024 Living on the Edge of Human Desire – The Secret of Spiritual Development

The Torah Podcast Transcript

024 The Torah Podcast – Living on the Edge of Human Desire – The Secret of Spiritual Development

Torah Portion of the Week – Reeh

I want to start out with this week’s Torah portion. I’m going to speak about the Rambam. In the Rambam’s introduction to Perek Chelek in Sanhedrin, he explains the idea of lo lishmo, bo lishma. (not “for the sake of God” will lead to “for the sake of God”) What does that mean? If you do something, a mitzva, commandment, for the wrong reason, you’ll come to do it for the right reason. He gives an example of a child who first goes to school. How are we going to convince this child to learn Torah? He doesn’t appreciate what it is. He doesn’t know what it is. Why should he put in the effort to learn? According to his level, his conception of what’s going on, the way to do it is you give him some sugar, give him candy. The teacher promises him that if he learns, he’ll get some candy. Then he gets a little bit older, he’s not so interested in candy. But he still doesn’t have an appreciation for Torah, so what do you do? The teacher will promise him to buy him shoes, “I’ll get your father to buy you shoes, I’ll get your father to buy you nice clothes,” which will motivate him to learn more, till he slowly starts to get appreciation for Torah. As time goes by, he still needs some more motivation. He might not be the most spiritual. He may not appreciate it. His intellect may not be developed enough for him to appreciate it, so then the teacher will offer him money. “I’ll get your father to give you money.” And as he goes further, his Rabbis promise him that if he continues to learn, he’ll get kavod, become a Rabbi, he’ll be famous.

The Rambam says, “Really, all this stuff is shameful, but it’s necessary. Because of man’s nature, because man’s nature is physical and he doesn’t have a real, true appreciation of spirituality until he grows his intellect to become sharp, and his understanding becomes deeper. Until he gets to these levels, he won’t have the motivation to get to the level. So, you have to start the ball rolling with lo lishma, bo lishma. You have to offer him physical things which he understands, and then he’ll come to the higher level. This is the nature of man.

But on one side, it’s an embarrassment because he says, “The purpose of study should be knowledge, and the ultimate purpose of truth should be to know what is true.” In other words, we should be learning to understand what’s true. We should have a desire for the truth. I mean, lehavdil, even Aristotle said that a healthy person has a desire for the truth. Really, our motivation should come from love. We appreciate that we’re created. We want to understand what we’re doing here, what’s our obligation to be here. Why do we need all these side factors? But that’s not the way it is. We are human beings, and we need physical things to motivate us. Even though we’re not doing it for the right reason, we’ll come to do it for the right reason by doing it through the wrong reason. That’s called lo lishma, bo lishma, by doing it not for the sake of God, it will come that you will do it for the sake of God. It shouldn’t be looked down upon because it’s an integral component of what it means to educate a human being, to educate a child. To develop a person, one needs these things.

I want to ask you a question which my Rebbe used to ask. What’s the quality of steel? Most people will say, “Steel is a very hard substance.” But really we know that if you would heat up steel hot enough, it turns into a liquid. And if you freeze it, it could be very hard and it could crack. So, which quality is it? Well, it depends. Under normal circumstances, we know that it’s hard. If you heat it up, it becomes a liquid. If you freeze it, it can crack. So, it’s all three of those qualities. The same thing with a human being. Are we spiritual, or are we physical? Well, it depends. We need an ideal situation to be spiritual, and this is what Shlomo ha Melech talks about. Shlomo said in Mishlei, “Give me neither poverty nor riches. Give me my allotted bread. Why? If I am satisfied, I might deny and say, “Who was God?” If I am poor, I might steal and take the name of God in vain.” You see that man is very capricious in nature. He’s fickle. It depends on his situation. He has to know in his nature how much he needs to go forward. If he over indulges himself, that’s wrong. But if he doesn’t take what he needs, he’ll also go off.

Rav Dessler says, “Troubles arouse a person to turn in towards God.” Believe it or not, when you have trouble, that’s when a man turns on to God. If all his needs are satisfied, ‘Ah, what do I need God for? Everything’s fine. I’ve got a nice car, a nice house, a nice wife, nice kids. Everything is great. Forget about God, who needs God?’ This is the tendency of a human being, to deny God. If everything’s taken care of, who needs God? Since Shlomo knew that was true, he said, “Give me neither poverty nor riches. Give me my allotted bread. Give me just what I need.” Why was he scared of poverty? Because from poverty, you might come to steal. We see that man is in a very fluid situation, changing from moment to moment. Our relationship to God has to change, based on the situation.

But the Torah provides solutions to these problems. In this week’s Parsha, Reeh, the verses said like this. “You shall make the festival of Sukkos for a seven day period. When you gather in from your threshing floor and from your wine pit.” When does Sukkos fall? Exactly at the time of the harvest, when you’re gathering all your food and your wine. It says there, “Vesamachta vechgecha”, you shall rejoice on your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your slave, your maidservant, the Levite, the convert, the orphan and the widow, and all who are in your cities. A seven day period you shall celebrate to Hashem, your God, in the place that Hashem your God will choose, for Hashem will have blessed you in all your crops and all your handiwork, and you will only rejoice.” Ah, you will only rejoice. So, we see that God set up Sukkos at the time where we’re gathering our crops. This is amazing. Why is it? Because we might come to deny God, and God knows that. Since we’re getting our food for our entire year, we might get arrogant and say, “We don’t need God anymore.” So, God made a holiday. What was the holiday about? Going into a sukka, and a sukka is a temporary dwelling. Remember that the world is temporary. Remember what you’re doing here. Why are you here? What’s your purpose in life? Don’t think you’re so self- sufficient. Go out into a sukka. What are you supposed to do in your sukka? You’re supposed to be happy, spiritually happy. You’re supposed to rejoice there.

At the end of the possuk there it says, “You will only rejoice.” They learn out, there’s a Gemara in Moed Katan that learns out from “you will only rejoice”, that you shouldn’t get married during the time of Sukkos. Why? Because the time of Sukkos is a time of spiritual simcha, not physical simcha – spiritual happiness, not physical happiness. You shouldn’t even be happy with your marriage, surely you shouldn’t be happy with all the money you just made, with all the harvests that you have.

But the question that Rav Dessler has is, how do we get there? How do we move from physical joy to spiritual joy? What is spiritual joy? How do we really feel happy with God? How do we go beyond being a human being with our physical desires? How do we move out of a lo lishma, bo lishma? How do we move out of being motivated for the wrong reasons to being motivated for the right reasons? We’re only flesh and blood. We’re human beings. What’s going to cause us to be truly, truly spiritual? He brings down in the name of the Vilna Gaon who said like this. “It’s impossible to sow a field unless it has first been plowed,” that’s the moshul, parable. What does that mean? Our hearts have what’s called timtum halev, which is a kind of a tuma, impurity in our heart. That’s where we don’t see God, we don’t feel God. We don’t have real feelings of spirituality. There’s a kind of covering on our heart. And it prevents the spirituality from entering into our heart.

He says, “The hard peel surrounding the heart must first be pierced. When it’s pierced, at that point then spirituality can come in.” He says, “We need a strong emotion upheaval. It can either be positive or negative, but when it happens, now’s my chance. The hard casing of my heart has been broken open. Quick, I must sow in it what I want to.” At that point, when a person had some kind of emotional upheaval, he had the chance to change himself and come closer to God. And this is what we learn from the possukim in the Torah. Now is the time, it says at Sukkos, “Now is the time, wow, I just harvested my entire crop for the whole year. I’m set up. How happy am I. How great I feel, my family feels, everybody is happy.” At that point, that’s when we go into the Sukkah. At that point, we direct that towards God.

And the chochmas haTorah, and the wisdom of the Torah knows the nature of the human being. It’s using the physical joy as a springboard to reach true spirituality. And with that, we can build our faith. We could build our closeness to God. There’s another famous example with this. We know that when Yaakov saw Yosef after 22 years of thinking that he was dead, when he met him and they hugged, the possukim there say that Yosef put his neck onto Yaakov, but Yaakov didn’t put his neck onto Yosef and cry. Why? Because Yaakov was saying Shema. He used those unbelievable feelings of knowing your son is alive and seeing Yosef, he used that to come closer to God. Thank you, God – uplifting himself to become truly spiritual.

I just want to add on to this a very, very interesting thing that I heard. We know that the universe has planets orbiting in space, in other words, everything’s turning around the sun in our universe. There’s a center, and the planets orbit around it. We also know on the microcosm, there’s an atom, an atom of neutrons and electrons. It also has a center, and things turning around it. The same thing with the human being. Even though it’s true that human beings have a tendency to neglect God, but we also want to come close to God. We know in every society there are temples, there are people gathered around God, and they make God the center of their lives in every society. But you have levels, just like you have some planets that are closer to the sun, and they’re orbiting around, you have other planets that are further away and are orbiting around. But everybody feels they’re serving God in their way. It may not be the right way, it may not be the best way, but that’s exactly the point. That’s why I wanted to bring this. In other words, each human being has his own tendencies and his own perception of what’s important – what’s less important, what’s more important, his value system. And his value system is creating his orbit. Basically, how close he is to God is based on his value system. But most people are all good people, and they’re trying their best to their understanding, with their education, and their view of life. And they’re all orbiting around God, because God’s in the center.

So, when you look at another human being who is less religious than you, or even more religious than you, you shouldn’t think it strange. You have to see the people for who they are. They’re in their own orbit. They’re orbiting around God in their way. Not everybody has the same constitution. Not everybody has the same intelligence. Not everybody has the same type of heart. Now, obviously the Torah tells us how to come close to God, and what God’s about. But even the greatest scholar, even the greatest human being has so much more to go. We’re still human, we’re flesh and we’re blood. We still have our desires, and this is exactly the point. That’s why as Jewish people, we need Sukkos to take our physicality, and turn it into spirituality. That’s why we need lo lishma, and that’s why we need to do things for the wrong motivation to come to the true motivation, because we’re human. But the secret is what the Vilna Gaon told us, at emotional points in your life – Bar Mitzvas, weddings, simchas, celebrations, at these spiritual moments and also in the negative – death, God-forbid. Negative things bring people to teshuva, repentance. At these breaking points you can break out of the orbit and make your orbit a little bit closer to God. We all know this is true. At the difficult times of our lives and at the happy times in our life, we always come closer to God.

I just want to add on another thing, which is, I heard that the Rambam said that the Torah is superimposed upon the physical reality. In other words, we are who we are. The Torah is a standard that we have to live up to, but no human being could live up to every aspect of the Torah. The Torah is divine, we’re human. The possuk says, “No one could see me and live.” No one could see God and live. If you already see God you’re 100% pure, you’re out of this world. So, as long as we’re here, we’re impure. In terms of educating and in terms of the way to look at other human beings, you have to look at the person for who they are, not how they could be or should be, or who you want them to be – who they are is who they are. They’re in their own personal orbit. It’s very important in terms of education to look at your children and accept them for who they are. How are you going to move them closer to God, if you don’t accept them for who they are? The starting point is to accept them as human beings. The same with neighbors, friends, wives, husbands. The starting point is the human element. In that, we have to superimpose the spiritual element, and the essential times for that are the highlights of our lives and the low points in our lives when there’s an emotional upheaval, then we can move to the next level.

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A Powerful Parable

The Chofetz Chaim gave a moshul, parable. He said like this. Deep in the heart of every Jew is an authentic faith that still burns bright. It’s called the pintele Yid, the spark inside the Jewish soul. The problem is that we crave to be like other people. In other words, we make our measurement of who we are and what’s expected of us, based on our neighbors. This is known information, and it’s a fact. So, he has a moshul like this. He says, “One time an epidemic broke out, God-forbid. And there was no cure for it, and no one knew what the cause was. Everybody was sick, people were dying left and right. Someone heard about a famous doctor that cured this disease by many, many people. He says to his friend, “Please, I don’t care what. Spend whatever it takes. Get that doctor here, I want him to come here. I don’t want to die.”

His friend said, “What are you so impatient about? Let’s wait and talk things over with the other sick people in the village,” because everybody was sick. “Together we’ll all invite this physician, we can split the price, and he’ll cure the illness. Besides that, you’re not even exactly 100% sure that this doctor can cure the disease.” The sick man got angry at his friend. He says, “Listen, here nobody knows how to cure the disease. Do you think I’m just going to wait around for other people to decide when this doctor should come? What do I care what they want to do? I need to save my own life. And in terms of me not knowing 100% whether this doctor could cure, but let’s say he has a 60% chance, so bring him. My life is in danger. I have to do everything I can to save myself.” That was the moshul. The nimshal, the conclusion is, that people spiritually don’t understand how sick they are. They don’t understand how off they are. They think they’re doing okay. Why? Because they’re just looking at the neighbors. He doesn’t keep Shabbos, he doesn’t eat Kosher. He goes to this little shul, synagogue over there, the Conservative shul. Everything’s okay. That’s the kind of Jew that I am, everything’s fine. He says, “Listen, whatever the neighbors are doing is good enough for me. But if he understood how badly off he really was, he would run, “Bring me the Rabbi. Tell me what to do. I don’t care about anybody else, I need to save myself.” So, a person who’s really searching for spirituality, he has to look beyond his neighbors.

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Peace in Your Home

I’m going to read here from a book, Rav Nachum Diament on shalom bayis, peace in your home. He says, one time there was a famous guy in chessed, kind deeds. He was legendary. Whenever people would come to his wife they’d say, “Wow, your husband, what a tsaddik, righteous person. What an unbelievable guy he is. He helped this, he helped that.” The wife used to say, “Their words used to cut me like a knife. Why? Because he would never help his wife. He was always busy, running around and helping other people. This was going on for years. She used to complain to the Rabbi. Nothing helped, he didn’t care. He was always out, helping other people. He did not help in the house.

One time she was expecting, she was pregnant. She had to be in her bed, that’s what the doctors said. Up till now, what happened? She used to get her daughter to help in the house. “Okay, my husband doesn’t want to help. Fine, I’ll get my daughter.” But this day, it happened to be the daughter had a school trip. The daughter had to go. But she begged with him, “Please, just come home this afternoon. Help me out. Let’s feed the kids lunch, and then you can go back to learn, or whatever you’re doing.”

What happened? A half before 1:00 o’clock when he’s supposed to come he gets a call. He says, “Listen, I can’t come.” He says, “Why not, why not?” It’s a true story. He said, “Because there’s a poor woman who needs help. She’s on bed rest, and there’s nobody there to help her.” At that point, the wife started crying uncontrollably. It’s a true story. The question is, what kind of behavior is this? What’s causing this kind of behavior?

We know by Shimon ben Geiri, Dovid haMelech told Shlomo to kill him with wisdom. What did he mean, with wisdom? How did Shlomo kill him? He said, “If you leave the city…” he was an 80-year old man, he never left Yerushalayim. But he says, “If you leave Yerushalayim, you’re going to be killed.” We know that he somehow bought a donkey, he chased after his donkey. He left Yerushalayim and he killed him. Why did he have to leave, because we know the rule is like this. As long as you’re obligated to do something, you don’t want to do it. That is the nature of man. When this man is going around helping other people, there’s no obligation. But to help his wife, he’s obligated. He doesn’t want to do it.

There’s another story like this. One time, there was a famous cheder, boys’ school Rebbe. He used to take care of those students unbelievably. He never took a break. After 30, 40 years of teaching at the end when they made the party for him, they announced that they never saw him in the teachers’ break room, the teachers’ lounge. This same Rebbe admitted, “I can’t sit a half hour to teach my own kids.” He was an unbelievable cheder Rebbe. He used to invite the kids to his house for Shabbos, after hours, after school. He was always involved with these kids. I mean, the best Rebbe you could possibly imagine. But he couldn’t teach his own kids. Same idea, because he was obligated.

What do we learn from this? Part of the problem of shalom bayis is, you’re obligated. You have to help each other. He says, “This is the real test of a man.” He brings down on Yom Kippur in the Haftora, Yeshayahu haNavi gives a list of things that we should do on the fast day. The last one is, do not ignore your family. This is chessed inside the home. It’s an obligation. “At that point,” the possuk continues, “then a light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing was brought quickly. And then you should call Hashem and He will answer. You will cry out and He will say, ‘Here I am.’” This is the test of helping in your house. Also for a wife, of helping her husband. What you are obligated to do, that’s the most difficult. Once you know about it, at least you have a chance to conquer it, to work on it.

He ends with a story. He knew one time there was a baal teshuva whose brother was together with a girl for 10 years. They had the greatest relationship. Then they decided to get married. Seven months later, they were divorced. The same kind of idea. We have to do like Yeshayahu haNavi says, “Do not ignore your family.” Build the relationship, and then when you have the relationship together with the obligation, then you’ll really have peace in your home.

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Great Stories – Rav Chatzkel

I want to end off with Rav Chatzkel, the mashgiach, overseer of the Mir. We know that one of the greatest qualities of Rav Chatzkel was his emunah, his faith. He had tremendous faith in God. He used to say when he was in Shanghai, when the Mir went to Shanghai, and people were mourning over their families, their brothers and sisters, people needed a lot of chizuk. They needed strength to continue to believe in God, that God is totally good.

One time, there’s a famous story. One of the talmidim, students came to Rav Chatzkel, “Please give me strength, give me more emunah. Help me to really believe in God.” Rav Chatzkel held up his hand and said, “You see my fingers? This is how I see Hashem, always in front of me.” That’s how real God was to him, like his hand. The story goes, he started to cry and cry. He says, “I don’t understand. How can this person not see God when I see him like my hand?” Rav Chatzkel said, he brought down the Chovas haLevavos. “It is an imperative to know that everything comes from God. Our entire life and lot is in His hand, and nothing can affect that. Ain od milvado. There is nothing else but God. The Sages enforced this teaching with what? Somebody doesn’t lift a finger here on earth unless it is first decreed in Heaven.” Why was he so adamant about this to the students in Shanghai? Because he said, “You guys saw miracles.” I mean, the miracles of how the Mir went out of Shanghai is unbelievable, if you read the story. It’s unbelievable miracles. He was worried that if they didn’t have faith, there would be tremendous judgment upon them. They would be punished.

He said, “The problem is double. If a person does not work on his faith, what will happen? It will create a vacuum, and the vacuum will be filled with other things. The vacuum will be filled with a lack of faith – atheism, and physical desires, the desires for physical things in the mundane world. It’s the nature of a human being. If he doesn’t fill himself up with faith, he’ll fill himself up with something else.

Okay, that’s it for this week’s podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it with your friends. Please give me some feedback on the website, I would really appreciate it.

Rabbi Eliyahu Mitterhoff

024 – Torah Portion of the Week – Reeh – Living on the Edge of Human Desire – The Secret of Spiritual Development , A Powerful Parable about Neglecting to Cure an Illness, Peace in Your Home – Evading Obligations and nA Great Story about Rav Chatzkel & Faith

024 The Torah Podcast – Living on the Edge of Human Desire – The Secret of Spiritual Development

Torah Portion of the Week – Reeh

I want to start out with this week’s Torah portion. I’m going to speak about the Rambam. In the Rambam’s introduction to Perek Chelek in Sanhedrin, he explains the idea of lo lishmo, bo lishma. (not “for the sake of God” will lead to “for the sake of God”) What does that mean? If you do something, a mitzva, commandment, for the wrong reason, you’ll come to do it for the right reason. He gives an example of a child who first goes to school. How are we going to convince this child to learn Torah? He doesn’t appreciate what it is. He doesn’t know what it is. Why should he put in the effort to learn? According to his level, his conception of what’s going on, the way to do it is you give him some sugar, give him candy. The teacher promises him that if he learns, he’ll get some candy. Then he gets a little bit older, he’s not so interested in candy. But he still doesn’t have an appreciation for Torah, so what do you do? The teacher will promise him to buy him shoes, “I’ll get your father to buy you shoes, I’ll get your father to buy you nice clothes,” which will motivate him to learn more, till he slowly starts to get appreciation for Torah. As time goes by, he still needs some more motivation. He might not be the most spiritual. He may not appreciate it. His intellect may not be developed enough for him to appreciate it, so then the teacher will offer him money. “I’ll get your father to give you money.” And as he goes further, his Rabbis promise him that if he continues to learn, he’ll get kavod, become a Rabbi, he’ll be famous.

The Rambam says, “Really, all this stuff is shameful, but it’s necessary. Because of man’s nature, because man’s nature is physical and he doesn’t have a real, true appreciation of spirituality until he grows his intellect to become sharp, and his understanding becomes deeper. Until he gets to these levels, he won’t have the motivation to get to the level. So, you have to start the ball rolling with lo lishma, bo lishma. You have to offer him physical things which he understands, and then he’ll come to the higher level. This is the nature of man.

But on one side, it’s an embarrassment because he says, “The purpose of study should be knowledge, and the ultimate purpose of truth should be to know what is true.” In other words, we should be learning to understand what’s true. We should have a desire for the truth. I mean, lehavdil, even Aristotle said that a healthy person has a desire for the truth. Really, our motivation should come from love. We appreciate that we’re created. We want to understand what we’re doing here, what’s our obligation to be here. Why do we need all these side factors? But that’s not the way it is. We are human beings, and we need physical things to motivate us. Even though we’re not doing it for the right reason, we’ll come to do it for the right reason by doing it through the wrong reason. That’s called lo lishma, bo lishma, by doing it not for the sake of God, it will come that you will do it for the sake of God. It shouldn’t be looked down upon because it’s an integral component of what it means to educate a human being, to educate a child. To develop a person, one needs these things.

I want to ask you a question which my Rebbe used to ask. What’s the quality of steel? Most people will say, “Steel is a very hard substance.” But really we know that if you would heat up steel hot enough, it turns into a liquid. And if you freeze it, it could be very hard and it could crack. So, which quality is it? Well, it depends. Under normal circumstances, we know that it’s hard. If you heat it up, it becomes a liquid. If you freeze it, it can crack. So, it’s all three of those qualities. The same thing with a human being. Are we spiritual, or are we physical? Well, it depends. We need an ideal situation to be spiritual, and this is what Shlomo ha Melech talks about. Shlomo said in Mishlei, “Give me neither poverty nor riches. Give me my allotted bread. Why? If I am satisfied, I might deny and say, “Who was God?” If I am poor, I might steal and take the name of God in vain.” You see that man is very capricious in nature. He’s fickle. It depends on his situation. He has to know in his nature how much he needs to go forward. If he over indulges himself, that’s wrong. But if he doesn’t take what he needs, he’ll also go off.

Rav Dessler says, “Troubles arouse a person to turn in towards God.” Believe it or not, when you have trouble, that’s when a man turns on to God. If all his needs are satisfied, ‘Ah, what do I need God for? Everything’s fine. I’ve got a nice car, a nice house, a nice wife, nice kids. Everything is great. Forget about God, who needs God?’ This is the tendency of a human being, to deny God. If everything’s taken care of, who needs God? Since Shlomo knew that was true, he said, “Give me neither poverty nor riches. Give me my allotted bread. Give me just what I need.” Why was he scared of poverty? Because from poverty, you might come to steal. We see that man is in a very fluid situation, changing from moment to moment. Our relationship to God has to change, based on the situation.

But the Torah provides solutions to these problems. In this week’s Parsha, Reeh, the verses said like this. “You shall make the festival of Sukkos for a seven day period. When you gather in from your threshing floor and from your wine pit.” When does Sukkos fall? Exactly at the time of the harvest, when you’re gathering all your food and your wine. It says there, “Vesamachta vechgecha”, you shall rejoice on your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your slave, your maidservant, the Levite, the convert, the orphan and the widow, and all who are in your cities. A seven day period you shall celebrate to Hashem, your God, in the place that Hashem your God will choose, for Hashem will have blessed you in all your crops and all your handiwork, and you will only rejoice.” Ah, you will only rejoice. So, we see that God set up Sukkos at the time where we’re gathering our crops. This is amazing. Why is it? Because we might come to deny God, and God knows that. Since we’re getting our food for our entire year, we might get arrogant and say, “We don’t need God anymore.” So, God made a holiday. What was the holiday about? Going into a sukka, and a sukka is a temporary dwelling. Remember that the world is temporary. Remember what you’re doing here. Why are you here? What’s your purpose in life? Don’t think you’re so self- sufficient. Go out into a sukka. What are you supposed to do in your sukka? You’re supposed to be happy, spiritually happy. You’re supposed to rejoice there.

At the end of the possuk there it says, “You will only rejoice.” They learn out, there’s a Gemara in Moed Katan that learns out from “you will only rejoice”, that you shouldn’t get married during the time of Sukkos. Why? Because the time of Sukkos is a time of spiritual simcha, not physical simcha – spiritual happiness, not physical happiness. You shouldn’t even be happy with your marriage, surely you shouldn’t be happy with all the money you just made, with all the harvests that you have.

But the question that Rav Dessler has is, how do we get there? How do we move from physical joy to spiritual joy? What is spiritual joy? How do we really feel happy with God? How do we go beyond being a human being with our physical desires? How do we move out of a lo lishma, bo lishma? How do we move out of being motivated for the wrong reasons to being motivated for the right reasons? We’re only flesh and blood. We’re human beings. What’s going to cause us to be truly, truly spiritual? He brings down in the name of the Vilna Gaon who said like this. “It’s impossible to sow a field unless it has first been plowed,” that’s the moshul, parable. What does that mean? Our hearts have what’s called timtum halev, which is a kind of a tuma, impurity in our heart. That’s where we don’t see God, we don’t feel God. We don’t have real feelings of spirituality. There’s a kind of covering on our heart. And it prevents the spirituality from entering into our heart.

He says, “The hard peel surrounding the heart must first be pierced. When it’s pierced, at that point then spirituality can come in.” He says, “We need a strong emotion upheaval. It can either be positive or negative, but when it happens, now’s my chance. The hard casing of my heart has been broken open. Quick, I must sow in it what I want to.” At that point, when a person had some kind of emotional upheaval, he had the chance to change himself and come closer to God. And this is what we learn from the possukim in the Torah. Now is the time, it says at Sukkos, “Now is the time, wow, I just harvested my entire crop for the whole year. I’m set up. How happy am I. How great I feel, my family feels, everybody is happy.” At that point, that’s when we go into the Sukkah. At that point, we direct that towards God.

And the chochmas haTorah, and the wisdom of the Torah knows the nature of the human being. It’s using the physical joy as a springboard to reach true spirituality. And with that, we can build our faith. We could build our closeness to God. There’s another famous example with this. We know that when Yaakov saw Yosef after 22 years of thinking that he was dead, when he met him and they hugged, the possukim there say that Yosef put his neck onto Yaakov, but Yaakov didn’t put his neck onto Yosef and cry. Why? Because Yaakov was saying Shema. He used those unbelievable feelings of knowing your son is alive and seeing Yosef, he used that to come closer to God. Thank you, God – uplifting himself to become truly spiritual.

I just want to add on to this a very, very interesting thing that I heard. We know that the universe has planets orbiting in space, in other words, everything’s turning around the sun in our universe. There’s a center, and the planets orbit around it. We also know on the microcosm, there’s an atom, an atom of neutrons and electrons. It also has a center, and things turning around it. The same thing with the human being. Even though it’s true that human beings have a tendency to neglect God, but we also want to come close to God. We know in every society there are temples, there are people gathered around God, and they make God the center of their lives in every society. But you have levels, just like you have some planets that are closer to the sun, and they’re orbiting around, you have other planets that are further away and are orbiting around. But everybody feels they’re serving God in their way. It may not be the right way, it may not be the best way, but that’s exactly the point. That’s why I wanted to bring this. In other words, each human being has his own tendencies and his own perception of what’s important – what’s less important, what’s more important, his value system. And his value system is creating his orbit. Basically, how close he is to God is based on his value system. But most people are all good people, and they’re trying their best to their understanding, with their education, and their view of life. And they’re all orbiting around God, because God’s in the center.

So, when you look at another human being who is less religious than you, or even more religious than you, you shouldn’t think it strange. You have to see the people for who they are. They’re in their own orbit. They’re orbiting around God in their way. Not everybody has the same constitution. Not everybody has the same intelligence. Not everybody has the same type of heart. Now, obviously the Torah tells us how to come close to God, and what God’s about. But even the greatest scholar, even the greatest human being has so much more to go. We’re still human, we’re flesh and we’re blood. We still have our desires, and this is exactly the point. That’s why as Jewish people, we need Sukkos to take our physicality, and turn it into spirituality. That’s why we need lo lishma, and that’s why we need to do things for the wrong motivation to come to the true motivation, because we’re human. But the secret is what the Vilna Gaon told us, at emotional points in your life – Bar Mitzvas, weddings, simchas, celebrations, at these spiritual moments and also in the negative – death, God-forbid. Negative things bring people to teshuva, repentance. At these breaking points you can break out of the orbit and make your orbit a little bit closer to God. We all know this is true. At the difficult times of our lives and at the happy times in our life, we always come closer to God.

I just want to add on another thing, which is, I heard that the Rambam said that the Torah is superimposed upon the physical reality. In other words, we are who we are. The Torah is a standard that we have to live up to, but no human being could live up to every aspect of the Torah. The Torah is divine, we’re human. The possuk says, “No one could see me and live.” No one could see God and live. If you already see God you’re 100% pure, you’re out of this world. So, as long as we’re here, we’re impure. In terms of educating and in terms of the way to look at other human beings, you have to look at the person for who they are, not how they could be or should be, or who you want them to be – who they are is who they are. They’re in their own personal orbit. It’s very important in terms of education to look at your children and accept them for who they are. How are you going to move them closer to God, if you don’t accept them for who they are? The starting point is to accept them as human beings. The same with neighbors, friends, wives, husbands. The starting point is the human element. In that, we have to superimpose the spiritual element, and the essential times for that are the highlights of our lives and the low points in our lives when there’s an emotional upheaval, then we can move to the next level.

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A Powerful Parable

The Chofetz Chaim gave a moshul, parable. He said like this. Deep in the heart of every Jew is an authentic faith that still burns bright. It’s called the pintele Yid, the spark inside the Jewish soul. The problem is that we crave to be like other people. In other words, we make our measurement of who we are and what’s expected of us, based on our neighbors. This is known information, and it’s a fact. So, he has a moshul like this. He says, “One time an epidemic broke out, God-forbid. And there was no cure for it, and no one knew what the cause was. Everybody was sick, people were dying left and right. Someone heard about a famous doctor that cured this disease by many, many people. He says to his friend, “Please, I don’t care what. Spend whatever it takes. Get that doctor here, I want him to come here. I don’t want to die.”

His friend said, “What are you so impatient about? Let’s wait and talk things over with the other sick people in the village,” because everybody was sick. “Together we’ll all invite this physician, we can split the price, and he’ll cure the illness. Besides that, you’re not even exactly 100% sure that this doctor can cure the disease.” The sick man got angry at his friend. He says, “Listen, here nobody knows how to cure the disease. Do you think I’m just going to wait around for other people to decide when this doctor should come? What do I care what they want to do? I need to save my own life. And in terms of me not knowing 100% whether this doctor could cure, but let’s say he has a 60% chance, so bring him. My life is in danger. I have to do everything I can to save myself.” That was the moshul. The nimshal, the conclusion is, that people spiritually don’t understand how sick they are. They don’t understand how off they are. They think they’re doing okay. Why? Because they’re just looking at the neighbors. He doesn’t keep Shabbos, he doesn’t eat Kosher. He goes to this little shul, synagogue over there, the Conservative shul. Everything’s okay. That’s the kind of Jew that I am, everything’s fine. He says, “Listen, whatever the neighbors are doing is good enough for me. But if he understood how badly off he really was, he would run, “Bring me the Rabbi. Tell me what to do. I don’t care about anybody else, I need to save myself.” So, a person who’s really searching for spirituality, he has to look beyond his neighbors.

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Peace in Your Home

I’m going to read here from a book, Rav Nachum Diament on shalom bayis, peace in your home. He says, one time there was a famous guy in chessed, kind deeds. He was legendary. Whenever people would come to his wife they’d say, “Wow, your husband, what a tsaddik, righteous person. What an unbelievable guy he is. He helped this, he helped that.” The wife used to say, “Their words used to cut me like a knife. Why? Because he would never help his wife. He was always busy, running around and helping other people. This was going on for years. She used to complain to the Rabbi. Nothing helped, he didn’t care. He was always out, helping other people. He did not help in the house.

One time she was expecting, she was pregnant. She had to be in her bed, that’s what the doctors said. Up till now, what happened? She used to get her daughter to help in the house. “Okay, my husband doesn’t want to help. Fine, I’ll get my daughter.” But this day, it happened to be the daughter had a school trip. The daughter had to go. But she begged with him, “Please, just come home this afternoon. Help me out. Let’s feed the kids lunch, and then you can go back to learn, or whatever you’re doing.”

What happened? A half before 1:00 o’clock when he’s supposed to come he gets a call. He says, “Listen, I can’t come.” He says, “Why not, why not?” It’s a true story. He said, “Because there’s a poor woman who needs help. She’s on bed rest, and there’s nobody there to help her.” At that point, the wife started crying uncontrollably. It’s a true story. The question is, what kind of behavior is this? What’s causing this kind of behavior?

We know by Shimon ben Geiri, Dovid haMelech told Shlomo to kill him with wisdom. What did he mean, with wisdom? How did Shlomo kill him? He said, “If you leave the city…” he was an 80-year old man, he never left Yerushalayim. But he says, “If you leave Yerushalayim, you’re going to be killed.” We know that he somehow bought a donkey, he chased after his donkey. He left Yerushalayim and he killed him. Why did he have to leave, because we know the rule is like this. As long as you’re obligated to do something, you don’t want to do it. That is the nature of man. When this man is going around helping other people, there’s no obligation. But to help his wife, he’s obligated. He doesn’t want to do it.

There’s another story like this. One time, there was a famous cheder, boys’ school Rebbe. He used to take care of those students unbelievably. He never took a break. After 30, 40 years of teaching at the end when they made the party for him, they announced that they never saw him in the teachers’ break room, the teachers’ lounge. This same Rebbe admitted, “I can’t sit a half hour to teach my own kids.” He was an unbelievable cheder Rebbe. He used to invite the kids to his house for Shabbos, after hours, after school. He was always involved with these kids. I mean, the best Rebbe you could possibly imagine. But he couldn’t teach his own kids. Same idea, because he was obligated.

What do we learn from this? Part of the problem of shalom bayis is, you’re obligated. You have to help each other. He says, “This is the real test of a man.” He brings down on Yom Kippur in the Haftora, Yeshayahu haNavi gives a list of things that we should do on the fast day. The last one is, do not ignore your family. This is chessed inside the home. It’s an obligation. “At that point,” the possuk continues, “then a light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing was brought quickly. And then you should call Hashem and He will answer. You will cry out and He will say, ‘Here I am.’” This is the test of helping in your house. Also for a wife, of helping her husband. What you are obligated to do, that’s the most difficult. Once you know about it, at least you have a chance to conquer it, to work on it.

He ends with a story. He knew one time there was a baal teshuva whose brother was together with a girl for 10 years. They had the greatest relationship. Then they decided to get married. Seven months later, they were divorced. The same kind of idea. We have to do like Yeshayahu haNavi says, “Do not ignore your family.” Build the relationship, and then when you have the relationship together with the obligation, then you’ll really have peace in your home.

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Great Stories – Rav Chatzkel

I want to end off with Rav Chatzkel, the mashgiach, overseer of the Mir. We know that one of the greatest qualities of Rav Chatzkel was his emunah, his faith. He had tremendous faith in God. He used to say when he was in Shanghai, when the Mir went to Shanghai, and people were mourning over their families, their brothers and sisters, people needed a lot of chizuk. They needed strength to continue to believe in God, that God is totally good.

One time, there’s a famous story. One of the talmidim, students came to Rav Chatzkel, “Please give me strength, give me more emunah. Help me to really believe in God.” Rav Chatzkel held up his hand and said, “You see my fingers? This is how I see Hashem, always in front of me.” That’s how real God was to him, like his hand. The story goes, he started to cry and cry. He says, “I don’t understand. How can this person not see God when I see him like my hand?” Rav Chatzkel said, he brought down the Chovas haLevavos. “It is an imperative to know that everything comes from God. Our entire life and lot is in His hand, and nothing can affect that. Ain od milvado. There is nothing else but God. The Sages enforced this teaching with what? Somebody doesn’t lift a finger here on earth unless it is first decreed in Heaven.” Why was he so adamant about this to the students in Shanghai? Because he said, “You guys saw miracles.” I mean, the miracles of how the Mir went out of Shanghai is unbelievable, if you read the story. It’s unbelievable miracles. He was worried that if they didn’t have faith, there would be tremendous judgment upon them. They would be punished.

He said, “The problem is double. If a person does not work on his faith, what will happen? It will create a vacuum, and the vacuum will be filled with other things. The vacuum will be filled with a lack of faith – atheism, and physical desires, the desires for physical things in the mundane world. It’s the nature of a human being. If he doesn’t fill himself up with faith, he’ll fill himself up with something else.

Okay, that’s it for this week’s podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it with your friends. Please give me some feedback on the website, I would really appreciate it.

Rabbi Eliyahu Mitterhoff