Bilvavi Part 3 - Section 1 Ladder of Growth

Bilvavi 3, Section 1: “Ladder of Growth” (7 chapters)

 

Section One: Ladder of Growth: Chapter One:

Love of Hashem

 

Loving Hashem

 

The Torah says, “And you should love Hashem with all your heart” (Devorim 6:5). There is mitzvah to love Hashem with all your heart. The sefer Michtav M’Eliyahu writes, however, that few people in our generation reach this level.

 

It is impossible to live without loving Hashem

 

There are three major pillars in serving Hashem: Yirah (awe of Hashem, Ahavah (love of Hashem), and D’veykus (attachment to Hashem).

 

Even if a person reaches a level of yirah towards Hashem (May Hashem grant all of us to reach it), this is not enough, because he still lacks the other two pillars - love of Hashem and attachment to Hashem.

 

We will first be introduced to the concept of loving Hashem, so we can come to appreciate its worth. If a person understands it, he will then come to have a will to love Hashem - for two reasons:

 

1) If a person just stays in his current situation and continues to live his life without loving Hashem, his life will not be a life. Just like a car cannot drive with one wheel, so is it impossible to live with just awe of Hashem, because he will feel that he is lacking a vital necessity in life.

 

2) Only after contemplating the importance of loving Hashem, can a person develop a will to acquire it.

 

What is love?

 

First, we will explain what love of Hashem is. Then, G-d willing, we will also give practical applications how to acquire it.

 

Love, in Hebrew, means ahavah, which is has the same gematria (numerical value in Hebrew) as the word echad, one. Love is to be one with another. We love our children naturally because we feel a oneness with them, that they are a part of us. A person also loves his wife because she is one with him, as it is written, “A bone from my bone, flesh from my flesh.” (Beraishis 3: 23). Love is to feel one with the beloved.

 

That was a parable, but now let us to return to our subject: loving Hashem. Loving Hashem is to feel a sense of being one with Him.

 

The nation of Israel is sometimes called the bride of Hashem, as it says, “I remember the kindness of your youth, the love of a bride.” (Yirmiyahu 2,2). Sometimes we find that the children of Israel are called “My firstborn son, Israel.” Just as there is love and a sense of oneness between a groom and bride and a father to his daughter, so is there love and oneness between Hashem and our nation.

 

Only the soul can love Hashem

 

We will expand upon these words. A person is made up of two parts, a body and a soul. The body is materialistic and its nature is to be different than its source. But the soul is a piece of G-d. Since it is part of G-d, only the soul within us has the power to love Hashem. A person after this can merit to purify even his body as well, as it is written, “My heart and flesh shall sing to the living

G-d.”

 

In order to reach the level of loving Hashem, a person can’t use his body, because his body is separated from the Creator. Only the soul, which is a part of Hashem - a “cheilek eloka mimaal” - can bring a person to love Hashem, because the only soul can become one with Hashem.

 

The question

 

However, many people, who have not yet reached the level of loving Hashem, have a question. How can a person love Hashem through his soul, if the soul is beyond the grasp of people? How can we use the soul, when we don’t really know what it is?

 

The truth is, however, that this question can only bother someone who is far from his own self. A person who has this question is far from his own soul, and that is why he thinks that the soul is inaccessible. Really, the soul can be reached totally, and it is the actual essence of a person – who he really is. Anyone who doesn’t feel his own soul has never tasted life on this world.

 

How a person must access his soul

 

In order for a person to love Hashem, a person must use his soul, and not his body.

 

We must therefore learn how to reach into ourselves – our souls – which is our very essence. When a person accesses his soul, he can come to love Hashem, a result of becoming one with Him. This will be explained in the next chapter.

 

Chapter Two The Body and the Soul

 

The two parts of a person – body and soul

 

The Ramchal writes (Derech Hashem 1:3), “Hashem decreed that a man be made of two opposites – the intellectual soul and the earthly body; each one is pulled to its own nature. The body is drawn toward materialism, and the soul is drawn toward intellect. There is a war between these two forces, and a man has the ability to lower his materialism and use his intellect and soul.”

 

Materialism conceals the soul

 

We have explained earlier that the only way for a person to reach Hashem is through his soul. Now we must explain what prevents a person from accessing his soul.

 

The Ramchal writes that if a person lets his materialism overcome him, his body becomes baser, and his soul as well becomes baser with it. To indulge in materialism covers up the soul from bring revealed.

 

Let us explain this concept further.

 

A person has three parts: his soul, his intellect, and his body. (Within the intellect itself, there is a natural intellect, and there is the soul’s intellect). Originally, when a person is a baby, only the body is functioning. After some growth, his intellect opens up. A person then gains free will to choose between his intellect, or his bodily desires. (In the next step we will discuss how to go from the intellect to the soul).

 

This makes the difference between many people. Most people are driven by their body, and the intellect is only viewed as secondary. There are also those who were born with a strong amount of intellect, and their intellect rules. But even those people, who are more intellectual by nature, still haven’t necessarily freed themselves from being ruled by the body. Intellectuals still have to work on getting their intellect to override the body.

There are always two tools needed to put the intellect in charge: “Remove yourself from evil”, and “do good”. “Removing oneself” from evil is accomplished by “nullifying the body”, and to “do good” is accomplished by putting the intellect in charge and giving it strength, through using the power of contemplation.

 

A person must distance himself from the physical

 

We will explain this. The Ramchal writes (Mesillas Yesharim, 3), “Abstinence (perishus) is an act of piety (chassidus).” (Piety is a form of loving Hashem; see Mesillas Yesharim, 18). This is the way to begin entering our inner world, the world of the soul: by leaving the external, and entering the internal.

 

What is abstinence (perishus)? The Ramchal says, “Whatever is not necessary to survive on this world should be distanced… to judge this one must measure on his own.”

 

Abstinence can come only in steps

 

A person, though, should not forget the fundamental rule of the Ramchal (Mesillas Yesharim: 16), “One must be careful in trying to acquire abstinence, that he should not jump in one moment to another end; for this will not gain him anything. Rather, he should slowly abstain, little by little, today he should abstain a little and tomorrow a drop more, until he becomes accustomed to it.”

 

This is how to remove oneself from evil: to abstain from anything materialistic that isn’t necessary (the more a person grows, the more he will see that he needs less and less….), and this will bring him to nullify his body.

 

The intellect must be always functioning

 

Now we will explain how to “do good”: we must open up the intellect. There are two parts to this: the amount of it, and the depth of it.

 

Regarding amount, the Ramchal writes (in sefer Derech Eitz Chaim), “The wise ones walk and are constantly thinking; they never cease in their knowledge, and therefore they are successful.” In other words, the intellect should be functioning at all times. A person has to make a war within himself and not let his thinking weaken. (One must be careful in this not to try to do this too quickly, as we explained regarding abstinence).

 

A person must think deeply and not superficially

 

That is only regarding the amount of thinking. But an even more difficult aspect is the depth of thinking.

 

Our thoughts must not be superficial; they should be full of depth. A person should train himself to be thinking thoughts of Torah, awe of Hashem, love of Hashem, and how he can serve Hashem better - at all times. In any situation, a person should be thinking about one of the three pillars the world stands on: Torah, Avodah\service of Hashem, and kindness. It is an inner struggle to accustom oneself to, but when one eventually overcomes this struggle, it will become natural to a person. The body’s control will then be weakened, and the intellect will be in control.

 

We should not forget that “All beginnings are hard.” But, we should also remember that this hardship, too, is only in the beginning!

 

Awareness of our thoughts

 

There are our thoughts, and then there are signs that tell us about our thoughts. A person can be learning a section in Gemara and his thoughts are working, but he is not aware of his thoughts. The main focus here is not on the thought process, but on the awareness of the thoughts; a person should have awareness of what he is thinking.

 Chapter Three: Thoughts

 

“And you will know today”

 

After a person gets his intellect to be in control over his impulses, now a person can attempt to fulfill the meaning of the possuk, “And you will know today, and you shall place it on your heart.”

                   

Wisdom, understanding, and knowledge

 

To explain this, there are three functions in our mind: Chochmah (wisdom), Binah (contemplation), and Da’as (knowledge).

 

Chochmah is our understanding based on the way we read or hear something. Binah is a greater depth of perception of the matter in its entirety. Daas is the result of all of this: how it affects us. Daas is when the thoughts are focused now on what we have learned, and the wisdom becomes existent in our focus now. This is not measured by how much time we spend on thinking of it, but rather by how much we have internalized it in our minds. (For example, someone whose Torah became a “daas” by him is always thinking in it).

 

The possuk says “And you will know today, and you shall place it on your heart.” The Torah is telling us here that the way to place something on your heart is through “knowledge” of the matter – Da’as -- as opposed to “Chochmah\wisdom” or “Binah\understanding” of the matter. Only daas, “knowledge”, can turn mere intellectual knowledge into a feeling in the heart. By strengthening the mind’s knowledge, the matter can become internalized in the heart, causing one to feel the Creator more.

 

Pure thoughts

 

It is thus not enough for a person to only think in thoughts of Torah, awe and love of Hashem and of our service to Him. A person has to also make sure that his thought process is strong and pure, and clear. It is difficult for a person to have pure thoughts, though, if he has never yet acquired pure thoughts. However, a person should still make the effort, on his level, to try to purify his thoughts – even though he currently doesn’t have purified thoughts.

 

The intellect cannot span too much at once

 

One of the things that prevent a person from having clear thoughts are the many various daily issues that we have.

 

The nature of a person is that he can’t concentrate on many things at once, and it is thus too difficult to jump from one thing to another. For example, a person shouldn’t ask his Rebbi a question on a topic that his Rebbi is not studying (Talmud, Shabbos 3b), and Rashi explains that this is because “his heart is not focused on the topic.” The brain has an easy time to jump from one topic to another, but the heart has a difficult time. A person who only uses his brain\mind his whole life won’t experience difficulty in this, as he doesn’t pay attention to his heart anyway. But since a person’s mind must ultimately make use of our heart as well to think (because a Jew has to internalize his mind’s knowledge into his heart), it is thus very hard to use the mind to think about so much at once, because our heart isn’t meant for this.

 

A person must only delve into one topic at hand

 

What we are saying (not to jump between different matters too much with the mind) applies to two things: In worldly matters, as well as when it comes to spiritual matters.

 

It can affect worldly matters as follows. In today’s times, the world is full of various issues that make us frazzled: Paying bills, being all the time on the home phone and cell phone, and what to buy. These are some of the issues that bog us down. People are very busy in today’s times, and they have no inner peace. These are some of the huge problems that prevent a clear thought process. Clear thoughts can only be in one who is calm and at peace, but people can’t think clearly because they often lack an inner peace.

 

What is the advice we can give for this problem?

 

A person has to remove from himself whatever he doesn’t need. “It is good to have dark bread and be at peace with it.” The first thing that a person needs in order to serve Hashem is to be calm and at peace! Even the things that we need to do should have a limited time space in our life, and the rest of the day should be spent only in thoughts of how we can serve the Creator.

This is a little hard to work on at first, because our thoughts come to us very fast, and they are hard to get a control of. We will need to work hard on this and remove from ourselves the thoughts about things we don’t really need. This should be done slowly, in steps.

 

Control over the thought process

 

People also today have a problem in that they think too much about spiritual matters, and they frazzle their minds in doing so.

 

For example, it is very common for a person to be involved in many types of learning: learning in- depth (iyun), learning on a basic level (bekius), learning Halacha, reviewing one’s learning, learning Mishnayos, learning the laws of speech, etc. A person usually wants to know all of this very well, and to be an expert in everything he is learning.  But a person must know that it is not possible for his heart to be in all these things at once!

 

One should therefore choose one of these, and place his heart entirely into that one area which he wants to work on. (If a person would be on a higher level and he would learn Torah for its own sake, lishmah, then this wouldn’t be a problem, because the fact that he learns Torah for its own sake is internalized in his heart and it can connect everything together. But this is only true for a person who learns Torah lishmah on a constant basis).

 

A person should be careful that his high amount of thinking isn’t taking away from his “heart.” It should be noted that Rashi before says precisely that “the heart” cannot think of too much at once, not “the mind”, because it is the heart of a person which needs to put into the topic of learning at hand. If a person merits to have the peace of mind of being involved in only area of learning that he chooses to focus on, and he spends his whole working just on this one area, then eventually his mind will open up, and it will let matters enter his heart.

 

Soon will we explain what type of thoughts a person can think in order to uproot matters that block the heart from being reached.

 

Chapter Four: Divine Providence

 

Faith in Divine Providence

 

In this chapter, we will explain the thoughts that a person should always have at all times – besides for the thoughts of learning Torah that a person must do.

 

If a person wants to build himself up, the first thing he needs to know is the words of Rav Chanina (Talmud, Chullin 7b): “A person can only put his finger down only if it was announced in heaven, for it says, “HASHEM prepares the footsteps of man” (Tehillim, 37), for it says, “As for man, what does he know of his way.” (Mishlei, 20). These words of Rav Chanina are not just an idea, but they help you build up a proper lifestyle. These words are a description of everything that happens to a person, every day: there is no such thing as coincidence, and everything has a precise reason why it happened.

 

We all know this concept, but a person has to work hard to live by these words. The more this fundamental concept becomes stronger, the more a person can build himself up with it.

 

Practical advice on how to live a life recognizing Divine Providence

 

Now let us reflect on how to live by these words.

 

An example: a person gets up in the morning, prays, leaves his house to take the bus and is waiting for the bus, and often, the bus is late. The person is in a rush and he doesn’t have much time, and he becomes anxious. But this is going against the foundation of Rav Chanina!

 

A person has to truly believe in Divine Providence, that everything is from Hashem and that nothing happens by itself. He has to believe that everything that Hashem does is good, because He is only good and desires to be good to His creations (even though we don’t understand how in everything Hashem is being good to us, still, if a person would just think a little that it is not possible to understand the Creator – being that the human mind is limited and the Creator is unlimited in His wisdom, how can he ever understand? A person can only believe wholeheartedly that everything that Hashem does is good!).

 

There is thus no such thing as a “bad” event, and everything that happens to us is ultimately good; a person must think, “I don’t understand how it is all good, but somehow, it is still good.”

 

Why should a person act anxious and impatient if really all is well? Nothing is “b’dieved” (happenstance) by Hashem. Everything is exacted by Hashem and thought out with His careful planning.

 

To work on this practically (but a more thinking person will figure it out himself, because he already lives by it): A person should think about this idea twenty times a day. In every instance he goes through, he should take a moment to think: Everything was supposed to happen, and it was all good.

 

This is how one will internalize faith in Hashem, in his mind and in his heart.

 

Prayer for all matters

 

Someone who lives like this all his life should even aim for a higher level: since it has become clear to the person that everything is exacted by Hashem, it therefore follows that the address for everything is Hashem, and we have nothing do with anything else in creation except to be involved with Hashem.

 

Therefore – before doing any action, a person should always pray to Hashem and ask Him for mercy that he get what he wants in the best way possible.

 

How to pray

 

We will give some examples of this. A person sits down to learn. How will he have energy to concentrate and learn properly? How will he understand the material properly without getting stuck? If a person knows that the only address to turn to for help is HASHEM, he will automatically pray to Him that He help him in his learning and understand it well.

 

We will say another example. A person is leaving his house to get a few things taken care of. Often, things come up that take up his time. What should he do to get out of this problem? Before he leaves his house, he should pray a short prayer and say, “Master of the world, Help me that I should take care of everything quickly, so that my time not be wasted.”

A person should approach all areas in his life this way, and pray before anything he does, and he should also feel deeply that only HASHEM can help him with anything.

 

This is the path of our leaders

 

The reader should not think that this is strange. You should know that our great leaders did this many times a day, and constantly prayed before anything; they were thereby connected to HASHEM all their lives and developed a strong connection to the Creator. The words we have said in this chapter are very fundamental, and they should be reviewed many times.

 
 

Chapter Five: Purity of Heart

 

Purity of Heart

 

After a person has succeeded in internalizing Divine Providence in his heart, and he also prays before anything he does that Hashem should help him succeed, he should then learn how to purify his heart. (In the next chapter will we explain what a person should do after this step). We will explain how to do this, but first we should introduce this discussion with a few words.

 

Purity of heart through nullifying our will

 

The root of purifying the heart is to nullify the materialistic desires (retzonos). All the materialistic interests that a person naturally has person must become nullified.

 

A person is made up of a body and soul. The body (or the animalistic part of the soul) and the soul each have their own separate desires. The soul desires spirituality, while the body wants to be materialistic. When a person is born, he naturally is pulled after the body’s desires, and the soul’s desires are hidden. The body is in charge and covers over the soul. To correct this nature, a person must nullify his body’s various retzonos, and when that happens, he can reveal his soul’s ratzon.

 

Now we will explain how to do this.

 

Two types of will

 

The first thing a person should know is that there are two types of desires (retzonos).

 

The true desire is the desires of the soul, as Chazal say, “Our will is to do Your will, but this yeast dough prevents us.” Really, a person truly wants to do the Creator’s will. But a person feels something else pulling him in the other direction, and this comes from the “Other Side” (Sitra Achara)  – the evil force of impurity that is the body.

 

A person must figure out where his desires are coming from - if they are stemming from his soul, or from his body.

 

A person must vanquish bodily desire

 

After a person knows clearly where the desires come from, he must now work on nullifying them.

 

He has to nullify them slowly, in steps and not all at once.  The way to do this is that every day, he should do things intentionally against his will. (It was found in the writings of Reb Yeruchem Levovitz zt”l that he accepted upon himself to do five things every day against his own will).

 

A person who is more strong-minded should work first on things that he knows he is weak in. A weaker-minded person should first work on things that come easy to him and then slowly begin to work on the harder things. After some time, what was hard at first will become easy, because he will get used to nullifying the desires.

 

How to break materialistic pursuits

 

Until now we have explained proper actions to take in how to do things intentionally against our will. Now we need to know what to think when doing so.

 

First, a person needs to understand that just like a person’s clothing is not the person, so a person should view his bodily interests: the bodily interests are only like “garments” upon his true desires. He must think that just as he would never want to do anything a wicked person wants to do, so does he not really want what his bodily desires “want”.

 

In short, a person has to realize that he doesn’t even recognize himself, and that he is being controlled by a body with strange desires that conceals him from himself! His true self is being concealed.

 
 

How to understand good desire

 

Another point needed in breaking desire is to realize the meaning of King David’s words, “And as for me, closeness to G-d is good.” The Mesillas Yesharim explains that “this is the only true good, and anything else that people consider to be good is false.”

 

In practical terms, a person has to think that any desires that don’t come from the soul, even if they seem good, are really not good at all. A wise adage says, “The world is like salty water: it looks like it satisfies, but it only causes more thirst.” The only true good that exists is the soul’s desire to get close to HASHEM and to be attached to Him.

 

This point needs more contemplation, and the more a person works on it the easier it will be to break the body’s materialistic pursuits.

 

Serving HASHEM by seeking the truth

 

Another point here, and the most important and lofty point made from all of these is, that a person should know that the truth always is found in what the soul wants; but the body’s interests for material pursuits are nothing but falsehood. (Truth is the Creator’s will, while falsehood is anything that goes against His will).

 

In more practical terms: a person was created to do his Creator’s will, and the Creator’s will is that he break the body’s materialistic interests and only do what his soul wants. It is our job to do this because we serve the Creator. We serve Him for the sake of serving Him. Moshe our teacher is praised with this trait, for he was called “Moshe, My servant.” He totally nullified himself to G-d. He nullified himself of all personal desires.

 

When a person does all this for a while, he will slowly reveal more and more the desires of his pure soul, which is the true desire - the desire to cleave to the Creator.

 

In the next chapter we will learn how to contemplate matters properly, after breaking the body’s interests in various materialistic pursuits.

 
 

Chapter Six: Closeness to Hashem

 

Closeness to HASHEM

 

After a person works for many months on breaking the body’s desires for materialism, as explained in the previous chapter, he will feel in himself that his previous desires that were once so strong are now weak and puny. He will feel awakened to his inner will, which is his true will, the will to do his Creator’s will. It is now proper for a person to contemplate properly, on his level, and we will now explain how to do this.

 

“HASHEM is always beside me”

 

The Rema writes (Orach Chaim 1:1, cited from Moreh Nevuchim): “HASHEM is always beside me” – this is a great rule of the Torah and in the levels of the righteous which walk before G-d. For a person’s sitting and movements, when he is before the great King, as well as his words, are not according to his desire, for the way he is around his household and relatives are not the manner in which he talks in the presence of a king. Surely when a person reflects with his heart on the greatest King, the Holy One, Blessed Is He, whose honor fills the whole world, who stands upon him and watches him, for it is written, “If a person will hide in a hiding place, do I not see Him, so says HASHEM”; a fear and trembling should immediately grip him, and he should be ashamed from Him, constantly.”

 

The Vilna Gaon explains there that this is the entire description of the level reached by tzaddikim (the righteous).

 

HASHEM – the center of our life

 

We will try and explain how to make this practical. A big fundamental for a person to know is that the center of our lives is HASHEM. On this fundamental lies every aspect of life.

 

We don’t mean now that a person should only learn Torah and do mitzvos all day; although this is certainly true, it is not enough, for if a person only does this, he is lacking the basics. He is like a body without a soul. He is learning Torah and doing mitzvos, but he is not thinking Whose Torah he is learning, or why he is learning at all.

 

Of course, everyone knows that the Torah is the Creator’s Torah, and that he is learning because that’s what HASHEM said to do. (Or because he is learning for his own honor….) But he is still missing something major. He is dry; he doesn’t think that he has to live every second of his life with a major fundamental.

 

Before doing anything, a person must know why he is doing it. He should review it twenty times, and maybe even a hundred times: that the reason why he is doing it is because he wants to get close to HASHEM.

 

However, a person needs to be careful and not lie to himself that he is doing it because HASHEM commanded him to, when really he is doing it for his own honor. We have specifically said all this now after explaining how to break materialistic desires.

 

If a person feels that he is still desiring honor even after contemplating this, he should work on breaking that very desire for honor. He can do this by having both things in mind: he is doing it for HASHEM’s sake, as well as his own honor. But he definitely should not think that he is doing it just to get honor.

 

To think about HASHEM in all our actions, even in learning

 

Let us summarize. Before a person learns Torah or does a mitzvah, such as making a beracha (benediction before food), he should think that he is doing it to get close to HASHEM.

 

Sometimes it might even be necessary for one to take a break in middle of learning to reflect on it, as the Nefesh HaChaim (4:7) writes, “During learning as well a person has permission to make a short interruption so that his heart not forget awe of HASHEM, which he accepted before he began to learn, and reflect anew on awe of HASHEM.”

 

Feeling dependent on HASHEM

Another point should be made which is very important: A person should train himself to get used to thinking about Hashem. At the beginning, some people will find this very strange. But remember that all great righteous people lived by this.

 

Let us explain how to do this. A few things are necessary here. First, a person should review to himself many times that Hashem is the central aspect of our lives. The purpose of everything is to get close to Him, and to cleave to Him and nullify our will. (And we need to nullify ourselves by integrating with Him, and not by merely nullifying our will alone). This is like the words of the Ramchal (Mesillas Yesharim, 1): “There should be no other purpose in anything we do… other than to get close to Him.”

 

After internalizing this, a person must contemplate that “His honor fills the world.” This means that Hashem is everywhere, so “I” am always next to Him. (Whether “I” understand it or not, it is the truth).

 

He should go over this in his mind many times, as the Mesillas Yesharim (Chap. 25) says, “A person should reflect on this matter when he sits, and when walks, and when he lays down, and when he gets up, in order that the truth of the matter should settle in his mind, which is to know that His Presence resides in every place, and we are standing before Him at all times.”

 

A person should review this fact many times and set aside times to review them, until it settles in his mind; eventually it will become natural to him by doing this, and he will live constantly with a true feeling that Hashem is by his side.

 

This is not in the imagination. It is only an imagination to someone who isn’t on this level. But a person who has worked hard for a long time on breaking his desires and has purified his heart will slowly feel it, not just in his mind, but as a real feeling.

 

Additional knowledge to feel Hashem

 

There are some people with souls that find it very hard to think about Hashem unless they delve very deep into the matter on a very deep, intellectual level.

 

The advice for such people is that they look in the writings of the Ramchal, such as sefer Daas Tevunos (“The Knowing Heart”) and “138 Gates of Wisdom”, and the in the third gate of sefer Nefesh HaChaim.

 

A person who is of Chassidic root should learn the writings of the Baal Shem Tov, Likutim Yikarim and Toras HaMagid.

 

The common denominator between everyone is that all people need to have thoughts of HASHEM settle in the mind, and this should become to each person the purpose of one’s life.

 
 

Chapter Seven: Lishmah – Acting for Hashem’s Sake

 

Lishmah

 

After a person minimizes his personal desires, and he constantly thinks of Hashem, he should aim for an important aspect in serving Hashem: to serve Him “lishmah” – for Hashem’s sake.

 

The meaning of Lishmah

 

The concept of lishmah, “for Hashem’s sake” is well known, but its true meaning is not so known. We will explain how to reach it. (The words in this chapter are only for those who have reached whatever was said until now).

 

The root of all evil in creation is egoism; the “I” in a person. On the other hand, the greatest good in all of creation is the nullification of the ego – total nullification. We will explain this more.

 

The nature of every person is to be concerned for only himself. He thinks about himself; wherever he is and whatever he is dealing with, he views it in relation to himself. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he doesn’t think of anyone else. It could be that he very well thinks of others, but he mainly thinks of himself. In whatever comes his way, a person naturally thinks of how he can gain from it for himself – whether it is a material or spiritual matter. He is focused on himself. (Anyone who doesn’t feel this way doesn’t know himself well; he is only aware of his external self, and hasn’t yet recognized his internal self).

 

Egoism is a contradiction to the purpose of creation

 

However, a person was not created just for himself, but for his Creator. His entire existence is to fulfill the Creator’s will and not his own. Even if a person wouldn’t receive reward, he would still have to serve the Creator, because that is the Creator’s will, and a person just has to His will. This is the truth. A person must internalize this, and it is impossible to escape this reality. A person has to humble himself to this fact of life. Anything that a person wants to do for himself is far from the truth, and to deviate even a little from the truth is to be totally far from the truth.

 

There are two contradicting forces in a person: darkness and truth. Until now we were dealing with the force of darkness in person: that he likes to do things just for himself. But now we will deal with the force of truth, which is do truth for the sake of truth. (Someone who doesn’t feel that the truth doesn’t obligate him to do anything needs special attention….)

 

A person must figure out what the truth is - and internalize it in his heart.

 

The hardest decision in life

 

After a person clarifies what the truth is, he must accept a very hard decision, and it might be the hardest decision in all his life. He must decide that he is no longer living for himself, but only for his Creator.

 

He will surely experience difficulty after the decision and it will take time; he will also experience failures, and they won’t be small either. But still, the decision itself is very important and a fundamental point in a person’s life. It is going out of the “I” and into the world of the Creator. It is going out of a world of always being a taker and into a world of being a giver, for until now he was living for himself, and now he is living for HASHEM; and if he is worthy, he will afterwards merit to live for others as well.

 

Concentrating on our actions

 

After a person accepts the decision, his actions must reflect his decision. For example, if he goes onto a bus and there is only one seat, he should give it to another person, even though he got there first. He should never feel his ego, his “I”, at all. In everything he does he should only aim how to give satisfaction to the Creator.

 

The test

 

In addition to changing one’s actions, he must also change his thoughts. In other words, even in what he must do, he should purify his thoughts by doing it to give satisfaction to the Creator; not for honor, not to feel like he’s a righteous person, not to get reward in the next world, and not even because he wants to be attached to the Creator for the sheer pleasure of it. He should only think that he wants to give satisfaction to the Creator in doing so.

 

This should be his thoughts for all 24 hours of the day. Before anything he does, he should always think in his mind and heart: I am doing this in order to give satisfaction to the Creator.

 

To live a life of honoring Heaven

 

After a person gets used to this, he should accept upon himself a deeper point to work on: not only before anything he does should he think to only give satisfaction to the Creator, but that his very existence should be to give satisfaction to the Creator.

 

Just like businessmen who run after making money become so entangled in money that it becomes their whole reason for existence, and this makes them only think about money - so should a person think all the time that he wants to give satisfaction to the Creator, and think of how he can increase honor toward Heaven in the world. He should get up in the morning with this thought, and think like this all the time. This should be an inner struggle which should give a person no rest.

 

Self-sacrifice in honoring Heaven

 

If a person is worthy enough and he has is reached all the levels until here, he can now proceed to the next level we are about to say: mesirus nefesh (self-sacrifice).

 

Rebbi Akiva said as he died (upon sanctifying the name of Hashem): “All my days I waited to fulfill the possuk, “With all your soul” – of which the Sages expound, “Even if your soul has to be taken…”

 

A person’s entire ambition should be to do the Creator’s will, and increase honor toward Heaven, until he nullifies the ego totally, even if he has to give up his life for Hashem!

 

Giving up one’s life means to give up either one’s physical life – or even one’s eternal life. This is reminiscent of the past righteous ones who gave up their portions in the World To Come in order to increase honor toward Heaven. They gave up anything for Hashem, and this was their whole goal in life.

 

To truly worry about the nation

 

One who lives in this way is fulfilling the words of the Mesillas Yesharim, “It is proper for every pious individual to concentrate in his actions that they are for the good of his generation, that they should be worthy and be protected by them.” The Ramchal instituted in his yeshiva that the merit of learning in the yeshiva should act for the whole nation.

 

Many righteous people as well acted this way: they gave up their own spiritual reward so that others can be saved. That is true self-sacrifice others.

 

To summarize: a person should live only for Hashem and His nation of Israel, and not for himself.

 

Anyone who lives like this will definitely reach his own soul. The body is essentially is all about worrying for oneself. But the more a person leaves his ego, the more he is connected to his soul. Only by working on serving Hashem lishmah can a person reach his own soul.

 

May Hashem help us merit this.