Bilvavi Part 4 - Chapter 14 Revealing Your Ratzon

Nothing Stands In The Way Of Your Inner Will – When You Reveal It

Anyone who lives a little bit with the truth - and who is found within it - will right away arrive at the recognition that there is really not much to do here in this physical world, olam hazeh. Life for everyone is a galgal chozer - a cycle of coming here to this physical world and then returning to the next world.

The only thing we really have on this physical life we are living is that we can have the time now to dedicate our soul for Hashem and use it for Him.

Besides for this, whatever we think we have is all being imagined. It’s all fleeting. Anyone who has opened up his real sight at least a little can see that he has already lost any taste for anything on this world. Even if a person does have some enjoyment from this world, it’s only momentarily, because our soul considers this world worthless. The only satisfaction we feel in physical pleasure is coming from our body, which gets calmed when it tastes physical pleasure. But our soul doesn’t enjoy anything on this world other than the times when we use our soul to search for Hashem. This is all that we truly have in life; the Mesillas Yesharim said that “besides for this, anything else that people think is ‘good’ is nothing but futile and worthless.”

However, the yetzer hora works to make people forget this from their minds, and even when we remember it in our mind, it is nonexistent in our heart. But the truth is that our soul only wants to do what Hashem wants. “Retzoneinu laasos retzoncha” – “It is our will to do Your will.” Our soul has a ratzon\will for closeness to Hashem, to be attached to Hashem and to give a nachas ruach (satisfaction) to the Creator. This is the inner will of the soul.

But when the soul is concealed and hidden away, it isn’t revealed (and thus it isn’t accessed), so a person is left with his outer desires, which are many; each to his own.

Let’s think about this. When we begin, why is it so hard to serve Hashem? What is holding us back from growing? What is deterring us?

The answer is clear: our soul is concealed from us, and thus the inner will of our soul is concealed with it. This is what is holding us back from all growth!

There is a famous expression of our Sages, “Nothing stands in the way of the will.” What kind of will is this referring to? Can it be referring to our body’s desires? This cannot be, because we can all see that many people want various things, yet they don’t end up getting what they want.

“Nothing stands in the way of the will” must therefore mean that nothing gets in the way of our true will, our root will, our inner will. All the “retzonos” (desires) in our heart which are not a true ratzon to get close to Hashem are just called “retzonos” as a borrowed terminology, but they are not the real retzonos. They are just imaginary ratzon; they might feel to us like a ratzon, but they are lacking the depth of what a ratzon is. It is only a sliver of a ratzon. The only true ratzon which exists is the ratzon of which nothing stands in its way.

Olam hazeh is called “a world of exchanges” (olam hatemuros), and a “galgal chozer” – a revolving cycle. This applies to us in that all the various, external retzonos which people have are constantly exchanging. One day a person wants money, the next day he wants honor, and the next day he wants something else. The various retzonos that people have are constantly changing.

There is one kind of ratzon, however, of which we can say of it “I am Hashem, and I do not change.” This is the G-dly will in a person, the ratzon in a person to do Hashem’s will and become close to Him. Other retzonos that we have conceal from us the true ratzon of a person, the ratzon of the soul.

When Shabbos is at its peak, (by Mincha) it is referred to as “raava d’raavon” – “desire of desires.” This is the most elevated time of the whole Shabbos, as is well-known. At the tefillah of Mincha on Shabbos, before the Torah is taken out of the ark, we say the possuk, “And I pray to You, Hashem, at this desirable time (eis ratzon)”, because it is the time of raava d’raavon. It is the time in which the ultimate ratzon is revealed, the innermost ratzon.

Moshe Rabbeinu has the same gematria (numerical value) as the word ratzon. He left the world at the time of raava d’raavon – Shabbos Mincha. This is because the true ratzon of every Jew was revealed through Moshe Rabbeinu.

As long as the inner ratzon of a Jew hasn’t yet been revealed, the other retzonos of a person (which are not the real retzonos, only imagined) are at work and they do not bring a person to the truth. Without revealing the ratzon of the soul, the rule “Nothing stands in the way of the will”, cannot be applied because if the will isn’t a true will, then of course things can get in its way. For this reason, people do not achieve their goals, because things are getting in the way; they haven’t revealed their true ratzon, so many factors can oppose their “retzonos” and get in the way.

The mission of a person is thus to reveal his inner ratzon. After it is revealed, only then will nothing get in his way. It is written, “To man belongs the arrangements of his heart, and from Hashem will come the answer.”[1]First, a person needs to arrange what’s going on his heart so that he can reveal his true ratzon, and after that Hashem does the rest.

As long as the true ratzon of a person hasn’t been revealed, there will definitely be things holding a person back from reaching closeness to Hashem. Only after one has uncovered his true ratzon will he arrive at the truth.

The Test To Uncover Your Ratzon

If you ask any person, “Do you want to be close to Hashem?” the answer will be most definitely “Yes.” But we can give a simple test to see if this is true.

Since we just explained that only the ratzon to get close to Hashem is the true ratzon, and that all other retzonos aren’t genuine and they are just being fantasized, if so, the strongest ratzon of a person has to express itself in the desire for Hashem. So a person has to check himself out and see if this ratzon has already begun to become revealed a little, or not. How can a person do this?

If a person views his ratzon to become close to Hashem as the strongest ratzon that he knows of in himself, then it is a sign that he has begun to reveal it. But if it’s just another ratzon on his list of other retzonos – or if it is less important than his other retzonos (chas v’shalom ), it shows that he hasn’t yet begun to reveal his inner ratzon, because he doesn’t give it much priority. The ratzon to become close to Hashem is in a whole different league than the other retzonos – it doesn’t even compare to the other retzonos. As long as a person doesn’t feel that it his strongest ratzon, it is concealed.

Revealing The Inner Ratzon By Being Alone

“And I pray to You, Hashem, at this desirable time.”  From the “desirable time” (eis ratzon) with the Creator, a person draws forth the ability to awaken his inner ratzon.

How do we awaken the inner ratzon? We can learn it from Moshe Rabbeinu and how he departed from this world.

It is written, “And no man knows of his burial”. No one knows where Moshe Rabbeinu is buried. There are many interpretations of this possuk, but the following explanation is relevant to our discussion: Since no one knows where Moshe Rabbeinu is buried, Moshe Rabbeinu is alone. If we would know where he is buried, we would be able to come to his kever and connect to him since visiting the grave is a form of having a connection to the deceased. But Moshe Rabbeinu’s kever  is unknown to anyone; after he departed, he has become alone.

We also know that Moshe left the world at the time of Shabbos Mincha, which is the time of “raava d’raavon” – the time in which it is revealed the innermost desire of a person. If we put these two facts together – the fact that Moshe is alone, and the fact that he left the world at the time when the inner ratzon is revealed – we can see how we get to the true ratzon: by being “alone.”

Yaakov Avinu “fought alone” with the angel, but he was only temporarily alone; after the fight, he went back to civilization. But Moshe Rabbeinu, after he departed, remains alone – in other words, he has totally left any form of connection to this physical world. He was totally connected to the sublime, with not a trace of superficiality.

The words we are saying here are continuing what we have spoken earlier about an hour every day of daily reflection. In order for a person to awaken his inner ratzon, he has to be “alone”; as long as a person only knows of companionship with people and not with Hashem, he falls from his inner ratzon and connects only to superficiality, to various external retzonos.

If a person really wants to get to know who he is – where his soul is at – if he really desires Hashem, he must be “alone.” He has to acquire solitude of the soul in which he is alone with Hashem.

These words are not a derasha, and they are not ideas. Anyone who has begun to touch wisdom knows that this concept is a fundamental one in Creation, stemming from the root of Creation. The root of Creation is called keser, “crown”, and it represents the inner ratzon; in order to awaken it, one must be “alone.”

The Evil Inclination Cannot Defeat Your Inner Ratzon

Herein lies the root of succeeding in serving Hashem (and chas v’shalom, the other way around as well.) As long as a person has revealed his inner ratzon, nothing will get in his way. What is usually preventing people growing in their ruchniyus is because they have begun Avodas Hashem without ever having revealed beforehand that they have a true will to serve Hashem.

Of course, people always have some ratzon for Hashem, in any case; if a person wouldn’t have any trace of ratzon to serve Hashem, then he never would be interested in Avodas Hashem in the first place. What we mean is that the ratzon of a person has to become like a raavah d’raavon – a deep desire – and not just to remain a mere desire in you; otherwise, a person is missing the inner point of his ratzon.

One cannot proceed in Avodas Hashem and grow if he’s missing the root of Avodas Hashem. The question is, though, what exactly is the root that is causing this problem in us? We will explain this more in detail.

Every person has retzonos; in addition to this, we also have our thoughts.

When a person hears that he needs to change and become more truthful – and he feels inspired to do so, since the inner ratzon within himself wants it – he immediately leaves the point of ratzon and instead gets involved with his thoughts, thinking: “How can I get close to Hashem? What must I do? What are the ways to get there?” The thoughts come and hold back the ratzon! He knows what he wants, and he even feels it – and then he wants to serve Him. But the yetzer hora is very strong, and he comes to a person and convinces him otherwise, as Chazal say; we mentioned this earlier.

The advice to overcome this problem, the Ramchal said, is an hour every day of reflection.

How does this help against the yetzer hora?

The answer is because the yetzer hora cannot destroy your inner ratzon. The yetzer hora can only defeat your ratzon when your ratzon isn’t yet real. But when you have a real ratzon, it is such a deep point in your soul that no evil can ever penetrate it, and the yetzer hora can’t fight it.

As long as one’s ratzon is still only the lower ratzon, it’s the ratzon of the yetzer hora versus the ratzon of the yetzer hatov, and they are at war with each other. But when a person awakens his inner ratzon more and more, he has brought his soul to the fore, and the yetzer hora cannot overcome the soul. Evil can overcome your intellect, your feelings, your desires – but it cannot overcome your very soul. Your soul itself is stronger than even the yetzer hora.

Before a person reveals the inner ratzon, it is a difficult war with the yetzer hora, and the tests are very difficult. When a person awakens the innermost point of himself – his deepest ratzon – he has revealed a point which is above the yetzer hora’s reach, and the yetzer hora won’t be able to overcome his will.

Thus, a person has two choices. Either he can go his whole life “fighting the yetzer hora”, trying his hardest to battle evil, using his weak ratzon in his arsenal…or he has another choice, the higher path to take: he can reveal in himself a power that is stronger than the yetzer hora.

Chazal (Sukkah 52a) state that the “evil inclination gets stronger every day, and if not for the help of Hashem, it would be impossible to overcome it.” What this means is that there is a deep point in the soul that is G-dly which cannot be defeated by the yetzer hora. Without revealing this point in the soul, a person is left to fight the yetzer hora with his mere physical strength, which of course will be pathetic to fight with, and even his more spiritual powers, such as his intellect, can also be overcome by the yetzer hora. But when a person awakens his inner ratzon, his spirituality will overcome all physical lure, just like how wind can blow away rain.

What a person has to work on, then, is to awaken his power of “retzoneinu laasos retzoncha” – “It is our will to do Your will.”

Davening To Reveal Your Inner Ratzon

How do we reach our inner will? How do we awaken our soul to want the truth?

Firstly, as we said earlier, we need an hour every day of reflection. During this time, we should then work to awaken our ratzon. The question is only how to do that.

There will be two parts to this – we need to “do good” as well as “remove ourselves from evil.” To “do good”, we need to awaken our true desire of closeness to Hashem, and to “remove ourselves from evil”, we need to get rid of our various external desires.

In order to awaken “It is our will to do Your will” – the positive aspect here – someone who can reflect deeply with his mind will be able to do it when he reflects on it. But this can only be accomplished by certain rare individuals.

There is another way to do it, and it is more truthful. This is that one should talk to Hashem, and say, “Ribono shel olam, You created me, and the purpose of creation is to become close to You. This is clear to me. It is also clear to me that the true desire of my soul is to become close to You; yet it is also clear to me that my heart doesn’t feel this way as of now. My heart wants this thing and that thing. I know that my will to become close to You is what I really want, and that all of my desires in comparison to this are not the real thing. Even though I am aware of this, I still want those externalities. Ribono shel Olam, help me that I should truly want You, that I should actually feel that will to become close to You, that this ratzon of mine should not stay concealed from me. Let it become awakened. Don’t just awaken it – let this ratzon always be revealed! I am beseeching You that You help me truly want You.”

This is how a person should speak to Hashem – again and again, day after day, week after week, month after month. Daven just for this one point: “Ribono shel olam, I really want to feel the inner ratzon of my soul to become close to You. I know that I don’t feel this way, and I am begging You to remove the impurity in me that is holding me back from feeling my true ratzon.”

However, make sure that you don’t imagine that you already feel the inner ratzon. One has to be very aware of himself and know what he really wants, what level his heart is at; he has to be aware if his heart desires any externalities. One should not deny his human weaknesses; be aware of them, but at the same time, daven to Hashem that your true ratzon should become revealed.

Don’t think that this will come to you because you have reached a high level or because of your merits. Rather, daven to Hashem one simple request: “You created me for a certain purpose, and this is Your will. Do this for Your sake, that I be able to serve You. I don’t have merits on my own; I am not worthy. But for this I ask: take me as I am and take care of me. Awaken in me a desire for You, for Your sake.”

If a person thinks that his inner ratzon will become revealed because of his merits or from reaching high levels, such thoughts are detrimental and they will actually distract him from getting to his inner ratzon, because he will just fall into his ego and have an internal kind of gaavah (arrogance).

A person has to come to Hashem like a simple Jew, as if he was born today anew, and ask Hashem, “You created me for a purpose. Please help me reach that purpose. It is true that I don’t always act properly, but just because of this I should be left back in my situation and never reach my goal, which is to become close to You?! I ask of You one thing – please merit me that I should have the true ratzon for You.”

These very words awaken the inner ratzon, and in addition to this – and this is the main point – by davening for it day after day, and week after week – Hashem will surely listen to the tefillos.

A lot of patience is required for this. If someone wants to see overnight success, he will be very disappointed.

Knowing Our Direction In Life

A person has to understand the basic point: If one doesn’t have a ratzon for the Creator, chas v’shalom, and he doesn’t want to become close to Him – there is nothing to live for, and there will be nothing for him to do on this world! This is a world of fantasy. “A generation goes and a generation comes, while the earth stays forever.”[2]

Even more so, what does a person take with him from this world? Some food, some sleep, some enjoyment here and there? We only remain with one thing from this world: the desire and yearning for Hashem, for the true closeness to have with Him. That is the single thing we can have from this world.

“At the time a person is about to die, he is not escorted by his silver, by his gold, by his jewels and diamonds, but by his Torah learning and mitzvos alone.”[3] Only Torah learning that was spent with attachment to Hashem, and mitzvos that were done with the recognition that the only true good thing on this world is closeness to Hashem, will escort a person into the next world, where a person will attain the innermost closeness.

If a person just lives thinking that Avodas Hashem is just an important thing – even if he knows it’s very important – if he’s also looking to gratify his worldly desires, he has a big problem. A person in this situation needs to sit alone and beg Hashem that he be helped with this. During these times of quiet, a person needs to beseech Hashem from the depths of his heart that all his various desires which aren’t important should be removed.

This avodah can take days and even weeks. One part of it is for a person to feel that he must only have a ratzon for Hashem, and the other part of it is for a person to ask of Hashem, “Ribono shel olam, I know that my true will is to become close to You, but my heart doesn’t feel it. Please do me a kindness and take away my untrue desires.”

A person has to really agree deep down that he doesn’t want anything else besides this. Sometimes a person davens that he doesn’t want kavod (honor), but deep down, he wishes that Hashem would grant him some more kavod…a person has to be very honest with himself, and daven many tefillos for this, and then Hashem will surely help him.

The basic point is that a person has to decide: I am ready to give up all worldly interests!

Such a decision will have to be carried out slowly, in steps, and not to work on too many changes at once. But a person has to clear what the central point of his life is, to which direction he is heading towards. We have only one point towards which we should be aiming, and that is retzoinenu laasos retzoncha, “It is our will to do Your will.” We need to remove all the “yeast in the sourdough” (a reference to the evil inclination) from us and remain with just one ratzon alone, a desire for Hashem.

If a person isn’t prepared for the fact that at the end of his life he will only be left with this one ratzon, then he will be never able to grow in life. First we have to really want it, and then we can daven to Hashem that he remove all our external desires and let us reveal our inner ratzon.

When a person keeps to this, and he davens to Hashem like this with all his heart and he doesn’t give up, without a doubt he will be answered, and he will merit that “we have only one heart, toward our Father in heaven.”