Getting to Know Your 70 Forces - 001A Nothingness Part 2 | Deep Teshuvah

Summary of the Previous Chapter

The Vilna Gaon writes that both an animal and a human contain 70 forces of the soul. We have begun to explain the first force of the soul, which is “nothingness that came before existence” (heder kodem l’havayah). This is the very first power that Hashem put into Creation, and it is also the first, root power of our soul.

We were first nothing, and then we began to exist. First we were heder\nothing, and then we became havayah\existing (which is also called hiyuli). After that comes the third power in the soul is called “yeish m’ayin” (something created from nothingness), [which is also called tzurah rishonah, “first form.”]

It seems to us that heder, nothingness, is simply “nothing”, and that is has no applications to our soul. But the Vilna Gaon lists it as the first power of our soul. Heder\nothingness is a power in the soul. It is not just the absence of our existence – it represents the power to access the state before we existed as creations. This is a very mysterious, deep kind power in the soul; it is a very secret matter. We will try to explain what it is.

“Nothingness” Existed, But I Cannot Comprehend It

When Hashem created this first power in Creation, heder\nothingness, this was a new creation in and of itself, even though we cannot relate to it, for it just seems to be as its name implies: “nothingness”. The nothingness we are describing is not just the state of nothingness which man returns to after death. We are describing the original nothingness which man is created from. What is it?

Heder\nothingness, which came before havayah\existence, is perceived to us as heder\nothingness only because it is not havayah\existence. Therefore, heder is anything which we cannot intellectually comprehend.

Let us clarify that “heder” (nothingness) is not about trying to understand an imaginary, non-existing concept, such as trying to understand a concept of a person with seven feet. Rather, heder is rather about something which definitely existed, but we cannot comprehend it or relate to it. Since we cannot comprehend it, it is therefore called heder\nothingness to us, from our limited human perspective

The Power To Feel Nullified To The Creator

As we mentioned in the previous chapter, the Ramban describes the power of heder with a different term: “efes”, which also means “nothing.” What is efes\heder? What is the depth behind this concept, that at first we were ‘nothing’?

It is written, “Efes zulaso” - “There is nothing besides for Him.”  Everything in Creation is “efes”, nothing, in comparison to Hashem, because there is really nothing besides for Hashem. We are all efes\nothing. The purpose of Creation is to eventually become nullified to Hashem, which was the original state of Creation. Heder\Efes really implies that there is a deep power in our soul to feel completely nullified to Hashem, since we are all “nothing” compared to Hashem.

To clarify, though, we are only “nothing” with regards to Hashem – not to ourselves, chas v’shalom; such ‘nothingness’ is destructive to our self-worth. And we should never either view another person as being “nothing”, chas v’shalom. Rather, we are all “nothing” only with regards to Hashem, because we are really all nullified to Him [and we need to feel how we are nullified to Him]. That is the way of how we are meant to use our deep aspect of “nothingness.”

The power of heder\efes in the soul, which is the first of our 70 forces of the soul, is essentially for us to realize that there is nothing else in Creation besides for Hashem, therefore, my entire existence is completely nullified to Hashem.

Now we come to the following point. We were all created with a power of bechirah, free will, to choose between right and wrong. All destruction comes to the world whenever we choose evil. This is when heder is used for the power of evil; when Creation gets ruined from the evil effects of a sin, the power of nothingness is being used destructively, because the person is “nullifying” the healthy state of Creation through acting evil. Hashem builds worlds and destroys them – first He destroys existence, and then He builds another one in its place. From this we can also see how heder comes before havayah: it is a power to “destroy”, to “nullify”, which leads to some greater goal.

Simply speaking, heder can be used for good or evil. We use it for good when we nullify ourselves to lead to something good, and heder is used for evil when it is used to cause destruction [that serves no greater purpose]. This would imply that there are two kinds of heder – heder which comes before havayah (the original state of nothingness) and heder which comes after havayah (which is symbolized by bechirah, because a person can choose evil and “destroy” the Creation through sin). This was indeed the aftereffect of Adam’s sin.

But in the original state of mankind, heder is really always the kind of heder which comes before havayah. It is not a heder that comes after havayah.

This is really the depth behind the statement of Chazal, “Teshuvah was created before the world.” Since teshuvah was created before the world, by doing teshuvah, we can go from our heder\nothingness and return to our havayah. Doing teshuvah nullifies us to Hashem and brings us to return to our original state. “Teshuvah came before the world” - which reflects the concept of how heder comes before havayah. All heder only exists so that we will return to our original pure state. Hashem destroys world and then recreates them – the sins of mankind destroy the world, but by doing teshuvah, we return to our original pure state, and then the cycle continues.

Thus, even the negative use of heder – when a person sins, and he “destroys” or “nullifies” the world through his evil acts – can be turned into positive uses, because when a person does teshuvah after the sin, he destroys the reality created by sin, and he goes back to his original state of purity.

So our entire point of bechirah\free will is essentially using the kind of heder which came into existence after our point of havayah. When a person does teshuvah for his sins, though, he uses the heder which came before havayah – he returns to his original state, in which heder came before havayah. In this way, teshuvah actually rectifies bechirah, and returns mankind back to the original state of true “nothingness” – that there is nothing besides for Hashem.

When a person does teshuvah, he connects himself to the truth, to the original truth that existed before there was any concept of sin in the world. This is the depth behind the statement of Chazal, “In the place where penitents stand, the righteous do not stand.” The baal teshuvah, when he returns to the truth, uses the power of heder that came before all havayah. In this way, he is greater than the tzaddik, because he is fulfilling the purpose of Creation, which is to return to the original state of heder that came before havayah.

The Deep Method of Doing Teshuvah

This concept has direct ramifications on how we need to go about doing teshuvah, the main avodah during these days of Yomim Noraim.

If a person doesn’t know about the concept heder and he only knows of his point of havayah, he won’t find the inner strength to really do teshuvah and correct himself. He does not identify an original source in his soul that he needs to return to. The depth of teshuvah is to realize that we have a very inner place in our soul, our original pure source, which we can return to.[1]

When a person wants to do teshuvah, what does he do? He sits down and makes a deep reflection into himself. He knows that there are four parts to doing teshuvah: 1) Abandoning the sin, 2) Regret, 3) Confession, and 4) Accepting upon himself not to commit the sin again.

So he thinks to himself: “What do I need to improve in and abandon sin?” We have many layers in our soul which need improvement, so a person begins to reflect into the layers of his soul, deeper and deeper, to see what needs improvement:

The outermost layer of the soul are our actions. So the person realizes, “I need to improve my actions, and stop committing acts of sin.”

But the actions are only a garment of the emotions, which are a deeper layer in the soul, and they are behind the negative actions that the person is committing. So the person reflects deeper into his soul, beyond his actions, and he realizes, “I need to stop my negative emotions, which are causing me to act improperly.”

But what is fueling the emotions? The thoughts. So a person realizes he needs to fix his thoughts, because it is really his improper thoughts which are leading to all the improper feelings and actions.

But the thoughts are still not the root. Beyond the thoughts is the very ratzon\will in the person, because our ratzon is what fuels our thoughts. A person realizes that it is his ratzon which really needs improvement, so he knows that in order to stop his negative retzonos, he needs to nullify the evil retzonos at their root. This is called the avodah of bittul haratzon, nullifying the evil desires.[2]

Yet, if we understand the concept we have explained here [in this chapter], bittul haratzon isn’t everything! Teshuvah is not just about bittul haratzon (nullifying our various evil desires). We can go even further into our soul than bittul haratzon! We should use our power of ratzon\will to nullify our retzonos, of course, but we should do this because we want to access the deeper part of our self, which is our inner point of heder kodem l’havayah [which we have been describing in these last two chapters], our original state of “nothingness”.

So the concept of bittul haratzon is not just about “bittul haratzon” per se. It is because through bittul haratzon, a person can connect himself to his state of original nothingness, in which there is nothing besides for Hashem. This is the depth behind the statement of Chazal, “Nullify your will to His will.” When we nullify our ratzon, it is not simply about nullifying our will to Hashem. It is rather that we are supposed to nullify our will so that we can access our inner point of the soul, our original state of nothingness, in which there was nothing in Creation besides for Hashem.

If a person does this, he connects himself to the depth of teshuvah – the kind of Teshuvah which came before the Creation of the world.