Fixing Your Earth - 018 Balancing Excitement With Truth

4-B] Excitement In Avodas Hashem: A Tool, Not A Purpose Unto Itself

We have begun to discuss how we need to infuse our actions, speech and thoughts with enthusiasm in order to overcome laziness that comes from a lack of excitement (a problem that stems from fire-of-earth).

However, although all of that is true, at the same time, we also need to develop an opposite ability which can counter our enthusiasm from going overboard. This is because we cannot base our lives on enthusiasm and excitement (earlier, we explained that when we lose excitement in what we are doing, it stems from water-of-fire-of-earth). So we need to learn how we can restrain our enthusiasm sometimes.

We need to understand that our Avodas Hashem cannot be based on enthusiasm and excitement. Serving Hashem is not mainly about being excited.

We can use excitement to enter more inward, but being excited is not the purpose. Excitement is a tool we can use in our Avodas Hashem, but when excitement gets overdone, it becomes a purpose unto itself, and then it becomes detrimental. If a person’s excitement in Avodas Hashem gets too strong and overdone, it can even make a person snap.

Balancing Our Enthusiasm

What a person has to do is, to build a power within his soul which can counter his excitement sometimes. Therefore, we need to develop a strong amount of the element of earth (stability) which can counter the fire which fuels enthusiasm. [Later we will explain that we specifically need to use the water-of-earth to counter a strong amount of fire in the soul].

So our Avodas Hashem is two-fold. On one hand we need to be excited as we serve Hashem, but on the other hand, we must be able to restrain our excitement sometimes, or else the excitement gets overdone and has detrimental effects on us. The element of water within the earth can counter the fire of enthusiasm.

We cannot say exactly how to do this, but this is the general concept – that one needs to build his water-of-earth in the soul, his power to restrain excitement.

(Every power in our soul needs limitations. Otherwise, a person is trapped within his own soul, and he’s in a personal ‘Egypt’ within himself.)

Using Our Daas To Affect Our Heart

In the previous chapter, we discussed how we need to develop our power of excitement and elation. Now we are discussing how to balance our excitement. How can we balance our ability to become excited and elated?

When we feel spiritually elated, this can either come from our heart, or from our power of daas, which is in our mind. Most people who experience excitement have excitement that comes from the heart, and this excitement often doesn’t last. This is because the entire sense of elation that the person had was based on excitement, and excitement doesn’t build a person.

The real kind of elation is when the elation is not based on excitement, but when it is based on one’s daas (mind). If a person’s elation is coming from his daas, the elation lasts.

We need some excitement, but we need in ourselves a larger percentage of daas in us to keep ourselves elated. Our elation should be coming from a certain recognition coming from our daas. Our life of Avodas Hashem needs to be mainly based on our daas, not on hislahatus\excitement; when our Avodas  Hashem is based on this non-excitable kind of daas, our spiritual elation lasts.

Accessing Our Daas Through Seeking Emes/Truth

Some people do recognize the power of daas, but they think that daas is another way of revealing excitement. They perceive Avodas Hashem as being entirely about excitement, and they view daas as just another enhancement of their excitement.

What a person really needs is to develop the power called “emes” – truth. When a person develops the power to recognize truths, he is able to keep his excitement from getting out of hand. Our Avodas Hashem must be based on constantly analyzing what the truth is.

Of course, we need some excitement too, but excitement should not be the basis of our life. Only when we pursue the truth can we feel responsible towards our Avodas Hashem. The power of truth helps us feel responsible about our Avodas Hashem – in contrast to excitement, which doesn’t demand responsibility.

If we are always seeking truth, then we can be excited upon that, and then our excitement will be truthful and lasting. Without developing the power of emes, though, any of our excitement in Avodas  Hashem will weaken after some time and disappear.

When we seek the truth, we are able to then reach the truth that is in our heart, and then our heart become affected to seek truth – and our excitement then becomes truthful.

When a person doesn’t develop the power of emes, he constantly seeks all kinds of new things to keep himself going in Avodas Hashem. But when a person seeks emes\truth, all he seeks is emes – and of course, he finds constant renewal as well through constantly seeking the truth.

In this way, a person uses the “coldness” of his element of water to build his enthusiasm, as opposed to using the “heat” of fire to build his enthusiasm. Fire is jumpy, while water is collected. Therefore, enthusiasm based on using water in the soul is lasting, while enthusiasm based on the element of fire doesn’t last.

When a person serves Hashem his whole life based on how excited he feels, he will end his life after 80 years only with the amount of excitement he had in his life. He never matures in his Avodas  Hashem beyond that point of enthusiasm he reached. But when a person lived his life always seeking the truth, he ends life based upon how much truth he sought in his life – and the truth keeps becoming sharpened more and more throughout his life; he reaches true Avodas Hashem in his life and ends life on a whole different, deeper kind of level than the first kind of person.

How To Develop The Power of “Emes”

To work on this, a person should keep reviewing what the emes (truth) is, like when he reads a statement of Chazal as he is learning mussar, and he should do this mentally as well as verbally. Constantly review in your mind – as well as through your mouth – what the truth always is. By always doing this, a person builds a plan of Avodas Hashem in his life which is truthful and lasting.

In this way, you can reach the truth that is in your heart, and then the excitement in Avodas  Hashem which comes from your heart will gain a new kind of stability, one that will help you sustain your elation and excitement in Avodas  Hashem throughout your entire life.

Questions and Answers with the Rav

Q1: What is the definition of ‘emes’, and what is not considered ‘emes’?

A: Emes depends on the level of each person. Even when a person is allowed to deviate from the truth sometimes, it depends on that person’s unique situation, as something that is not considered ‘sheker’ (falsehood) for one person can still be sheker for another person.

Q2: What about “Mitoch shelo lishmah ba lishmah”?

A: There are people who use “Mitoch shelo lishmah” as a way to lie and steal and cheat, all in the name of holiness. For example, people lie in business and feel that it’s justified because they are giving charity with their money to religious causes. It’s sheker. People think they can use sheker to do worthy actions – and that itself is sheker. There can be no greater mistake. We have to clarify how much sheker we are allowed to give in to and how much emes we need; it is a subtle inner work.

Q3: How can person infuse enthusiasm into his learning [of mussar]?

A: It depends on how he is learning. Without using daas to demand the truth of oneself, a person uses his natural emotions of his heart, and he remains immature. We have to get our mind to control our heart.

Even when a person learns mussar, he naturally uses his heart’s emotions that he is born with, and these emotions are off-base. We are supposed to learn mussar with both emes, as well as our heart – meaning, we have to use our daas to awaken our heart as we learn mussar. When a person learns mussar, sometimes he has to focus on reflecting into what he is learning, and sometimes he has to awaken himself in an emotional way; it is a subtle kind of work. If a person never reflects at all with his mind into the mussar he learns, he is simply using his natural emotions he was born with, and these emotions are off-base. So a person has to make sure that he is using both his daas to demand emes from himself, and he has to also awaken his heart at the same time through the knowledge he acquires; it’s a two-fold process, and it is a subtle avodah.