Fixing Your Earth - 014 Laziness Due To Water and Wind of Earth

Summary of The Solution To Laziness Due To Water-of-Earth

When one’s laziness is stemming from water-of-earth in the soul (and any of its four divisions), the basic solution, which we began to explain in the previous class, is to get used to stopping in the middle of doing something, taking short breaks every here between our various actions, speech and thoughts.

This also helps us learn the art of “halbashah” and “hafshatah” – “wearing” and “removing” our soul layers^[1]; in this case, we are learning how to detach from sometimes from our various movements.

Since we are usually moving, we need to learn how to pull back from movement; besides for helping us counter laziness, it also serves another gain, which is that it helps us identify with the concept of halbashah and hafshatah which we have begun to discuss throughout this series. The main point of the classes we are discussing is essentially to help us know when to use our soul’s abilities and when to detach from them, “wearing” and “removing” them depending on the situation – to acquire the art of halbashah and hafshatah, knowing how to use our soul’s abilities.

This also serves to help us gain menuchas hanefesh – inner serenity – which is the ultimate goal of all of these classes. By learning how to detach from our actions when we must, we attain a certain level of calmness. When we pause a bit from what we are in middle of doing, we can use this time to think into what we are doing and to reflect.

This solution applies as well to someone whose laziness stems from fire coming from his water-of-earth, which is impatience. This kind of person seeks constant elation in whatever situation he is in, and he gets frustrated if he can’t find something exciting to do. He also needs to calm his “fire” by learning how to detach from movement sometimes.

Most people are moving, stopping, then moving. Creation is like this, because we have the week and then Shabbos, and then we are back in the weekday. Our soul is also like this – we move, then we rest from movement, and then we continue back to movement. But even when we rest from movement, like on Shabbos, it’s not for the sake of resting. It’s because we want to return to our movements refreshed. A person who doesn’t know how to stop should use the time of Shabbos to work on this. He should learn how to rest sometimes from movements – not to become lazy and sleepy, but for the sake of refreshing himself.

We have finished discussing laziness that stems from water-of-earth. Now we will discuss the next four kinds of laziness, which stem from wind-of-earth.

3-A} Laziness Due To Earth-of-Wind-of-Earth: Lazy Movement

     Laziness stemming from wind-of-earth is when a person’s movements are lazy; he gets somewhat lethargic even as he is performing, and as a result, he does not complete the task at hand. Within this kind of laziness, there are four types – earth, water, wind and fire. Let us begin with the first kind of this laziness: laziness stemming from earth-of-wind-of-earth.

The Kotzker Rebbe zt”l said that sometimes a person who is moving quickly is really being lazy, because it could be that he wants to get things done already so he can rest. This is how our even “movement”, a nature of wind, can really be coming from our “non-movement”, our earth. Although it seems that the person is moving, it’s really a lazy kind of movement, because he’s only moving so he can get something done without having to exert himself – resulting in a half-baked action.

For example, many times people learn the masechta very quickly so they can make a siyum. A person wants to feel like he has finished something, so he might choose to learn Meseches Tamid – a short masechta, which is very difficult – so that he can get to the end already and make a siyum. Then he finds it’s not so easy, and he feels like he can’t get to the end; he gets lazy.

When a person has a hard time getting to completing something, even as he’s moving towards it, he’s not moving to obtain menuchah (serenity) at the end. His movement towards his goal really reflects a subtle kind of laziness. It seems that the person “moving” to get to his goal is utilizing his elements of movement (fire, water or wind), but it’s really a subtle kind of non-movement, so it’s coming from earth, the source of laziness in the soul. This is the “wind” within earth – there is movement here, but it’s coming from non-movement, so it’s a lazy kind of movement.

3-B} Laziness Due To Water-of-Wind-of-Earth (Lack of Actualization)

The next kind of laziness is caused by water-of-wind-of-earth. This is when a person has a hard time actualizing his many retzonos (desires\wants\aspirations) that are holy. He always has a ratzon for something worthy, but he just can’t get himself to really act upon his retzonos. He wants very badly to do the right thing, but he has a hard time getting there. He knows that he needs to put a stop to certain bad habits, but he gets lazy about trying to take action.

Of course, we are supposed to eliminate our various retzonos to begin with and only want to do the ratzon of Hashem, but the point of what we are saying here is that there can also exist a problem in a person that he has a hard time actualizing what he wants. He keeps trying to “want” what he wants, but he’s really being lazy in doing so – the “water” of his earth is being used for laziness. So although it appears like he’s moving toward fulfilling his ratzon, it’s really stemming from his laziness, which is rooted in his element of earth.

3-C] Laziness Due To Wind-of-Wind-of-Earth (Lack of Control)

The next kind of laziness we will discuss is caused by wind-of-wind-of-earth. This is due to a person’s contradictory desires, which can also breed on laziness. When a person feels contradicting desires, he might get anxious and lose control over them, acting rash and irresponsible.

For example, a person only has enough money to buy one thing in the store, and he is torn between having to choose one item over the other. The contradiction he feels can cause him to become somewhat lazy in gaining control over what he wants, and then he makes a rash decision.

We have explained the outlines of the different kinds of laziness stemming from wind-of-earth (all except for fire from wind-of-earth), and in the next class we will hopefully get to the solutions.