places and cold places) as a way to enhance the experiences of his physical desires (because now he will enjoy the warmth of these places even more), he is allowed to do this, since he also wants to uproot his laziness.

We have given the solutions here to the four kinds of laziness which come from our earth-of-earth. If Hashem merits us, we will discuss the next four kinds of laziness (which come from water-of-earth).

Questions and Answers with the Rav

Q1: If a person is lazy in his thinking – for example, if he is lazy when it comes to learning Torah in-depth and he’s not willing to strain his mind so much in learning – is this related to the discussion here on laziness?

A: Both our materialistic and spiritual layers to our self are composed of the four elements of earth, water, wind and fire. Just like when we can have physical heaviness, so can there be a heaviness in our thoughts. Someone who generally has calmer thoughts has a more dominant element of water in his soul; someone who thinks quickly has a dominant element of wind; someone who is more orderly has a dominant element of earth, and someone whose thoughts are very jumpy is a person whose soul is rooted in fire. Our brain can have physical heaviness, because it’s part of the body; as well as mental heaviness. If a person isn’t willing to strain his mind, this is called “laziness of the mind” – atzlus hamachshavah, and it is also coming from an imbalance in our element of earth. It is just a more spiritual kind of element of earth than our regular element of earth which we are familiar with from our physical actions.

Q2: How can a person know how far the definition of laziness goes?

A: No one knows how far the definition of laziness goes. When the Alter of Kelm was on his deathbed and he felt that he was too weak too move, he suspected that perhaps this was coming from laziness; he wasn’t sure. When we feel like we are incapable of doing something, we are not able to know for sure if this is out of laziness or simply because we cannot do it.  In the words of our Rabbis, this concept is called “kelipas nogah.” There are areas in which we do not know if they are coming from good or evil.

This is also the depth of the concept called safek d’kedushah, “holy doubt” – we have to always be in doubt if we are doing the right thing or not.

Q3: Is laziness in our thoughts related to any of the four elements that affect or materialistic layer? For example, Is it possible that our mind is being dominated by our element of fire, while our body isn’t being dominated by our element of water?

A: This is a very fundamental question. A person is made up of a body and soul, and they can each be made up of different elements that are dominant. Generally  speaking, if someone has a body and soul that are both being dominated by different elements, this is called “mamzer”, because when there is an imbalance like this, our soul is pure but our body isn’t, similar to the situation of a mamzer: his soul is pure, but his body hasn’t been conceived from holiness.

The ideal way we are supposed to look like is that both our body and soul should be equal in their amounts of the four elements. Most people are experiencing contradictions between the amount of the four elements going on in their body with their soul. This is due to a number of factors. First of all, our souls have gone through several lifetimes (gilgulim), and has accumulated elements that are different from the amount of elements going on in our body. In addition, our souls have received parts from other souls. Our body’s elements are also affected by the nature of the martial union of our parents; if the parents have holy thoughts as they conceive their child, the child will have more holiness.

It is hard to see how much our soul and body contradict each other.

There are people who are suffering from tremendous internal contradictions going on in their soul. The more a person gains clarity in his soul, the more he can realize that the various natures which has soul has acquired are not really part of himself – even if he has inherited certain base, negative natures from his parents’ unholy marital union. The more a person realizes that his soul has received certain negative natures that are not part of his actual soul, the more he clarifies his true internal self, and he can improve his soul as a result.

We cannot understand ourselves fully, though. This is impossible. It is written, “Your thoughts are very deep.” We cannot understand anything in Creation, because everything is so deep. We cannot even understand any of our learning to its full depth. We cannot even understand the full depth of one act of kindness in Creation. But, we have to try to understand things and gain clarity, as much as we can, so that we can improve and perfect ourselves.

…We must first know who we are, before we attempt to work with our soul’s abilities.