Loving Hashem - 008 Levels of Attachment

No Pain, No Gain

As explained in the previous chapter, there is pleasure (taanug) in connecting to Hashem, but the purpose of this connection is not for the bliss of this spiritual pleasure. The purpose is rather the actual attachment (d’veykus) with Hashem which is attained.

The Vilna Gaon says that if taanug (pleasure) is constant, it is not true taanug. When one connects to Hashem solely out of the taanug\pleasure involved, once he loses the pleasure (for whatever reason), he will stop connecting.

One therefore needs to know of a level of connection to Hashem that goes above pleasure. Thus, in order for one to reveal a love for Hashem, he cannot reach it through constantly experiencing spiritual pleasure. He will need to remain attached with Hashem even when he does not feel pleasure in his spiritual pursuits.

For example, when learning Torah, even after one has merited finding pleasure in his learning, he cannot feel pleasure in it every moment. When one encounters difficulties in his Torah learning, this is due to two factors – one factor is that he is weighed down by the element of earth in the physical body, and in addition, he is in pain, so he can’t enjoy his learning, because the pain is a contradiction to pleasure.

Thus, in order to reach connection with Hashem, there cannot be constant pleasure in this connection. That is the way it is when it comes to learning Torah, and the same is true when it comes to loving Hashem and achieving d’veykus to Him. Certainly, one needs to know how to enjoy this connection, but he must also be able to connect to Hashem even when there is no pleasure. He must move back and forth between the states of pleasure and non-pleasure, within the connection.

Three Levels of Loving The Creator

A person’s love for Hashem is affected by how he understands love. Without understanding love properly and how to rise in the levels of one’s avodah, one will not be able to love Hashem.

Even when it comes to loving Hashem, there are many levels of this love. There is love that comes from the element of fire in the soul, and there is love that comes from the element of water in the soul[1], and each person has a different inner makeup when it comes to the percentages of these elements. But in any case, one needs both pleasure and non-pleasurable connection to Hashem, in order to reach love for Hashem.

There are three levels of loving Hashem: “movements” of love towards Hashem, “connecting” to the love for Hashem, and “integration” with Hashem.

The First Two Stages - Movement and Connecting

In the first level, “movement”, there is either water-based love (spiritual bliss) or fire-based love (desiring to grow higher spiritually). On Shabbos there is no movement, it is serene, but this is not perfect serenity, so there is some movement. For example, a person moves within a reshus harabim on Shabbos.

At first, a person is thirsty and yearning to connect to Hashem. As he progresses, the closer he gets to Hashem and the more he will find pleasure in it. When there is distance, there is either water-based or fire-based love. But as he gets closer, these yearnings and feelings of lacking are replaced with pleasure. Even more so, when a person does find the pleasure in connection to Hashem, now he will face a test with “shelo lishmah” (ulterior motivations), because when he isn’t finding pleasure, he may see no reason to continue his connection to Hashem, and he may falter because of this.

In the first stage, there was more lishmah, because he hadn’t yet found pleasure in the connection, yet he was motivated to come closer to Hashem anyways. Now that he has grown closer to Hashem and he feels the pleasure in this connection, he is more connected with pleasure, and so he will now face a challenge with “shelo lishmah”.

The same issue exists in learning Torah. A person may reach a level of being immersed in Torah study because he has a love for Torah and he wants to know all of Shas, all of the Torah, and to know what Hashem’s will is. He will take pleasure in the wisdom of the Torah, and the more he connects to pleasure, the more he will forget about his original yearning for Torah, when he felt lacking. Many times a person doesn’t realize the change. At first there is not that much pleasure in learning. The more a person comes to enjoy learning Torah, though, he gains pleasure in it, and slowly he has gone from thirst (fire\yearning) to pleasure (water).

The Third Stage – Integrating

D’veykus in Hashem is attained on two levels – “from man’s perspective”, as well as “from Hashem’s perspective”.

From man’s perspective, d’veykus to Hashem is pleasurable. From Hashem’s perspective, d’veykus is only about the d’veykus, and not about the pleasure. Man needs pleasure in order to connect to Hashem, but in the higher perspective, “Hashem’s perspective”, this connection does not require pleasure.

When one is stuck within his “I”, he will not be able to reveal true pleasure in the connection. If it seems to him that he does have pleasure in the connection, either he is not connected, or, it means that the real pleasure is hidden from him. But when a person has a connection to Hashem that goes above pleasure, he will be connected through a force higher than pleasure. It will not be a connection through the “I,” but through a connection to Hashem that goes above pleasure. This is essentially called the power of “lishmah”.

Even fire-based love for Hashem - where the emphasis of a person is not on the bliss involved but on the growth involved - is not yet the level of lishmah, because it is still a degree of pleasure, albeit subtle. In the level of total lishmah, though, a person goes entirely beyond himself.

Chazal say that one should “always learn shelo lishmah, so that one will reach lishmah”. Through shelo lishmah, through persisting with the fire-based love for Hashem where a person has a yearning and thirst to become close to Hashem, a person can eventually reach lishmah.

This is the “light of Hashem” which dwells on those who learn Torah with purity and holiness. This light is really above the soul. One who does not reveal G-dliness in his soul will not be able to reach lishmah. Therefore, the more a person reveals lishmah, as a result of pursuing d’veykus to Hashem, he merits the “light of Hashem”, and then “a new gate of serving Hashem opens to him”, which goes above all logic and human limitations.

D’veykus is above the level of fire-based love, and it is a place where man can contain opposites. It is a change in the entire soul: enabling a person to contain opposites. Only through revealing G-dliness in the soul is this possible, just as man and woman who are opposites can only be united together through the Shechinah. Reaching d’veykus changes the entire inner core of a person and enables him to contain opposites. At this level, one will be able to have d’veykus both through pleasure and through non-pleasure. 

D’veykus – The Subtle Connection

Even more so, is the following.

The word “d’veykus” contains the letter “daled”, and the word “dak” (which means “subtle”). The letter daled represents the word “levad”, “alone”, to be disconnected and alone from all other creations. As long as one is dependent on surroundings and he cannot be alone, he cannot reach d’veykus. One therefore needs hisbodedus in order to reach d’veykus. The Chovos HaLevovos says that one needs to be separated from others in order to bond with Hashem.

Gan Eden is a place of adinus, subtlety. The more subtle and refined the soul becomes, the stronger the d’veykus. The less refined the soul is, the more a person cannot part from pleasure. All he can know of is pleasure; without the pleasure, he cannot connect. On Shabbos there is pleasure, but there can also be connection above pleasure. The more refined and subtle the soul becomes, the more a person can reach d’veykus and he can go above pleasure.

The final level is for one to connect with the Oneness of Hashem, which is the most subtle, refined thing in the world that the soul can reach.

In Conclusion

The words have been brief, about such high and lofty concepts. They are far from the understanding of most people, but when we hear these words, we can at least have the map of where we should get to, and perhaps we can then reach it.