Fixing Your Fire [Conceit] - 003 Knowing Your Aspirations

Introduction

Previously, we explained the points of earth-of-earth-of-fire and water-of-earth-of-fire. Now we are up to discussing the ‘wind’ aspect of earth-of-fire, but in order to understand it, we will need to understand how ‘fire’ aspect (of earth-of-fire) works.

Fire-of-Earth-of-Fire: Our Point of Aspiration

Fire-of-earth-of-fire is the “rotzuy” aspect – the part in us that wants to proceed to the next spiritual level and go higher. But when it is not balanced properly, one’s aspirations are not clear, and the person’s inner fire will send him into all kinds of directions, without any clear goal in mind.

[There are three kinds of “rotzuy” in the soul which you need to know about and identify in yourself, and be clear about what they are:]

1. How You Act When You Feel Inspired.

Sometimes we are elated and growing spiritually, and sometimes we are not. These are called our periods of ‘Days of Love’ (growth) and ‘Days of Hate’ (descent), the concept first brought in Sefer HaYashar of Rabbeinu Tam, which we explained in the previous chapters. That is one kind of ‘rotzuy’ we must be aware of and determine: what we are like in ‘Days of Love’, when our ‘rotzuy’ aspect is active. It is how we are like when we are in a period of growth; which element of the soul we are drawn towards using, in order to achieve our goals.

This is not referring to what your “mood” is. That is but a very generic description (and it comes from street talk). We are referring to knowing which point of the soul shines the best as you’re in a period of growth and you feel inspired to achieve and progress.

When you’re doing well in your spiritual growth, it means that your ‘earth’ aspect of fire is balanced, helping your fire be stable, directed, and guided, towards a certain goal. It is helping you get to where you need to get to – such as where you need to get to in your Torah learning, knowing how your davening should look like, knowing how your good middos should look like, etc.

2. What You Are Actively Working To Acquire.

A second kind of ‘rotzuy’ you need to know – besides for knowing your current level - is to know which level you are currently aspiring to reach. In addition to the points you are good at as you are inspired, which points are you working at to acquire? What is the next stage that you are currently aiming for?

Jumpiness

If a person doesn’t know this, he will end up skipping around a lot from one point to another. One day he might decide he will go through an entire sefer, sitting there by his shtender and learning it, seeing various points that he needs to improve in.  Then a speaker comes and delivers a speech, and now he’s really into what the speaker is saying, and he decides to work on other areas of improvement. Then he hears another speaker, or another speech about a different topic which he knows he has to improve in, so he turns his focus on something else….

His problem is that he keeps losing focus on any one area of improvement, because he’s not clear about where he wants to get to. He needs to be able to focus on one area at time and not jump around so much. 

Even if he were to hear about certain concepts that are new to him which he knows he could use improvement in, and even if he discovers weaknesses in himself that he never heard about before and now he really feels a need to fix those parts of his personality, he has to know how to put those topics on the side for now, and keep the focus on what he’s currently involved in.

A more subtle point about this is that he must also not mix together two different areas to work on at once.

3.Heading Towards The Purpose of Life.

A third kind of ‘rotzuy’ one must know and be clear about is to know your greatest aspiration in life, when it comes to spiritual growth.  This is the depth of what it means to be a ben aliyah (spiritually growing person). It is to know: “Where am I heading in life?”

For example, if you would live for 80 years – and we all hope to get to that ripe age, with Hashem’s help - where do you want to be ‘holding’ then? You need to conceptualize how you would want to look like then, how your spiritual level will be like. Then you need to ask yourself: “Am I directing my life towards how I would want to look then?”

If one doesn’t think about this, then he spends his whole life in hesech hadaas (having no mind)! One must be very clear about to where he wants to get to at the end of his life.

When a yeshiva bochur is young, he is prone to imagining things, having totally unrealistic aspirations. He might wish to ascend to the highest levels possible and be close to the level of Moshe Rabbeinu. He might base this on the words of the Rambam that it is possible for a person to become as righteous as Moshe in his generation.[1] But when we get more older and we mature somewhat, we become more realistic, and our fantasies are not as dominant as when we were younger. When we hit that maturity stage, it is then upon us to then think about where we would like to get to in life, and be very clear about it.

(It is not suggested for younger people to reflect about this. It is meant specifically for people who are older and who have matured in life).

The Level Beyond

When a person is reaching his goals that he sets out for himself, he can uncover even greater levels, which he never even fathomed that he can reach. A new ‘gate of wisdom’ opens to him at that point[2]. But this only happens when a person learns Torah with tremendous mesirus nefesh (sacrifice) and he’s serving Hashem with all his soul’s energies.

Clarifying Your Three Points of Aspiration

In summary, there are three points of ‘rotzuy’ (aspiration) you need to know and clarify to yourself.

The first step is to know what your goals are when you are doing well. The second step is to be clear about the next level you’re trying to acquire now. The third step is to be clear about the purpose of your life.

If one is not clear about these three points – especially the third step – he will never be able to reach his goals and aspirations.

Knowing What You Want

It’s not enough for this to simply read sefarim. That is what you want to acquire, and all the words of our Sages are absolutely true, but it might not be true for your current soul level to work on.

When a person is not familiar with his soul’s abilities, he does not know the first stage, and he might think he’s at the second stage because he knows that what he is supposed to want. He reads in Mesillas Yesharim that the purpose of life is d’veykus to Hashem, and that this is the purpose of the Torah and mitzvos, but he is only aware of this superficially.

One must know what he wants out of life – all of the three levels we described. We need to learn about it from the words of Chazal, but along with it, we need to recognize those matters within our own soul.

Of course, the words of Chazal are the total truth and they don’t need our approval. But we need to internalize those matters in our soul, and in order to do that, we need to make sure that we are working on the levels that are right for our own soul level.

When one isn’t sure about this, he decides that he must want certain goals because he has heard that he is supposed to want it, without considering if he’s working on a level that’s inappropriate him for him to work on or not.

For example, there was a Rebbi who had 30 boys in his class, and he said to them that they must all do exactly the same thing that he suggested. 30 boys are each very different from each other, with different soul levels and different energies, yet they are all being told to work on the same exact thing? Clearly, it will not work for everyone, because each boy in the class is at a different level and each have different capabilities and strengths.

1)    To Know Where You Are ‘Holding’

The first step of the clarification is to know where you are really holding in your ruchniyus (spirituality); to know, clearly, what your current soul level is. This requires awareness of your soul’s abilities.

Without this awareness, a person doesn’t really know where he is ‘holding’, and he has a very superficial definition of it. He might think he is ‘holding’ on the page of Gemara he is learning, or at which point of his davening he is ‘holding’ at, or how much chessed he does. Although these are all truthful points to know about, they are superficial definitions. The real issue is where your current soul level is at.

You cannot discern this every second of the day, but you can feel what it is in the general sense: where you are generally holding, in your ruchniyus.

Example – When You Find It Difficult To Exert Your Mind In The ‘Sugya’

For example, if a person is exerting himself to understand a certain sevara (logical explanation) in the Gemara, he can discern if his soul wants to exert itself, or if it is having a hard time. If he sees that he doesn’t have the energy to exert his mind in the sugya as much as he’s used to, he can understand that it is currently a period of “retreat” (shov), and that it is not a time where he has the strength to ascend (rotzuy). Coming to that conclusion, he can push off the exertion for a different time.

Someone with a lot of energy to exert himself in Torah is able to always exert his mind in Torah, and this idea will not apply to him. But unless a person possesses great mental stamina like this, he will experience times in which he simply cannot exert his mind as much as he’s normally capable of doing, and when such a time comes, a person needs to discern this, realizing and accepting that this is his current spiritual level, and save his energy for later.

Developing A Natural Awareness of Your Current Level

This all comes from listening deeply to the soul, where one can discern where his soul level is. The more elevated and spiritually refined a person becomes, the more he will be able to discern his current level at any given moment of the day. Even if one cannot sense it all the time, he can still get himself to be generally aware throughout the day of his current soul level.

We have described this concept briefly, but it has described a very inner kind of life. It is a life of awareness of oneself all the time. Just like you can be aware that you are in Jerusalem or Tzefas and you don’t need to think about it, so can you become aware of your soul level without having to think about it. It can come to you naturally, with the more you refine yourself and become attuned to it.

At the beginning of davening as well, you can tell if you’re in a stage of “rotzuy” or “shov” right now, and based upon that, you can expect to know what kind of tefillah you will have. The same is true with learning Torah and with interpersonal relationships and with all other spiritual areas. It is to know and discern where your current level is: Do you feel that you have the strength now to ascend to higher levels (rotzuy), or do you feel that you don’t have that energy right now (shov)

This is the concept of a balanced kind of fire-of-earth-of-fire. When this point in the soul is not stable, a person jumps around between one level and another, based on the current situation.

Such a person will daven good if he had a good coffee before davening, for example, but if he didn’t, he feels like he can’t have a good davening. His sense of spiritual growth doesn’t come from within – it comes from outside stimuli. The more internal a person becomes, the more he listens to his soul, and he can know where he is currently holding.

This concept has been described briefly, but it encompasses our entire life. It is describing an awareness that must accompany us throughout each day. It enables a person to quickly discern what his current soul level is at any given time, but as a natural sense, without having to think deeply into it. It becomes a natural kind of self-awareness to your current level.

2)    Knowing Your Goals

The second kind of ‘rotzuy’ is to know what you’re trying right now to acquire.

For example, when you are learning a sugya of Gemara, you are clear that you want to get to know the sugya. There are different levels of clarity when it comes to this. Some people are not sure if they should learn all the Rashi and Tosafos, and even those that do aren’t sure if they should also see the Maharsha, Maharam, the other Rishonim and Acharonim until the halacha l’maaseh. They simply go with whatever direction they are taken in, and there is no exact place where they want to get to. (Some are exceptions, but most people have a problem when it comes to this). The sensible way to go about it is to be clear about where you need to get to.

When it comes to learning a sugya, at least it is clear to many people about where they want to get to. But when it comes to matters of growing in Avodas Hashem, there are a lot of people who wish to grow in their ruchniyus very much, but they have no idea what exactly they need to acquire. People say they want to acquire a ‘lev tov’, or an ‘ayin tovah’, or “ahavas Hashem”, or “yiras Hashem” – but there is often no exact goal in mind.

This is a problem. One should know exactly what he is trying to acquire. Then he can look back and see if he’s really grown in it or not. But if he has never become aware of what he is trying to acquire, he cannot know if he’s ever worked on himself in the first place.

How you acquire those levels is the next step and a different issue. The first step is to know exactly what you are aspiring for. For example, are you working mainly on acquiring love for Hashem or fear of Hashem? Are you working to fix the trait of conceit or anger? Whatever it is that you really want to work on, first become aware of what exactly you want to work on.

This is the first step you must be clear in. Without first clarifying this, there is no order to your avodah, and you work on one area and then another area each day, with no seder (order). There is supposed to be a seder to our avodah. (Working each day of Sefiras HaOmer on a different middah is therefore not recommended, because it lacks a seder of avodah).

You might realize that you need to instead work on different areas, and that you made a mistake. If so, you can then reevaluate your priorities.

You should also know that it takes at least a few weeks to work on any one area of improvement!

That is briefly the second stage one needs to know regarding his spiritual aspirations: to know, clearly, the goal that he is trying to get to.

The Third Clarification: The Purpose of Life

The third thing you need to know is: what the purpose of all our life is – and if you are heading towards it.

We all know what it is, but it is not clear to us if we don’t reflect about it often. If we ask a person what the purpose of life is, we often get different answers. One person will say, “To do the will of Hashem”, and another person will say, “To learn Torah.” There are other answers too that people say.

But we must know that knowing the purpose of life is not acquired through a little bit of thought about it. Anyone who is mature needs to clarify what it is. He can do it himself or with friends. Then he needs to make sure he is directing his life towards it.

This is the general “rotzuy” that must envelope our life. After clarifying it, it doesn’t mean you won’t go through any failures or difficulties just because you know what it is. But when you are in touch with this point, you can direct your entire life towards reaching it. You need to think about it all the time. It must always be in front of your eyes and you must always be actively working towards it.

Clear Direction In Your Life

The next step after that will be to think about how you can reach it and to know if your path of Avodas Hashem is leading you towards it.

Some people, when asked about the purpose of life, will answer, “To know the entire Torah.” But no one knows what that means. Is there anyone today who knows the whole Torah?! Does anyone today know all of Tosfeta, Sifri, Mechilta, all the writings of Rashbi, and Mechilta D’Rebbi Yishmael? It is not clear to us what it means to ‘know all of Torah’ is, and in Halacha as well, it is not clearly defined.

If anyone is asked how he will finish the whole Torah, what would he answer? Does it depend on following the words of the Sages that one should increase his Torah learning and ask Hashem for mercy? The words of the Sages are true, but we do not know how exactly to apply this. Some people have a plan of how they will do it. But each person must know clearly where he must head towards in his life. He must ask himself from time to time if he is getting closer to the purpose of life.

In this way, a person’s ‘fire’ is granted stability; it becomes more guided and directed towards reaching a certain purpose, as opposed to becoming jumpy, random, and unpredictable. The ‘fire’ in the soul, when it is directed towards the goal and purpose of life, becomes lasting and permanent, helping a person ascend levels in spiritual growth, on a regular and daily basis.

The Gemara says that “many tried to do like Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, but they did not succeed”. There are many reasons given for this, but along the lines of our discussion, it can be explained because many people are not clear about where they want to get to, namely, the three kinds of “rotzuy” (aspiration) that were described here.

Instead, there are superficial definitions of acquiring high levels, knowing all of Torah, doing a lot of chessed, etc. These generalizations are very not clear to people, so people don’t know what they want when they aspire for these things, and it is almost definite that they will not reach their goals, with such a perspective.

The Difference Between Conceit and Fantasy

So the fire-of-earth-of-fire in our soul needs to be guided to where we want to get to.

When it is left unfixed, it becomes gaavah (conceit) in all kinds of changing forms. One day a person will feel conceited in one area, the next day he will feel conceited in a different area. Usually, this comes from his fantasies, though; he thinks he has acquired high levels. In those cases, it is not actually gaavah, but dimayon (imagination).

A real baal gaavah, by contrast, is someone who knows his actual qualities and he feels conceited about them. To begin fixing it, he needs to use earth-of-fire-of-earth, stabilizing his fire – to know, clearly, where his current level in ruchniyus is.

When earth-of-fire-of-earth is left unfixed, it becomes a kind of gaavah that keeps changing based on various outside factors, which means that it is really a branch of dimayon. The person fantasizes that he has acquired high levels, because he is very jumpy in his progress. This is an unstable kind of ‘fire’ in the soul and it is not actual gaavah (conceit); it is dimayon (fantasy).

When the fire is more stable – meaning, when one is directed towards trying to acquire certain goals, but he feels conceited with all of this, here it is real gaavah, and not a dimayon. The trait of gaavah can be fixed through acquiring the trait of humility.

In either case (gaavah or dimayon), one must know clearly the three kinds of ‘rotzuy’ are: what his current level is, what is the next level he is working now to acquire, and what the purpose of life is that he needs to be heading towards (which he must always be cognizant of).

***

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH THE RAV

Q1: How can a person know what his current level is, since our inner world is so hidden from us, and our level keeps changing?

A: Part of the solution to this lies in having a Rebbi. Chazal say to “make for yourself a rebbi (teacher), and be removed from doubt”. When choosing a Rebbi [to guide you in matters of Avodas Hashem], either choose a Rebbi who has the general picture (‘hekef hakelali’) about life, or, choose a Rebbi who has already traversed the particular issues that you are struggling with.

But in addition to this part, there is also your own “inner teacher.” Man’s avodah is to internalize his mind’s knowledge about truths, into his heart. As it is written, “And you shall know today, and you shall settle the matter upon your heart.” A person’s brain\mind is considered to be like the inner ‘teacher’ of man, which gathers all the appropriate knowledge about life and sees it (aware of it intellectually), and the ‘student’ within him that accepts the teacher’s information, is the heart.

With some people, their problem is that their brain and heart cannot understand beyond a certain point, and this shows where that they are not yet holding at that level. Others have a disconnection between the heart and brain, which means that they know a lot but they don’t act upon their knowledge. This problem is referred to by our Sages in the statement, “One whose wisdom is greater than his actions.” Others do have an integration between their mind and heart, but even so, their mind is aware of more knowledge than what their heart has internalized, so they are still not holding at the levels which they know of.

But if a person is always seeking to internalize his mind’s knowledge into his heart, before the mind has seen enough knowledge, although this is also an imperfect kind of avodah, such a person is still closer to acting upon those levels he knows about. It is not yet perfect, and he will still need to ask advice from another who can guide him to reach higher levels, or, he can get to those levels within himself and be able to reach those levels accurately, to some extent.

Q2: Does reaching the purpose of life depend on your soul’s personal energies, or does it depend on simply knowing the words of Chazal about this and directing ourselves towards it?

A: In the words of our Sages we find many different opinions about what the purpose of life is. We can simply understand it as another argument of our Sages, such as how Beis Hilel and Beis Shamai argued. But the true way to understand it is that all of our Rabbis agreed that the purpose of life is to become attached to the reality of Hashem (d’veykus). It is just that there are several ways to get to this closeness, and the issue was, where to put the emphasis.

To be very general, there are three root paths, based on the three pillars of the world: Torah, avodah (prayer) and gemilus chesed (kindness). Some neshamos in Klal Yisrael mainly become close to Hashem through Torah, some mainly connect to Hashem through tefillah, and others are mainly connected to Hashem through chessed.

When it comes to how Klal Yisrael should act as a whole, it is Torah that must be the emphasis: the main way which Klal Yisrael connects to Hashem is through Torah. (On a deeper level, even the pillars of avodah and gemilus chassadim are included in the path of learning Torah, because everything in the universe ultimately comes from the light of the Torah.)

But when we deal with the ‘branches’ of our avodah, here, there is a dispute in the words of our Sages, about where to put the emphasis. We see that the sage Ben Azai and others would only learn Torah and do almost nothing else. We find that the sages Abaye and Rava were very involved with chessed; they were the ones that said that one should learn Torah and do gemilus chesed as well. The entire issue is: which levush (garment) do we mainly ‘wear’ in order to attach ourselves to Hashem?

The answer depends on each person’s individual soul root, and there is no sefer that can write the answer to this issue. If you do find a sefer that gives an answer, you should know that the answer is based on the author’s personal soul root. You can have a very holy author of a sefer, but that does not mean that everyone must follow his path; even if other great people agree that the author is holy and a ‘reliable’ teacher. Of course he is a ‘reliable’ person; we aren’t questioning that. But he’s ‘reliable’ only for those who share the same soul root as his. One needs much inner clarification, as well as a lot of siyata d’shmaya (heavenly assistance), in order to find the path that is meant for his own soul.

In any case, the goal of life is clear, according to all of our Sages and Rabbis: the purpose of life is to reach d’veykus with Hashem. The only issue is, which levush (garment) of d’veykus one needs to use. It depends on each person’s unique situation, and it needs a lot of hard work on a person’s part in order to get to.

Q3: Why should a person ever ask another for advice, if he can just discern his own level?

A: If I have understood your question clearly, the answer is as follows. Although Chazal say that we must have a Rebbi, this obviously does not mean that we need to have a Rebbi for every last nitty-gritty issue that comes up in your life. Should a person spend the whole day on the phone trying to get through to his Rebbi whenever he has an issue? Obviously, there is some kind of deciding that each person needs to do, himself, without having a Rebbi at his side.

But the issue is: How indeed does a person know if an issue he’s facing is one that requires a Rebbi to answer, or if he should decide it on his own? This is a fine line that one must figure out himself - and there is no sefer that can define the rules of this.

Basically, the more a person matures in life, the more he can decide on his own without having to ask a Rebbi for an answer. If a person is not that mature in life, either he will always decides quickly because he is immature and he does know how to really think properly, or he is a kind of person who will have to ask a Rebbi a lot for advice. Those are the two options that he will always find himself with.

Every person ultimately has situations where he will have to decide, on his own, how to act. These include the various situations throughout the day which force you to decide what to do, or, the situations where you have no idea how to decide on, yet even so, you have no choice but to make some decision. There are always situations which force us to decide on our own where we can’t ask anyone else. All of us go through such situations, some more and some less. So although we must have a Rebbi, there will always be situations where we have to decide on our own, and there is no Rebbi to ask.

When it comes to such situations, where we are forced to make a decision, we can decide using the power of daas. Our daas is actually a point above our own soul. We must use our daas and decide on things. Although we cannot ever be sure about our decisions, we have no choice sometimes, and we must decide. But if one makes sure to act more and more with purer intentions, he is granted more Heavenly assistance (a light of Hashem that guides him) to get to the truth.[3]