Tefillah - 161 Through Ups and Downs

The Ups & Downs of Our History

יתברך שמך מלכינו תמיד לעולם ועד  “May Your Name be blessed, our King, constantly, and forever.”  We pray here that the Name of Hashem become constant and forever.

Hashem created the world in a way that we are always going through ups and downs. The world is like this in general, and on a more specific level, this process affects Klal Yisrael. Thus every Jew has times of spiritual ascent and times of descent.

There were two times in history when we reached the apex of perfection, but they didn’t last for long. One time was when we stood at Har Sinai and we received the Torah, where we were cleansed from the effects of the Snake on mankind that had entered us since Adam’s sin. From the time of Shavuos until the sin of the Golden Calf, we were on a perfected level. Another time where we had spiritual elevation, although not as perfect as the level of standing at Har Sinai, was the time when the Beis HaMikdash was built, where we had the Shechinah amongst us. But it didn’t last for more than 420 years. It was destroyed due to the three cardinal sins which were rampant then.

So although we had our times of elevation, it did not last forever. We were not able to exalt the name of Hashem “constantly and forever” as we say here in Shemoneh Esrei. Only in the future will Hashem’s name be exalted forever. In our current times, Amalek is still present, and its evil does not allow Hashem’s name to be forever. Until the future, we have to go through an ongoing cycle of spiritual ups and downs.

In times of spiritual ascent, a person feels inspired and he is able to exalt Hashem’s name, and when a person is going through a period of descent, he will not always have the strength to exalt Hashem’s name, chas v’shalom. This is true on the general scale of Klal Yisrael, as well as on a personal scale, of each soul in Klal Yisrael.

Upward Movement and Downward Movement

There is also a deeper way to understand it.

Creation consists of movements – there is either upward movement (aliyah), or there is downward movement (yeridah). When one has yearnings for d’veykus in Hashem and he is of the bnei aliyah (those who ascend spiritually), he wishes to attach himself to his Source. This is the ‘upward’ kind of movement in Creation. The other kind of movement in Creation is downward movement. It can be a kind of movement that causes rectification, or it can be a movement that is detrimental to the person.

We find a kind of downward movement that rectifies. The Sages said that Hashem desired to have a dwelling on this world. This is a ‘descent’ on Hashem’s part, because He is descending from Heaven to come onto this lowly world. This kind of descent, obviously, is a rectifying kind of descent.

Thus, man has a personal avodah to reveal Hashem through desiring to ascend, higher and higher in spiritual attainments, until he can finally reach the most desired level, which is to reach Hashem Himself. But a person also has an avodah to sometimes ‘descend’, in order to resemble Hashem’s holy attribute of descending.

An example of this is that a rebbi must descend from his level in order to teach his student, and a father must descend from his level in order to teach his son. Similarly, Chazal say that it is greater for one to greet guests than to greet the Shechinah, and we learn this from Avraham Avinu, who left the Shechinah in order to be run after guests. This is a kind of descent from one’s level in which one resembles Hashem’s own nature to descend from His loftiness and dwell on this world.

‘Nefilah’: Times of Falling

But there is also ‘descent’ which does not rectify others. This is a kind of descent in which a person falls from his level, and it is not resembling Hashem’s nature of holy descent. Most of the time in which a person falls from his level, it is a kind of yeridah (descent) that is a nefilah (fall).

However, we must know that yeridah at its root is holy. It is just that it doesn’t always manifest itself in our life for holiness. But we can definitely turn a yeridah into a period of holiness. Therefore, one must know that when he is going through a yeridah, it is also a time where he can also “exalt Hashem’s name”.

During a time of ascent, one feels exalted and thus it is easier to exalt Hashem’s name. He is pulled after Hashem like a magnet after a magnet, as the Mesillas Yesharim writes. When we go through a period of descent, where we are not inspired like this, we must understand that the very concept of descent is not a bad thing in essence.

We all recognize many times in our life in which we are going through a yeridah. But they can be times where we reveal Hashem’s name through them. If we were to only exalt Hashem’s name during times of spiritual ascent, then it would not be a ‘constant’ exaltation of Hashem’s name, for it would only be limited to times where we are ascending. But if we exalt Hashem’s name even as we are going through a descent, that shows that we are always exalting Hashem’s name, and this fulfills the meaning of יתרומם ותינשא שמך תמיד לעולם ועד.

When You Are In A ‘Yeridah’ (Time of Spiritual Descent)

This issue is, however: What is the avodah of a person when he finds himself in a yeridah?

Obviously, the first thing he has to do is to see how he can come out of it. He needs to muster the strength and pull himself together, doing what he can to come out of it. That part is obvious. But what we want to know is, in addition to knowing that we need to come out of a yeridah, now that we are going through a yeridah, the question is: what to do in this situation.

What is the avodah of a person when he’s going through a yeridah, and he’s trying to come out of it but he sees that he can’t? He doesn’t have the yishuv hadaas (settled mind) to pull himself out, or it’s because the external situation is not allowing it. What now should he do?

One part of the avodah, as is well-known, is to hold onto certain points from his period of growth, that he can still keep to, so that he will be able to look towards growth and come out of the yeridah. In order to rise above his situation, he would need a lot of yishuv hadaas (settled mind) and menuchas hanefesh (inner serenity). He doesn’t have this, so he needs to find certain areas that he still keeps growing in, even as he’s going through a yeridah.

In this way, Hashem’s name is ‘constantly’ exalted. It is easy to exalt Hashem’s name when we are full of inspiration and we are like a fire that keeps ascending to Heaven; when we are like “a constant fire that burns on the Altar, it does not extinguish.” Fire is “aish”, which has the same letters as the word yeiush (despair); when a person falls from his level, he might chas v’shalom fall into despair, where his inner fire is extinguished.

But when a person understands that our avodah consists of ups and downs, and that we can reveal Hashem even through times of descent, it becomes easier to survive the dismal periods. The main part of our avodah is of course when we ascend higher and higher to Hashem and we are serving Him as we are supposed to, but when the times of descent do arrive, they are also important times in our avodah of revealing Hashem.

Rabbeinu Tam  (authored by Rabbeinu Tam); see also Alei Shur, Vol. I, p.34) wrote that even in times of descent, we can hold onto certain points of our growth, which will make us feel positive and thus be enabled to get by the dismal period. This way, he won’t fall any more than he’s already falling. Here we’ve described a different facet of understanding to the concept of Rabbeinu Tam: in addition to doing what he can to come out of his yeridah, one can know that he needs to serve Hashem precisely in his state of yeridah. It is not just about preventing any further descent from his level. It is about serving Hashem even as a person is amidst a yeridah.

This is what truly exalts Hashem’s name. In this way, he raises the situation of his yeridah and exalts Hashem’s name there. The yeridah becomes ‘exalted’ in this way, as it enables the person to exalt Hashem’s name even as he’s going through the yeridah. Not only does he look to reveal Hashem in his situation; he exalts the situation from what it used to be.

One has to discern the areas of yeridah in his life. It is easy for us to discern if we are going through a major yeridah, but there are also small areas of yeridah, which can be manifest even as a person is in a state of general spiritual ascent.

In Summary

In summary, the avodah of a person of surviving a yeridah really begins before the person goes through a yeridah. The first thing one must figure out is how a yeridah can be a situation of growth. This needs to be done while one is in a time of growth, and he must not wait until he falls in order to think about this. He must strive to avoid a situation of yeridah, of course.

But after one finds himself in a situation of yeridah, he must see how he can come out of it, seeing what he can do to do about it, and if there’s any possibility of pulling himself out of it, as much as the situation allows.

But in addition to this, he must also turn it into a holy kind of yeridah, according to the perspective that was explained here: he must understand that a time of yeridah is also a time in which we can exalt Hashem’s name.

The Deep Perspective: Transforming ‘Yeridah’ Into ‘Aliyah’

This third, deeper point is implying that even as a person is in a yeridah, he can understand that it is really not a yeridah. If a person thinks he is in a yeridah, he will keep falling. If he views himself as someone who is ‘falling’, then he is losing all his power to ascend. But when one understands how this avodah works - that yeridah can also be a way to grow and ascend - then even as he’s in a yeridah, he can turn it into a period of ascent! In this way, he becomes a “constant fire that burns on the Altar”, which keeps ascending.

When a person is in a yeridah and he’s simply trying to ‘fife’ the situation as best as he can, although he might succeed, the problem is with his attitude. He is in a yeridah and he’s trying to oppose the entire situation, so his soul will not feel the energy to help him. It might succeed, and indeed there are those with great inner strength who succeed like this, but for most people who do not have this kind of resilience, this approach will not work.

The inner perspective is not to try to ‘fife’ the situation of a yeridah. Rather, you can understand that you are in a yeridah, but that the yeridah itself can be a situation of aliyah (ascent) for you.

In Conclusion

Acquiring this perspective enables a person to reach a level of inner redemption to his soul; “My soul is close to her redemption.”

In the future, when Amalek will be erased, Hashem’s name will be revealed on this world, for there will be no more yeridos anymore. There will only be constant and eternal ascension. As we live now, where Amalek is still present, the Sages say that Hashem’s name is incomplete and His Throne is incomplete; so His name cannot be fully revealed on this world in our current state. But if a person learns how to serve his Creator both through his ups and downs, he can exalt Hashem’s name in either situation –"תמיד לעולם ועד".

Even if one were to descend to the lowest possible levels, to the depths of She’ol (the abysses of spiritual impurity), he can still reveal Hashem there and thereby cause Hashem’s name to be exalted there, and in this way, he is exalting Hashem’s name precisely in this lowly world.  He will merit to be of the b’nei aliyah (those who ascend spiritually) (Bava Metzia 45a) of whom there are few of.