Fixing Your Wind - 016 Bragging Part 4: The Wish For Fame

Fire-of-Fire-of-Wind: ‘Enthusiastic’ Bragging

We will now conclude, with the help of Hashem, our discussion on fixing the element of wind in the soul, by discussing fire-of-fire-of-wind in the soul.

Wind of the soul is the source of idle speech, and in the previous chapters we have been discussing fire-of-wind, which is the root of mesaper b’shevach atzmo, bragging of one’s praises. In particular, fire-of-fire-of-wind is when one brags about himself enthusiastically, which resembles ‘fire’. The fire in the soul can get awakened as a person is bragging about his praises, causing him to talk excitedly about his qualities to another.

Additionally, fire in the soul is not only a cause for enthusiastic bragging, but it can also ‘spread’, just like the nature of fire which does not stay from its place and spreads. When this manifests during a conversation, he is bragging about his qualities so that his ‘fire’ can ‘spread’; he has an agenda that what he is saying will spread past the conversation. For example, he may be aware that Chazal say, “A friend has a friend”, thus, by talking to another, he is hoping that the words will be carried to another and told to another.

This is more obvious when a person is talking to a group of people as opposed to conversing one-on-one with another: when he talks, he has an agenda that his words should spread and become known to others. Such is the nature of ‘fire’, which burns and ‘spreads’ past where it is.

In simpler words, this is a nature in which a person is mainly interested that his actions become known to others, or that he should simply get his good name out there. Either way, he wants that others should know who he is.

Why People Wish To Be Famous

There can be three reasons behind this motivation, the wish for fame.

1) One kind of person wants that others should really know who he is and what he’s all about. He wants others to know what his actual qualities are. He would be uncomfortable if others will find out his shortcomings; he wants to be known to others so that others will know of his good qualities.

2) Another kind of person wants others to know that he has qualities, but he does not actually possess those qualities. Sometimes a person imagines he has certain qualities, and sometimes he is aware that he really does not have those qualities.

3) Someone who is a bit more refined might wish that others should know about only some of his talents and qualities, not all of them. He wants some of his qualities to remain hidden from the knowledge of others, but he wants others to know at least some of his abilities. Either his talents become known to others unwillingly (which is not his fault), or, his talents become known to others deliberately, because he wishes to be famous (which is evil).

Thus, the desire to speak about oneself in public stems from three possible motivations, as we explained here.

The Power To Be ‘Famous’ Is More Dominant In The End of Days

The root concept which one needs to be aware of (and later we will explain how to use this for constructive purposes) is, that the wish to be famous is actually one of the most deeply rooted desires of our human nature.

All of Creation was created to reveal the name of Hashem, that all of the world should recognize Hashem as the Creator. In the future, Hashem’s Name of Havayah will be known to the entire Creation, and this will fulfill the purpose of Creation. There is a deeply rooted desire in Creation to know of Hashem, but when this desire becomes twisted around by the ego, it becomes the desire for personal fame. It is the power for fame being used for evil: for self-serving purposes.

We are now in the End of Days, when the purpose of Creation is almost here, so we are all closer to this great ‘fame’ that will soon be here, but along with this comes along the forces of impurity, which steal the powers of holiness and use them for impure purposes. The desire for fame is the evil manifestation of this power. It is very rampant in the times we live in, the End of Days, in which it is very possible for a person to become famous very quickly. It is not by coincidence.

Most of the ‘fame’ that is pursued in our times is about sinful areas. Only a little bit of the fame pursued these days involve ‘permissible desires’, and a rare amount of it is used for holy purposes. Today we are seeing that fame and fanfare accompanies everything. The influence of the media has become so dominant in people’s lives that everything needs to be made famous, everything needs to be advertised. In these times, a person can record himself and then sent out his recording to the entire world a moment later, becoming famous in one instant.

Some people use fame and advertising for the sake of parnassah (livelihood), but others are pursuing fame simply for the sake of fame. It has gotten to the point where many people are doing everything for the sake of how much fame will come out of it. If something becomes famous, it is considered of value, and if it isn’t made famous, it is not worth much. That is what our reality has become today. This also causes people to become superficial: to view fame of a good deed as being the main thing, while the actual good deed isn’t given much attention.

For example, if a person donates a Sefer Torah to a beis midrash or he donates a new Yeshivah or kolel building, the fact that he donated is not talked about that much, and the main thing that people talk about is how much fanfare he received because of this: Being in the papers and in the pictures, etc. (And he has to take several poses so that they can get the perfect picture of him…)

All of this makes a person superficial and empty. By placing so much importance is given to fanfare and fame, it causes people to think initially that fame is all that matters. In addition, it places emphasis on the superficial layer of things, ignoring the real essence of things. Fame and advertising is one of the most dominating kinds of superficiality that are enveloping the world today.

Examining Your Motivations For Fame

We mentioned that there are three areas which a person might wish to advertise: All of the qualities he has; or the qualities he does not have; or, he will wish to advertise at least some of his qualities.

Therefore, if one notices in himself that he has a desire for fame, and he wishes to chip away at this desire, he needs to make the following self-introspection. One needs to ask himself for what purpose he seeks advertisement for: “Am I desiring to be advertised for what I don’t have, for what I do have, or to only advertise some of the qualities that I possess?”

This is the first step in the process towards improvement over this area: Getting down to the reason of what is really motivating oneself to seek fame.

Utilizing Your Potential and Revealing The Hidden

After getting down to the root of why a person has a wish for fame, by going through all of these three possibilities in oneself, comes the next step. 

There are two basic forces in our soul: The power to utilize our potential (l’hotzi m’koach el hapoel), and the power to reveal the hidden (l’hotzi m’heelam l’giluy).

The Maharal says that man is called “adam” from the word “adamah”, the earth, which utilizes the potential of a seed by producing plants. It takes the seed, which is a potential, and utilizes it to its potential, enabling a plant to grow and emerge from it.

A different ability which man has is to take something hidden and reveal it. Many times, the ability to utilize one’s potential and the ability to reveal the hidden are interconnected with each other, but in essence, they are two different abilities of man.

The power to utilize our potential is a fundamental essence of man. Even the most perfected person in the world must utilize his potential. The other ability, “revealing the hidden”, is meant to be used when we learn Torah, in which we reveal the ‘concealed’ meaning of the Torah, through our effort and exertion to learn it. But for the most part, we are not meant to use the power of ‘revealing the hidden’ – meaning, it is not upon us to reveal ourselves to others.

Often, though, a person confuses these two abilities in himself. A person might focus his energies on “revealing the hidden”, thinking that this is what will utilize his potential, and he is not as concerned about utilizing his actual potential.

Differentiating Between My Using My Real Abilities Vs. Revealing Myself

Now we can see the ruination that lies in fame\advertisement of oneself.

One has to clearly differentiate between the two abilities we mentioned. When it comes to utilizing your potential, you need to try to use most of it, because it is all necessary to use. But when it comes to ‘revealing the hidden’ [revealing oneself\making oneself famous], most of it is not necessary for a person to reveal, and when a person does use this power a lot, it is usually done for purposes that are not really necessary.

So first, as we already said, person must know what he can really do, and what he cannot. Therefore, the power to “reveal the hidden” should be used a lot less than the power to utilize one’s potential. Secondly, there is no person who lives totally lishmah (for pure motivations) as Rav Chaim Volozhiner says; therefore, since we all have shelo lishmah (ulterior motivations) in us, we should use the shelo lishmah constructively: to focus on how much we want to advertise our actual potential to others.

What this will achieve is that a person will see that he doesn’t have to seek fame for the sake of fame alone. Instead, he can realize that it is more important to seek to utilize his actual potential. If he gets fame from that, at least it is more honestly gained, as opposed to fame received from revealing himself entirely to others, which ‘reveals the hidden.’

So it is more important for a person to focus his energies on utilizing his actual potential, rather than on seeking to reveal his greatness to others. In addition, focusing on your actual potential is a way for you to use shelo lishmah constructively, whereas seeking fame for the sake of fame is totally shelo lishmah.

Here is an example of what we mean. If one is saying a dvar Torah in public, he is utilizing his potential. He has chiddushim to say, so he needs to say them, in order to reveal them outward and thus utilize his potential. The fame he receives as a result is a byproduct of this, but his main concern was to utilize his potential.

Something which is meant to stay hidden, however, should stay hidden, and no one should know about it. But if it is something that is supposed to be made known - such as in the case of saying a dvar Torah – the fact that he receives fame as a result of this is something that cannot be avoided; he is not mainly motivated here to become famous. He just wants to utilize his potential. The good feeling he gets from it and any fame that follows from this should be enough to calm his desire for fame, because he will be getting fame from using his real abilities, not from advertising something he isn’t.

Most people are using fame for its own sake, and this is the problem. But when a person is making sure to focus on utilizing his actual potential, his desire for fame will be curbed, for it will be limited to the energies he is using. This is the gain of focusing on actualizing your potential vs. seeking to ‘reveal the hidden’ [or the desire for fame].

Avoiding Fame Even As You’re Utilizing Your Potential

The next step a person needs to do is that even when he is focused on utilizing his actual potential rather than on revealing his hiddenness to others, he should also make sure to avoid revealing himself as much as possible.

For example, if a person merits to print a sefer, he doesn’t have to put his name on it. Just because he is using his potential by putting out his sefer doesn’t mean that he has to “reveal the hidden” at the same time and making himself known to others. The point was to utilize his potential, not to let everybody know who he is, so why should he need to advertise himself in the process?

Something he does privately should surely remain private, but even something which is known to others, doesn’t have to be done in a way that reveals the hidden. The point is to keep focusing on utilizing your actual potential, and to keep the focus away from revealing yourself to others\ ‘revealing the hidden’.

(There is also a deeper level in which a person can make sure to hide his potential from others, but this is a level for tzaddikim).

The Next Stage: Lessening Advertisement of The “I”

When it comes to the wish to be famous, there are two parts to this: the wish to advertise one’s very self, and the wish to advertise that which he wants to advertise [his abilities]. Until now we explained the wish in a person to advertise his abilities to others, and how one can lessen the amount of this. We did not explain yet how to lessen the advertisement of one’s actual self.

In what we described until now, a person can focus on making his actual abilities known to others, as opposed to being focused on simply becoming famous. He knows that he will become famous as a result, but this is still better than simply desiring to be famous, because at least his focus on using his actual abilities, which will limit the amount of fame he receives, to what he is actually good at. This uses shelo lishmah in the soul for a constructive purpose.

However, it is still focused on the “I”, so it doesn’t eliminate the actual desire for fame yet. There is more inner work to be done after this stage, because it still doesn’t solve the problem of how one can avoid fame altogether.

The more inner avodah than what was explained until now is for one to lessen advertisement of himself, altogether. Most people want others to know what they do and consider themselves successful only if others will know of them. But the higher level is for one to not need others to know of him. [Later we will explain how one can come to this perspective].

There is a well-known story that someone told Reb Yisrael Salanter of a tzaddik nistar (hidden tzaddik) whom no one knows about, and that perhaps it would be better to reveal him to the world, so that the world will know he is and then be able to gain from him. Reb Yisrael Salanter said, “This tzaddik nistar is getting all his vitality in life from the fact that he is a nistar; if everyone finds out he is a tzaddik, he will stop being a tzaddik, because he will feel like he is losing his ‘title’.”

The point we can learn from this story is: Most people need others to know who they are. They want their “I” to remain and be noticed by others, even if they are not so obsessed with “revealing the hidden” which we addressed earlier.

But the more inner avodah is for one to lessen all traces of his “I” altogether. It is essentially for one to understand that we live entirely for Hashem: “Everything is in the hands of Heaven.” (As for how one can avoid gaavah (conceit) even as he’s avoiding fame, this is a separate topic). It is for a person to realize that he has nothing of his own.

For example, if someone puts out a sefer, he has to realize that it’s all from Hashem, not form himself. If he donated tzedakah, he has to realize that it was not his money, but Hashem’s.

Simply speaking, it is the level in which one realizes that nothing he does is from himself. But it is even deeper than that: since we own nothing, we can recognize that all fame must go to Hashem, and not for ourselves. This is the more ultimate level: to realize that fame is not meant to be used for self-serving purposes, and to instead realize that only Hashem should be made famous.

The more a person removes his “I” from the picture – the less he wants to be noticed by others - the more he avoids personal fame, and instead he returns all fame to Hashem, Who is the Only One who should be made famous. He will desire less and less fame with the more he gets used to this perspective; he would rather that Hashem’s name be known and revealed.

In the first part of the avodah we described (with regards to lessening the desire for fame), in which a person focuses on his actual potential rather than on being obsessed with advertising himself, there is still an “I” that wishes to be noticed. But if a person realizes that all his actions are really enabled by Hashem, not only will he desire less fame, but he returns all fame to Hashem. Not only will this chip away at his wish for fame, but it causes a person to desire for Hashem’s name to be revealed instead - the purpose of creation.

Purifying Our Motivations To ‘Advertise’ Torah and Mitzvos

Until now, we explained perspectives that can be understood and reached by most people. The last point we said was a bit more subtle. Now we will say a deeper point which is not close to most people, but we will mention it to complete the picture.

There are people who want to make Hashem famous upon the world, but they do so because they are mainly interested in making themselves known. They are in it as a way to make their own opinions known. They are aware that the main thing is Torah and mitzvos, and they wish to make this famous to the world - but only because they wish to spread their own personal opinion of what the truth is. They seek to spread knowledge of Hashem, Torah, and mitzvos, entirely as a tool to their advantage, which enables then make their own opinions famous.

For example, a person might wish to made advertisements about “Stop Talking Lashon Hora!”, or that we need to concentrate when we say “Amen”, or that we need to give tzedakah, etc. These are all important things, but the question is, what is motivating the person to advertise these mitzvos?

With some people, it comes from the pure desire of their souls, and if this is the case, it is part of their purpose on this world to spread the knowledge about certain mitzvos; they have purified themselves internally, they have reached the purity of their soul, and they realize that it is their purpose on this world to spread certain mitzvos.

But with others, the desire to make such advertisements is stemming from a desire to spread his personal wishes, so that he can get fame and honor from it. It has nothing to do with Hashem; it is self-serving. It is either because a person wants to cause some movement throughout the world, or because he has the money and connections to do so, or simply because it is his personality to make his ideas famous.

We cannot say that it’s entirely self-serving, but it’s not being done entirely for the sake of Hashem either. Usually what happens is that even if many good things do come out of it, it is done entirely shelo lishmah. It does not come from a desire to spread the knowledge about Hashem onto the world. It is rather seen as an opportunity for a person to spread his personal ideas, due to whatever agendas he has. This misuses a high spiritual power – the power to make Hashem revealed upon the world - for egoistic purposes.

As an example of this, there are many people who believe that Moshiach will come from specifically their particular sect of Judaism. This is a dramatic example of how twisted the desire for fame can become. When Moshiach comes, he will reveal Hashem upon the entire world, yet there are people who want to claim him all for themselves. This constricts the spiritual light of Moshiach, which is all-inclusive, and limits it to a ‘specific’ situation. Although it is true that Moshiach will have to come from somewhere, the fact is, Moshiach will come to reveal Hashem upon the world, and people are taking the concept of Moshiach and ‘constricting’ it to their personal wishes.

In Conclusion

To summarize, the power to seek fame (pirsum) is a power that must not be suffocated, for it is needed, and the only question is, to where a person will direct his power to seek fame.

If one does not make himself famous nor does he seek to make Hashem famous, it can be said that he ‘buries’ himself. If he only makes himself famous, this is evil. If he seeks to make Hashem famous, it must be done with proper intentions and not for the sake of his own fame.

There is a famous saying of Rav Shach zt”l that “In our generation, I do not understand how there is such a thing as a tzaddik nistar. If he is a real tzaddik, how can he sit in solitude in his own private corner, when everyone else around him in this generation is in need of his help?” (There are indeed such tzaddikim like that even in our generation, and it is a matter which needs understanding. We are just mentioning this to shed light on our current topic we are discussing).

Thus, in summary, we need to make use of the nature of seeking fame (pirsum), and it is just that we need to know how to use this power properly. With most people, it is used for self-serving purposes; one who has a dominant amount of fire-of-fire-of-wind has an even stronger desire to be famous.

In either case, every person has to know how he uses the power of fame: if he is using it for himself, and if he is, how he can use it properly; and how to channel the desire for fame to make Hashem famous upon the world.

Practically speaking, in order to improve in this area, one needs to begin from the lower stages (focusing on his actual potential rather than on seeking to make himself famous, along with lessening advertisement of oneself when unnecessary), and after he has worked on that, he can progress to the higher stage: to seek to make Hashem famous, and not himself, by deeply realizing that nothing we have is from ourselves, only from Hashem.[1]