Tefillah - 104 Uprooting Inner Evil

A Prayer To Remove Evil From The World

In the blessing of ולמלשינים we ask Hashem, והזדים מהרה תעקר that “rebellious ones”, those who rebel against Hashem, be uprooted.  It is clear that we are not just davening that Hashem get rid of these rebellious people.  We are really davening that Hashem uproot all evil in the world, as well as the evil that is present in ourselves.  All of us have traces of evil in our souls which need to be removed, and that is what we daven for in this part of the blessing.

Knowing What Is Ikar (Priority) and What Is Taful (Secondary In Importance)

Anything in Creation can be considered as something of priority (ikar) or of secondary importance (taful). When a person doesn’t’t uproot the evil in himself, what will happen?  He will place emphasis life on things that are not really ikar, buttafuk.  Hissecondary focuswill become his priority focus  and what was once his priority will become taful.  His priority will become evil and he will be focused on evil pursuits, because now his taful has become the ikar.

Ikar is essentially a concept to get to the main point of a matter. We have 13 ikarim (principles of faith), and everything else other than these 13 ikarim are regarded as taful.  As long as a person has not uprooted the evil in himself evil, he is far from the ikar of all ikarim, which is belief in the existence of Hashem.

Knowing What’s More Important In Your Avodas Hashem

We will now clarify this concept and make it more relatable to our life.

When a person is born, he usually doesn’t see the ikar of things, and he only sees the taful.

For example, when a person is beginning to learn a sugya of Gemara, he doesn’t see the ikar.  He sees the pesukim that he needs to know in order to understand the sugya, but he doesn’t see the ikar of the sugya.  If a person doesn’t work hard at the sugya, learning the words of the Rishonim in-depth, he won’t get to the ikar of the words of the sugya.

It’s clear when we learn a sugya that we need to get to the ikar of the matter.  But when it comes to matters in our avodas Hashem, this concept isn’t as clear to us.  There are many details to avodas Hashem; what is the ikkur, and what is the taful?

For example, a person opens up seferOrchos Tzadikim.  He sees many middos that he needs to work on.  Which middah is more important to work on first?

When a person begins to learn Agadta in the Gemara (which always contain deep lessons about life), he has little knowledge and really doesn’t know to much. Eventually he amasses lots of knowledge in Agadta, but even when a person begins to amass all his knowledge of Agadta, and even if he goes through the classical mussar sefarim (such as Chovos HaLevovos, Shaarei Teshuvah, OrchosTzaddikim, Mesillas Yesharim, Tomer Devorah, Raishis Chochmah) - he sees many, many details.  What does he do with all of this knowledge?

Some people take one point they are inspired by, and live with it.  But most people have a hard time trying to do this.  They know more than what they are capable of doing. They have merely gathered heaps of knowledge about how to serve Hashem, but they don’t understandthe structure of how to do it.  They don’t see what the roots are and what the branches are.

A person might know a lot of details about avodas Hashem, plus he can have a lot of ratzon (will) and be working hard at his avodas Hashem, but if all of his life is spent on “branches ” in his avodah, he will never arrive at the root.  He is apt to take work on self-improvement that are really secondary for him to work on. He gets caught up in various details, when in reality he shouldn’t be working on those points, and he really needs to work on other matters that are more important.

Although each matter we learn about in avodas Hashem is important, it is not true avodah to build one’s life based on grabbing various details here and there.  The Mesilas Yesharim states clearly what the main point of all avodah is – that we be clear in our duty in this world and head towards it.  He is telling us what the ikar of everything is.  One has to be headed towards the main goal all of his life and be clear about what it is.

Why is it that most people are not headed towards the goal of life [which is to become close to Hashem]?  One reason is because people are caught up in chitzoniyus, the external superficiality of their lives.  Another reason is because a person gets caught up in details and gets sidetracked from the goal.  But the truth is, as the MesilasYesharim says, the main thing is always to be headed towards the main goal of life, and to be clear what the goal is.

How exactly do we get there?  There are many details involved.  That’s where all the details come in.  A rule in avodas Hashem is that “If you grab too much, you don’t gain even a little.”  But even before you involved yourself in the various details of avodas Hashem, the very first thing is to make sure that you are clear what the goal is. You must always be cognizant of the inner goal of everything in your avodas Hashem.  This inner goal is not just another detail in your life – it is the goal of everything, and you need to always strive to head towards it, no matter what stage you are at.

If a person is spending his life on certain details in avodas Hashem, and he never tries to get to the goal of life, this is a life spent in immaturity (katnus). The way to get to the goal is through a ladder of steps. Without being headed towards the goal, a person’s entire perspective on life is being viewed through a very shallow lens.

Three Ways Of How To Get To The Goal of Life

1. A person has to learn about matters of avodah in-depth.  He must learn these matters like a sugya of Gemara, further researching the matters that he learns.  Rabbeinu Yonah writes that one must write lengthy essays on matters having to do with yiras shomayim (fear of Hashem).  If a person does this, he will be able to come to the main goal of life - what the ikar is and what the taful is.  That is one a person can uncover the goal of life.
2. Another way to uncover the goal of life is through developing one’s intellect, which can only be done through exerting one’s mind in Torah, and then using the mind to clarify what the goal of life is.  This is one part of mussar (self-discipline): learning about these matters in-depth. One part of learning mussar,  Reb Yisrael Salanter teaches, is to learn with “fiery lips”, with emotion (hispaalus), and repeat a statement of Chazal many times, passionately, until it penetrates one’s consciousness thoroughly.  The other aspect of mussar, which is no less important, is to look into these matters in-depth, to see what the roots are and what the branches are, until it is clear how to use the information and how to put it into practice.
3. There is third way of how to reach the goal of life.  It is this method we will focus on now and explain.  We need to understand what and where the evil in the soul is.  Any unfixed evil that remains in our soul is what holds back the ikar of life from us.

והזדים מהרה תעקר ותשבר  We ask Hashem to remove the rebellion from the world, and this refers as well to the evil within us, which holds back the ikar  from us.

Getting To The Root of All Our Inner Evil

There are two facets once we recognize our evil and we try as hard as we can to uproot it.  There are roots and branches to evil.  If we only attack the branches of our evil, which are our bad middos, then we will get caught up in the branches, and we won’t be able to uproot the root itself, the root of all the evil in the soul.  The Sages state^[1] that idol worship must be uprooted with its root.  Even if a person weakens his bad middos, if he doesn’t uproot them from their root, the evil root remains.

To give a simple example, a person has a bad middah of gaavah (conceit). If he doesn’t uproot the root of his gaavah, he will always remain with gaavah, even if he does weaken it somewhat.  The ikar of his life will become his gaavah!  All of his avodas Hashem – all of his learning and mitzvos – will all be considered taful to him, because in his eyes, his ikar is his gaavah!  The same can apply to any of the othermiddosas well.

Of course, we all have a pure soul that we are born with, but our existence is a mixture of good and evil [ever since Adam sinned, and evil entered us].  Thus, evil has become mixed into our soul.  It is especially mixed with our body and the nefesh habehaimis – “the animalistic soul”, the outermost layer of our soul which is the root of our base emotions and self-serving interests) which conceals the pure soul from a person.

Ever since a person is born, there is an outer force of evil that is upon him, which covers over his pure soul, and it becomes the ikar in his life, unless he works to uproot it.  The worstmiddah in each person becomes his ikar when he doesn’t uproot it, and even his avodas Hashem will become tafulto him.  Sometimes his worst middah isn’t always active and it remains dormant, but it will still become his ikar, if he hasn’t yet uprooted it.

If his ikar is any of the bad middos, it cannot be that, for him, the priority is Hashem.  Even if he believes in his thoughts and he expresses it verbally that his main belief in life is to believe in Hashem, in the actual level that his soul is on, he really believes that the main thing is “Me.”  He has “another”  ikar in his life other than the priority of believing in Hashem, chas v’shalom.  Even if he works on his main bad middah, which is wonderful, if he hasn’t uprooted it, his connection to Hashem, the Torah and the Jewish people is not the ikar for him; his connection to Hashem and to Torah will be incomplete.  Even if he thinks about Divine Providence all the time, his soul cannot connect completely with Hashem and Torah.

Ever since we are born, our physical eyes see the world, and we see only the external layer of Creation.  Our heart inside can sense the internal reality and see that Hashem is the essence of Creation.  It is our nature to see only the physical aspect of our existence, and we don’t see our inner layer.

We need to use the external part of the world, but only to get to our inner layer.  The Chovos HaLevovos says that our avodah is avodas hamatzpun, “the hidden avodah”, because we need to uncover the hidden layer of our existence.

The yetzer hora is hidden in our heart, and that is why he is called “Tzafuni,  hidden one.  The yetzer hora, embedded in our hearts, causes us to feel that matters that are taful are really the ikar.  Even when it looks like we are fighting the yetzer hora and even if it appears to us that we are winning it, we need to ask ourselves if we have really gotten to the root.  If we uproot the root of our bad middah, we will get to inner goal of life.  If not, a person will be left with the deeds he did in this world – some of them are good, while some of them will be bad.  A person who works to uproot his main evil will be able to get to the main ikar, Hashem.

There are many bad middos, and each person has his own worst middah, which needs a lot of internal clarification in order to figure out what it is. For this, a person needs to learn the words of Chazal that speak about that badmiddah, as well as practical exertion on his part to uproot it, along with prayer to Hashem that he should merit Heavenly assistance.  It also requires inner understanding.

Transcending The Ego

Furthermore,the ikar of every bad middah is a person’s ego.  The ego manifests in all our bad middos – it can manifest as gaavah, in our taavah.  The bad middah at hand is always the outer garment of the ego.

A person’s nature is that “I” come first. Hashem says “I am the First and I am the Last”, but a person has a nature to feel that he comes first, even though he knows intellectually that really Hashem is the true “I”.  Even if a person denies that he feels that way, it is always true, in his subconscious. The common denominator between all people is that the “I” is always seen as the most important.  A person thinks that his ego comes before Hashem and the Torah!

It is clear when it comes to interpersonal relationships that we tend to place our “I” first.  Most people are not extremely egotistical and they will be considerate to others, but in the depths of our subconscious, a person feels that “I” come before others.

There is a deep place in our soul, however, which can overcome our ego. Hashem existed before we were created.  Before our “I “existed, there was Torah and the collective soul of the Jewish people.

If a person merely tries to weaken his bad middos and he still thinks “I am the most important”, he hasn’t gotten to the root.  When this power is used totally for evil, it becomes heresy, like Pharoah, who thought that he was God.  Yet, all people, in their subconscious, think “I” am the most important.  Therefore, the avodah of a person is to get past his ego and realize, “There is something that comes before me.  Hashem came before me.  Torah came before me.  The idea of the Jewish people was conceived before I was.”

When a person transcends his ego, his first thoughts (muskal rishon) will no longer be centered around his ego, and they will instead stream down from Hashem, from His Torah, and from his ahavasYisrael.  This is not about going deeper into one’s “I” - it is rather to go above one’s “I”, to transcend it.

We ask Hashem to uproot evil in our soul.  The root of all evil in the soul is the ego, the thought that I come before anything.  If one merits the help of Heaven and he exerts himself to overcome his ego, he penetrates the ikar of life, both on a private level, as well as on the collective level – the Creator.