Fixing Your Earth [Laziness] - 005 Pulling Away From Consistent Desires

דע את מידותיך הדרכה מעשית – עפר-עצלות מפורט – 005 – עפר דמים דעפר

Water-of-Earth: Desires Which Weigh A Person Down

We shall continue, with siyata d’shmaya, to explain the trait of laziness. In the previous classes, we learned about laziness which stems from the “earth” aspect within the element of earth. In the next four lessons, we will discuss four specific kinds of laziness which stem from the “water” aspect within the element of water. Therefore, these four kinds of laziness stem from water-of-earth, which subdivides into laziness that stems from earth-of-water-of-earth, water-of-water-of-earth, wind-of-water-of-earth, and fire-of-water-of-earth.

The nature of water is that it descends from a high place to a low place. Water has a downward pull, and in addition, it is drawn downwards when it becomes heavy enough. When this manifests in the soul, a person is drawn after a desire and it also weighs him down. For example, when a person is drawn after eating food, he becomes heavier from the food, and besides for this, the desire itself weighs him down. The desire drags him and pulls him downward, just like the downward pull of water. Desires in general weigh a person down, and the result is laziness.

This is a general description of laziness that stems from water-of-earth. Now we will explain the subdivisions which stem from this laziness, beginning from earth-of-water-of-earth.

Earth-of-Water-of-Earth: Consistently Dragged Towards Certain Things

Laziness that stems from earth-of-water-of-earth is when a person is consistently dragged after the same things.

Sometimes a person becomes dragged after something even when he doesn’t have the nature to become dragged, but there are other cases where a person’s very nature is to become dragged after certain things, when he is pulled after them with a kind of consistency and permanence. This is the laziness that comes from earth-of-water-of-earth. His element of water ‘drags’ him, and his earth gives it permanence, causing him to be consistently dragged after something.

Getting more specific, there is the aspect of “heaviness” here, which is earth, contained in the “dragging” aspect, which is water. Earth-of-water-of-earth is when a person is consistently dragged. To illustrate how this works, when something is heavy, it stays in its place with a kind of permanence. The heavier an item is, the less it moves from place.

The nature of heaviness\consistency also exists in the side of holiness: When a person learns Torah with consistency, setting side times of Torah study every day. But in all other cases, where a person is often dragged after something which is unproductive and which locks him in place, this comes from impaired heaviness\consistency, which is the nature of earth-of-water-of-earth, and it weighs a person down.

An Imprisoned Lifestyle

When a person is regularly ‘dragged’ towards a certain thing, this does not mean that he becomes dragged after other things. For example, there are some people who will only become pulled after always noshing on a certain food, downing a certain alcoholic beverage, or reading the news. The person regularly pursues these frivolous desires.

This kind of person will certainly take care of whatever he needs to do, but he is still dominated by a nature of earth-of-water-of-earth, so he becomes more and more permanently dragged after certain things, which eventually imprison him. Every person has certain bounds, but if he is dominated by earth of water of earth, he stays imprisoned within certain activities, and he finds it too difficult to get used to anything else.

For example, if he is sitting at his Shabbos table and his wife serves a new dish, he won’t try it, simply because he is not used to it. He cannot try anything he isn’t used to. He is used to having the same old foods, and he can’t try anything else. If he gets invited for a Shabbos meal and the food isn’t exactly what he is used to, he feels that all of his Oneg Shabbos is ruined. (He considers all of the food to muktzeh, because to him, it has no use on Shabbos.) He has become dragged after certain foods with a kind of permanence, and he can’t part from them.

This is more than a simple nature of heaviness in the soul. It is more constricting. He feels that there are no other possibilities, and in turn, he places a constriction on his soul. He has greatly increased his limitations, because he never does anything other than what he’s used to. By placing so many bounds on himself, he increases his element of earth so much that his element of wind can’t move him out of his limitations.

Even more so, he doesn’t even want anything else, other than what he is used to. So his power of will also becomes constricted. Whereas the will is the force in the soul that makes a person run in order to pursue what he wants (the word ratzon\will is from the word ratz, run, because the will makes a person run after what he wants) a person with a lot of earth-of-water-of-earth is very limited in his own will, by only wanting what he’s used to and never wanting anything else. This increases the earth in his soul, and in limiting his will, which is rooted in the element of wind, his movements become constricted.

In contrast to this nature, there are some people go all over the world to fulfill their lusts, and they don’t have a problem with laziness. They can have all kinds of different desires they pursue, old ones and new ones, and they will do anything to get what they want; they will fly to any country in the world to try something new, if they desire it enough.

Earth-of-water-of-earth is the very opposite of this. A person with this nature will not seek any new desire, other than what he is used to. He wants to remain with whatever he is accustomed to, what he grew up with, and what he is familiar with. He will never try anything new. He becomes constricted, from all four sides, and by his very nature, he can’t move out of it. Even his trait of desire becomes constricted, because he will only want what he is used to, so he will never have desires for anything else.

His element of wind is the most constricted, because he can’t move out of his limited kind of lifestyle. His element of water also becomes constricted, because he is never pulled after anything else other than his same old desires [activities, outlets, and hobbies]. If he would have a strong element of fire, perhaps his fire will be able to excite him and allow him to open up to new things. However, usually a person with a nature of earth-of-water-of-earth doesn’t have that much active fire in his soul, because he has become so constricted by this nature.  

Until now we have explained the issues with impaired earth-of-water-of-earth. Now let us see how this nature can be repaired, with siyata d’shmaya.

What Will Not Work

It would seem that in order to solve this issue at its root, one should slowly get used to becoming ‘dragged’ after other things, in order to counter his nature that is only dragged towards the same old things. In this way, he would become open to trying other things and becoming pulled after them, and this would expand his mind a bit, and then he would allow himself to break out of his imprisoning, constricted lifestyle.

However, the danger with this approach is that if we get him to start trying new desires and he becomes pulled after them, he may become drawn towards all kinds of negative desires, which only exchanges one issue for another. Recently I was in the supermarket, and I saw 80 types of chocolate being sold, all in the same store. There are is an endless array of desires available today, so a person can easily be dragged towards them, once he allows himself to be pulled after anything different. We don’t want to solve one problem by creating one another. Therefore, there is a problem with using this approach.

To counter this issue, perhaps we could also try providing him with a holy outlet to pursue as well, so that he isn’t totally dragged towards materialism and he can also be dragged towards holiness. (For example, if we could get him to sing for many hours on Shabbos table, and he feels himself getting dragged after the holy songs, he has a holy outlet he is dragged towards, which doesn’t allow him to become totally dragged after his other materialistic outlets.)

However, this is not either that feasible, because often when a person allows him to be dragged after holiness, he will also increase his nature to become dragged in general, and then he may find himself getting dragged and pulled after all other kinds out of outlets as well, which aren’t holy or good. Most of the time, when people become dragged and pulled, even after something holy, it becomes a way of life, to become dragged after all kinds of hobbies, holy and unholy. Even if a person is dragged all day after something holy, that is not either good, because it should not become a general way of living. It is not a true kind of life.

Therefore, the above advice is an incomplete solution, and it is not the ideal one, as explained. So we will need a clearer approach to solve the issue.

The True Solution: Countering The Impaired Consistency and Dragging, Separately

The avodah in fixing this nature of impaired earth-of-water-of-earth consists of two parts. One will need to deal with the impaired consistency which often takes him over, and he will also need to counter his nature to become dragged after things. Each of these factors will need to be dealt with separately. He will need to get used to doing something permanent even when he is not dragged, and he should let himself get dragged and not let it become permanent.

1. Countering Impaired Consistency – Through Changing Routine

To counter his impaired consistency, he should try doing something out of his routine every so often. Since the problem is that he becomes too permanent in his behaviors, he needs to learn the idea of pulling away from consistent or permanent behavior. In this way, he goes against his normally consistent nature, and when he learns how to go against his own permanence, he slowly learns how to decrease the consistency in whatever is dragging him.

(This advice, however, should only be used by one who has too much permanence in his life, and it should not be used at all by someone who has a problem with consistency, who requires an opposite approach than this.)

We have given examples in the past of how a person can break out of routine habits. Examples includes: Walking on a different side of the street he normally walks on, taking a different route than his regular route, etc. If he wakes up at a certain time of the day, he can try setting his alarm to wake up a minute earlier. All of these are just examples, but the idea is to learn how to take himself out of consistent, permanent behaviors.

Of course, we do not mean that he should start giving up his consistent schedule. The aim here is not so that he should uproot his entire power of consistency, chas v’shalom. That would be detrimental, as consistency is a necessary tool in all areas of avodas Hashem. But when a person is unable to pull away from consistent behavior, he is imbalanced in this area, so he should definitely learn how to veer from it sometimes.

2. Countering “Dragging”

In addition to the above, the main part of the remedy in fixing impaired earth-of-water-of-earth is to overcome the “dragging” aspect here, an issue which comes from the element of water.

2a) Developing Awareness.

In general, whenever a person becomes dragged and pulled towards anything, the general way to get control over his desire and to overcome this problem (temporarily) is, firstly, that he must be aware of what is happening. He needs to be aware of it before it happens, as opposed to catching himself in the act, when he has already been dragged. The fact that he simply becomes aware of what’s happening around him is already a sign of improvement, even if he can’t yet control himself from going after his desire.

However, one cannot suddenly develop awareness right before he is about to feel dragged towards something. Instead, one needs to work on himself to develop awareness in general, so that then when he becomes dragged, he can be better aware of it.

2b) Not Giving In Totally.

After one acquires the power of awareness, with siyata d’shmaya, the next step is, that when he is being dragged, if he feels a strong pull towards something and he has a hard time getting control over himself, he should try delaying a bit what he is in middle of doing. There are two methods of doing this: to take breaks in middle of the act, and to leave some of the desire unfulfilled. In this way, even he is dragged\pulled, he doesn’t become totally dragged\pulled.

As he is in the midst of becoming aware that he is becoming dragged, he should not let himself become totally dragged after his desire. He should leave over some of his desire unfulfilled.

For example, if a person is thirsty and hungry at the same time, and he wants to experience the pleasure of eating a good meal, naturally, he wants to first eat the food and only afterwards does he quench his thirst with a drink. If he first takes a drink, usually this decreases the good taste of the food. A person should deliberately do that, in order to decrease his desire as he is in the midst of fulfilling it. In this way, even when he becomes dragged after the desire, he doesn’t become totally dragged.

2c) Delaying The Act.

In addition, as he in the midst of being dragged after his desire, he should also try taking breaks in between what he is in middle of, by pausing himself every so often. For example, while eating, he should take pauses between his eating, and put down his fork for a minute. He should try delaying his desire to eat or drink when he feels it, and wait a bit before eating or drinking. The point is to take pauses, delaying the dragging.

2d) Getting Involved With A Different Familiar Pull.

Finally, whenever one is dragged after a particular desire, he should counter this by dragging himself after other things which he is usually dragged towards. In this method, he counters one desire with a different desire of his, creating a war between the two desires. Although he isn’t overcoming the trait of desire and he is instead giving in to a different desire, the gain is that he is learning how to go against a particular desire of his, so that he doesn’t become totally dragged after it.

However, as mentioned earlier, we don’t want him to try new kinds of desires he isn’t used to, which would be trading one problem for another. We only mean that he should drag himself towards areas which he’s already dragged after, so that when he feels himself becoming dragged and pulled after anything, he can instead involve himself with a different desire that he’s already used to pursuing (providing of course that it is permitted, not forbidden). Therefore, one should be aware of what he is usually dragged towards, and then he should make use of those desires whenever he feels himself getting dragged and pulled after anything.

For example, some people regularly read or hear the news, while others are regularly dragged after noshing on certain foods. One can try the following. If he usually reads or hears the news, he can instead get involved with food. If he regularly noshes on the same food every day, he can switch this with reading the news instead. Every time he feels the pull towards his routine habits that are detrimental, he can try switching it for a different desire that he is also regularly dragged towards.

This particular advice is written about in the Sages, that one should fight water with fire, and fire with water. The point of it is that it creates a war between different impulses. The consistency of a particular desire then becomes weakened, when he gets used to switching the consistent desire for a different consistent desire. Ultimately, he is fighting the consistent desire which is dragging him. Although he isn’t uprooting the nature of consistent desires, he is preventing himself from getting dragged after a particular desire which he was consistently drawn towards. In this way, he weakens the aspect of the “dragging”.

Through the above, with siyata d’shmaya, a person weakens his nature of dragging and his nature of impaired consistency, and in turn, he weakens his impaired earth-of-water-of-earth.