Fixing Your Earth [Laziness] - 015 Escape

Wind-of-Fire-of-Earth

With siyata d’shmaya we are continuing to learn about the element of earth and its trait of laziness. In this lesson we will discuss laziness that comes from wind-of-fire-of-earth.

The element of earth is the root of laziness, which comes from the “heaviness” of earth. The element of fire will burst out, as is the nature of fire, and it contradicts the element of earth. Fire-of-earth is when the fire bursts out more intensely, due to being stifled by the element of earth. The earth stifles the fire and restrains it too much, and eventually, the fire bursts out with intensity.

How does a person react to the contradicting natures of his fire and earth? There are two possibilities. Either a person will choose to deal with the contradiction, as explained in previous chapters; or, he will try to “run away” from the contradiction and try to escape it. This is wind-of-fire-of-earth.

Although it is not really possible to “run away” from a contradictory nature in oneself, a person will try to run away anyway. One is able to temporarily ‘take his mind off’ his problems (this is called hesech hadaas, lit. “removal of the mind”), but this of course does not mean that he can actually run away from the problems.

Running Away

Part of ‘running away’ from issues is that a person finds a place of “escape” so that he can take his mind off what bothers him. A person might ‘run away’ to various actions, emotions, conversations, thoughts, or desires, so that he can become engaged in something else that will take his mind off things. [This lesson will focus on how a person escapes into various actions].

Actions of Escape

There are three kinds of actions a person might “run away” to, in order to take his mind off things: (1) Actions that are mitzvos, (2) Actions that are permissible to do, but not mitzvos, such as things we need to take care of, (3) Actions of sin (G-d forbid). In any case, whenever a person runs away into any action that will take his mind off things, it is as if he is running away into a different world. A person will run into the “world” of action so that he can take his mind off the issues caused by his inner contradiction of fire-of-earth, so that he calm himself a bit, at least temporarily.

Escaping Into Speech

Or, as an alternative means of escape, a person might run away into the world of “speech”. People can chat a lot, and it is not always because they have a dominant element of wind (the root of speech), but because they are afraid of being quiet, since the quiet causes them to think more inward, which they don’t want to do. Their talking is a way for them to take their mind off important things.

Escaping Into Thought

A person might also escape into the world of thought. A person might be thinking deeply of Torah thoughts all day, but it’s not always because he loves the Torah. It may be because he’s running away from his problems, into a world of thought, and not because he’s interested in the words of Torah. He may become a more intellectual kind of person, but he’s just running away from his issues, even though it’s Torah learning. He doesn’t have a true yearning for Torah – it is just that he’s trying to run away from something and find a place of escape.

Escaping Into Action: When a Person Chooses Stressful Activities, In Order To Run Away From His Own Life

Most people run away into the world of action. What happens in the process? They don’t find an activity or job which is good for them, but anything that will take their mind off their problems. It’s better than doing nothing, but they are still not involved in actions that are suited for their nature.

They do this so that they can attain some feeling of calm, and instead, not only don’t they become calmer, they only become more stressed. This is because they were being extreme in their pursuit to get away from their issues, and they ran to any place of escape that would make them feel better. They can’t deal with their inner contradictions, so they run into actions that are not suitable for them, and they run constantly, running away from themselves, and this is how they live: Their life becomes a situation of always running away from themselves.

In this way, a person “escapes” to a different world, and in an extreme way. He also won’t get pleasure from what he’s doing. He might seek stressful kinds of jobs, even though it’s not suitable for him, because he just wants to get away from his issues and take his mind off his problems.

When a person wants to run away from himself, and he becomes a taxi driver, he may enjoy all of the action involved, as well as the social aspect of this job, always meeting new people and conversing with them. But not all taxi drivers enjoy their job. It is stressful. People do not always show up on time when they are supposed to be there, he has to deal with a lot of unpleasant phone calls, with a lot of yelling and screaming. They have to deal with all kinds of people with difficult personalities, people who do not act that kind, and people who are self-absorbed and uncommunicative because they are busy on their smartphones. Why did the taxi driver choose this job, if he knows that it’s so stressful for him? It can only be because he wanted to choose an activity that will keep him busy all day, so that he can run away from his own life and from his own self.

Most people are not taxi drivers, but they still live in a similar way, by subconsciously ‘running away’ all day from themselves. Throughout the day, a person will suddenly become ‘reminded’ of different errands he needs to take care of, either real or imagined. The deeper reason for this is because people are really running away from their own selves all the time. They will usually imagine that they need to take care of something they forgot to do, they find themselves suddenly being ‘reminded’ that they need to go take care of a certain errand.

Where are these ‘reminders’ coming from? Reminders come from the faculty of memory, which is usually coming from one’s imagination. While there are some people who have a deeper kind of memory, which is coming from a deep imprint on their neshamah, most people are not remembering things from this deep place in themselves, and instead, their memories are sourced in their imagination. People find themselves suddenly ‘remembering’ throughout the day of different things that they have to take care of, but it’s really a means of running away from oneself! This does only happen to a few people – it is a large number of cases. This is all the more so when a person doesn’t really need to take care of something, and it is only because he imagines that he needs to.

Adam’s Sin - Running Away From Reality

Before the sin, Adam lived above the realm of action. It was a state of Shabbos, a spiritual state, where there was no need for physical activity. When Adam was cursed with the need to earn livelihood, this really meant that he now become ‘demoted’ into the realm of action, our current dimension. Thus, the entire concept of action is all a result of Adam’s sin. [See footnote[1]]. Before the sin, man lived on a higher level, where was no need for action, and as a result of the sin, we now live in the world of action, where action is necessary. (Ever since then, speech, which comes from a higher realm than action, has also become part of the realm of action. Now speech is always about getting something done.)

Whenever a person finds difficulty, and he chooses to deal with it, rather than run away from it, he is fixing the sin of Adam. But if a person ‘runs away’ from difficulty by escaping into the world of action – any activity or job that will get him to take his mind off his problems, where he further avoids dealing with his issues - he is repeating the sin of Adam, on his own level.

It seems that when Adam was told by Hashem to leave Gan Eden, it was a result of his sin of eating from the Eitz HaDaas Tov V’Ra (the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil) and because he hid from Hashem and didn’t confess his sin. But the truth is that as soon as Adam chose to eat from the Eitz HaDaas Tov V’Ra, this was already considered to be an expulsion from Gan Eden. How? By choosing to eat from the Eitz HaDaas, he was trying to escape the reality that Hashem had commanded him with, which was to only eat from the Eitz HaChaim and not from the Eitz HaDaas. Therefore, from a deeper perspective, Hashem didn’t send him out from Gan Eden – rather, Adam had already sent himself out, for by choosing to eat from the Eitz HaDaas, he was choosing to run away from all that Hashem had commanded him with. This was the depth of Adam’s sin.

And later, when Adam hid from Hashem, it was because he was once again trying to hide from the reality and escape from it. From the fact that Adam his only after the sin, we learn that the entire ide of hiding is a result of sin. The sin caused a person to want to escape from everything – from reality, from one’s life, from oneself. Adam heard Hashem’s voice and he hid – he heard the reality, and he ran away from it. The prophet Yonah also hid from Hashem’s voice, by running away to the city of Tarshish, because he did not want to receive a dire prophecy from Hashem. This was also an example of running away from reality.

What caused man to want to run away from reality? Before Adam was tempted with the sin, he had the power of daas, an integrated and heightened awareness of Hashem. As soon as Adam and Chavah were tempted by the Serpent, the evil “daas of the Serpent” entered them and corrupted their pure thinking. It was the daas of the Serpent which they listened to, which convinced them to run away from the reality, to run away from their higher level of existence and into a lower level of existence, the world of action. It convinced them to run away from their higher level of perception to a different kind of perception that altered their thinking.

After listening to the Serpent, man learned how to run away from reality and pursue whatever he feels a pull towards. Before the sin, man’s power of bechirah (free will) was on a higher level, when the entire choice given to man was to choose to be on the level of choosing in the first place. After the sin, the power of free will exists on a lower level. Now man has to choose between his own will, which pursues various desires of This World, versus doing the will of Hashem.

This is all the more so in our times, when people today are choosing to show anything and everything to everyone [through means of social media], without any sense of shame. The depth of this is because in today’s times, the power of bechirah given to man is that he must choose either between doing whatever he wants, or to do Hashem’s will.

It is said that Adam’s mistake was that he “chose to choose”. Instead of remaining on a level where he didn’t have to choose between his own will and Hashem’s, he chose to be on the level of bechirah, meaning that he chose to run away from doing only Hashem’s will, and now he had to choose between doing his own will versus following Hashem’s will.

In terms that apply to us, this is when a person runs away from the entire concept of bechirah altogether. Adam’s initial test was either to live totally in the presence of Hashem, where he would not even think of doing anything against the will of Hashem, or to choose to run away from this reality and instead live in a different reality, where evil was possible. This was a very subtle kind of test than what we are faced with. Adam’s test included two aspects: Choosing to run away in the first place, and where to run to. Today, most people are not on the level of rectifying the first mistake of Adam. Instead, most people today are dealing with the second challenge of Adam: Now that they have run away from living solely in Hashem’s presence, their test is about choosing to avoid running away into places that are improper and unbefitting.

Rav Dessler wrote about the concept of nekudas habechirah, the point of the free will – and that every person contains three parts:

1)     The area of the free will [where it within his capability to choose between good and evil, and he is responsible for his choice],

2)     The area above his free will [a level which he cannot naturally attain, and he is not held accountable if he doesn’t reach it],

3)     The area below his free will [the areas in which it is expected him to refrain from sinning, because it is natural for him to refrain from sinning in these areas].

In spite of the fact that a person naturally will not sin in the areas that are below his point of free will, people today are choosing to ‘run away’ into this point. When a person lives at this level, he will not be able to deal with contradictory natures in his soul, when he finds them unpleasant to acknowledge and accept.

(There is also a higher use of the power to ‘run away’: when a person “runs away” to seek refuge with Hashem, as in the verse, “In the shadow of Your wings, they take shelter.” But most of the time, a person misuses the power to “run away”, and when he chooses to escape anything unpleasant, he usually runs away into an unsavory place, so long as it enables him to run away from dealing with the issues in his soul.

When a person is using the nature of impaired wind-of-fire-of-earth, a person ‘runs away’ into various movements (wind) or activity, as a result of the contradictory forces of fire-of-earth in himself. He does so that he can calm himself from the unpleasant discovery of contradicting forces in his soul. The person simply tries to ‘escape’ from his inner contradictions, by engaging himself in various movements that will get him to take his mind off the issues in his soul.

Work was a curse given to mankind, as a result of the sin. The Mesillas Yesharim explained that ever since the sin, man is given the “penalty” of having to work for a living, in order to rectify the sin. Yet, in spite of this, people are choosing all the time to run away from their life, by pursuing jobs that aren’t really suitable for them to work in. Clearly, when a person chooses to work at a job that isn’t for him, it’s rooted in the desire for money, and sometimes it is also a desire for prestige and honor, but there is also another reason why a person is choosing such a job: A person doesn’t realize that he is being motivated by a desire to run away from himself.

The Solution: Examining Our Motivations

In order to repair this part of human nature which seeks to run away from reality, a person needs to make reflection into himself and discover this part of himself that seeks to run away from reality into the world of action. Running away is not only limited to escaping into action – a person might also escape into various desires, thoughts, memories, emotions, or conversations. Here we have mainly spoken about how people run away into the world of action, because that is where most people run to, as a result of the sin of Adam (who ran away from reality by escaping into the world of action).

How can one stop this habit of running away into actions? One needs to get used to examining his motivations. He should wonder why he is doing something now: “Why am I really doing this? Is it because of the reason I think it is, or is it perhaps because I’m trying to escape and run away from something?”

When a person gets up in the morning, he should ask himself, “Why did I get up this morning?” If he has a job, did he get up in the morning only because he doesn’t want to get fired from his job? Why does a person daven – is it because if not, he will get punished by Hashem? Or is it because he doesn’t want his children to think poorly of him? If he looks deeply into his motivations, he might discover that he got up because he just wanted to have his cup of coffee in the morning…

These are just some examples of taking apart one’s actions and seeing one’s motivations. Through regularly getting used to this kind of thinking, one will discover that he does things because he’s really trying to run away from his inner world.

The Gemara says that most people are not on the level of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his colleagues, who separated from the world in order to be entirely devoted to learning Torah. Therefore, realistically speaking, most people do need to be involved in the world of action. But they often do so by “running away” into the world of action, as a form of escaping, from their inner world. People are simply running away from themselves!

When one examines and discovers his motivations in what he does, he gets deeper and deeper, until he gets to the real reason - he did it so he could run away from himself! The deeper a person gets into himself, by analyzing his motivations in what he does, he discovers more and more that he is doing things in order to run away from the inner contradictions in his nature, which he would rather not think about.

Each person has his own inner contradictions, but there is also a general inner contradiction which all of us are born with, and it is the main inner contradiction that we run away from: the contradiction between our body (guf) and our neshamah (soul). We were all once souls that came from Heaven, where our sole desire was to do Hashem’s will, and when our soul came onto This World, it becomes joined with a physical body, which is pulled toward its desires. We live a contradictory existence of body and soul. Usually, it is our body which is dominating our soul, unless we have uprooted this perception. Instead of dealing with this very great contradiction in our life, most people choose to run away from it, rather than deal with it.

Repairing Wind-of-Fire-of-Earth: Uncovering Our “Higher Free Will”

After one becomes aware of how he runs away from his inner contradictions, he can then reach the very root of his bechirah (free will), the higher use of our bechirah, where he once can ‘choose’ to live totally in Hashem’s presence, and be above “choosing” altogether.[2] Then he can truly “escape” all of the ruination that has entered into existence ever since the first sin.

This enables a person to touch upon the repaired element of wind in the soul, the very air which Hashem breathed into man. This wind is the ruach chaim, the “breath of life”, and it is synonymous with man’s very soul, the “ruach Elokim”, the “spirit of G-d” which returns to Hashem after death. When one accesses this repaired element of wind in the soul, he can be in a state of living entirely in the presence of Hashem. This repaired “wind” is the true place for the soul to “escape” to, and it repairs the wind-of-fire-of-earth in the soul.