Introduction - Hashkafa.org Yesharim Introduction.pdf · ד"סב 1 Introduction Part 1: The Concept...

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Introduction

Part 1: The Concept of Avoda

I. The Ramchal, the Author of the Mesilas Yesharim

II. Mesilas Yesharim: The Process of Becoming a True Jew

A. What Is a True Jew?

III. Yiras Shamayim

A. Yiras Shamayim Is Internal Awareness

B. Mitzvos: The Path to Yiras Shamayim

C. Mesilas Yesharim and the Process of Yiras Shamayim

IV. The Influence of Secular Culture

A. East Versus West

B. The Western Approach

C. The Eastern Approach

V. Cognitive Versus Experiential Knowledge

A. The Two Types of Knowledge and Judaism

B. The Litvishe and Chassidishe Worlds

The Ramchal, the Author of the Mesilas Yesharim

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, also known by the acronym, the Ramchal, was an Italian Jewish

scholar who lived from 1707 to 1746. He was an extraordinary person with a very unusual ability:

He was able to cull the essence of specific areas in Judaism, and pull out the essential gems. He was

considered one of the biggest Kabbalists of his time, probably similar in rank to Rabbi Yitzchak

Luria, the Ari. When he was 18 years old, he was learning with Eliyahu Hanavi on a regular basis. He

was in a position to understand the deepest parts of Judaism, and he put his insights into the

Mesilas Yesharim, The Path of the Upright, one of the greatest sefarim ever written on how to be a

good Jew.

Mesilas Yesharim: The Process of Becoming a True Jew

Mesilas Yesharim is a very unusual book, different from anything you will ever read. First, it

defines what it means to be Jewish and then it explains how one actually achieves the goal of being

a religious Jew. It explains what a Jew can become and what it really means to have yiras shamayim,

fear of Heaven or fear of G-d. These ideas are extremely fundamental but generally not well known,

and therefore this information is not easy to digest. Some of these ideas may sound so strange, that

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you may even begin to think that this is a foreign religion, G-d forbid. In our times, there is a

tremendous spiritual darkness, and the Jewish People as a totality are no longer worthy of

absorbing this kind of information or of reaching these types of spiritual levels. However, individual

Jews are still capable of reaching very high levels of spirituality, and what Mesilas Yesharim talks

about is applicable to every Jew. Sometimes it may seem to be impossible, but really, every Jew is

capable of accessing these kinds of levels and experiences.

[A Lesson a Day Break]

Mesilas Yesharim is not primarily concerned with Hashkafa or Hasaga, Jewish philosophy

describing the purpose of creation, G-d's Providence and conduct with the world, and man’s role. It

does not talk about G-d’s mercy versus G-d’s attribute of justice, or about righteous people versus

wicked people. Mesilas Yesharim does not deal with questions such as: What is the purpose of

creation? What is man's ultimate goal? Who are the Jews in respect to mankind? How does G-d

guide the world, where is it all going, and what will happen at the end? Why does G-d do what He

does? Why does G-d punish and why does G-d give goodness? What is going to happen when

Moshiach comes? and so on.

Mesilas Yesharim is concerned with another dimension of Judaism that is just as important:

Avoda, how a person works to become a good Jew. Mesilas Yesharim is about the process a person

needs to go through in order to elevate himself to a very high level of spirituality and become what

a Jew is really all about.

This is by no means a simple task. It is far more complex than most people imagine. The reason

is not so much because of its complexity, but rather because it has to do with certain types of

processes that most people are totally unfamiliar with in these times. We have lost contact with

what a Jew really is. Unfortunately, we have no idea what we are capable of becoming spiritually,

because we can no longer see it in front of us.


What Is a True Jew?

We would have to go back two or three thousand years to see what a Jew really was and what

it is possible for a Jew to become. This period of several thousand years ago, specifically before the

first Beis Hamikdash, is called the Period of Direct Access to Spirituality. The people who lived at

that time had levels of spiritual awareness that we cannot begin to understand. They experienced

prophecy and saw open miracles. They were also engaged in idol worship on the dark side of

spirituality. In all situations, however, the mind as it existed at that point in time was very different.

The people then could sense the spiritual forces to a much more powerful degree.

We can no longer feel that kind of powerful spirituality today, so we tend to believe that it no

longer exists. When we read the Tanach, it is almost impossible for us to believe that these things

occurred. It is almost as if they occurred to a different race of men. We live in a secular world, and

we see no miracles or spirituality. We tend to assume that things were always this way and will

always continue to be this way: Non-Jews will always rule the world, technology and the drive for

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materialism will always rule the world, and our possessions and position in society by virtue of our

possessions will always be the most important concern. We have absorbed the ideas that the

secular world has given us and we really believe in that world.

We have forgotten what the world of Judaism is and what the concept of spirituality is. We

have forgotten that it is possible for a person to have a very close relationship with G-d, to love G-d,

and to feel a very powerful sense of spirituality even while alive in this world. We have totally

forgotten that. That is why it sounds so strange when Rav Luzzatto says it in the Mesilas Yesharim. It

sounds like such a strange concept because it is so distant from our present day reality.


Yiras Shamayim

What is yiras shamayim, fear of Heaven? What is the key ingredient that makes a person G-d

fearing? What does it mean to be a good Jew? Most people would answer that a G-d fearing person

is one who observes the mitzvos, the commandments of the Torah that are applicable today. That is

what it means to be a good Jew. However, that is only partially true. In fact, it is a superficial

definition of what a G-d fearing Jew is.

In order to understand what it means to fear G-d, we need to understand two terms. One term

is frumkeit. When we say that a man or woman is frum, we essentially mean that he or she is

religious. This person observes the commandments, keeps Shabbos, kashrus, and so on. However,

there is another term that is just as or even more important than religiosity: ruchniyus, spirituality.

What is the difference between a person who observes the 613 commandments and one who has a

spiritual nature? When you say that a person is religious, what you are saying essentially is that this

person behaves properly. He behaves the way a Jew is supposed to behave. That is how we usually

understand what it means to be religious: in terms of what commandments we observe and what

we do or do not do. However, that is not the essence of yiras shamayim. It is a critical part of it:

Without performing the commandments, a person cannot fear G-d. But if someone does the 613

mitzvos very well, does that mean he has reached the point of fearing G-d? Not necessarily.

Yiras Shamayim Is Internal Awareness

Yiras shamayim is not contained in a person’s performance. Fear of G-d is an internal

experience. It is what a person understands and what he feels more than what he does. It is a

definition of what a person experiences inside. More than that, fearing G-d is a state of awareness. It

is not conduct or a code of behavior. The purpose of the mitzvos is to produce this state of

awareness, and this state of awareness is the ultimate purpose of being Jewish.

That is the difference between religiosity and spirituality: Religiosity, the performance of

mitzvos, is the outward manifestation of fear of G-d. Spirituality, the state of awareness, is the

inward manifestation of fear of G-d.


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How do we see this on a practical level? Moshe Rabeinu was certainly very G-d fearing. Moshe

Rabeinu got up every morning and put on tefillin. An average religious Jew also gets up every

morning and puts on tefillin. Assuming that both put on tefillin with the same customs, what is the

difference between the two? If you would observe Moshe Rabeinu and you would observe the

average religious Jew, you would not be able to tell the difference. Yet Moshe Rabeinu was Moshe

Rabeinu and the average religious Jew is a regular Jew.

The difference is what was in Moshe Rabeinu’s head. That is what made him Moshe Rabeinu and

the average religious Jew a regular Jew. It is the same with all tzaddikim. What is the difference

between someone like Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, known as the Chafetz Chaim, or Rabbi Avraham

Yeshaya Karelitz, the Chazon Ish, and a typical Jew who lives today? Assuming again that there are

no halachic discrepancies in their performance of the mitzvos, what is the difference? Why is this

person a Chafetz Chaim or a Chazon Ish, and the other person just a regular person? Obviously, you

cannot define a person’s spiritual level in terms of their outside performance. A person can keep the

613 mitzvos perfectly, yet he will not be a Chafetz Chaim, a Chazon Ish, a Vilna Gaon*, or a Ramchal.

What separates them? It is obviously not the outward mode of performance but rather the inner

state of awareness that separates them. Fear of G-d does not stand on the axis of performance, but

rather on the axis of awareness.

Mitzvos: The Path to Yiras Shamayim

Does this mean that you should only be aware without performing the mitzvos? No. You cannot

develop high awareness without performance of the mitzvos, because the performance of mitzvos is

what connects a person to the high states of spirituality. Performance is the instrument to reach the

ultimate goal of awareness.

What is more important, the means or the ends? Both of them are necessary to obtain the

ultimate objective. The combination of the two is critical. If you want to really understand what it

means to be Jewish, you have to understand that there are two elements, and you have to

understand the relationship between the two elements: If you want to reach G-d, you must go

through the 613 mitzvos. There is no other way. However, performing the mitzvos alone is not

enough. One can perform the mitzvos and be religious, and yet not be spiritual. Why? Because a

person may perform mitzvos scrupulously while his head lies in materialism. His head is full of what

the physical world has to offer him, and he is not yet aware of the true spiritual objectives of life. He

does not feel the spirituality.


Mesilas Yesharim and the Process of Yiras Shamayim

Without the performance of the mitzvos you cannot fear G-d, but you can be involved in the

performance of the mitzvos and still not fear G-d. This is the foundation of the Mesilas Yesharim. It is

a handbook of how to be G-d fearing. That is why it is so vastly superior to other books. The

* Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna (1720-1797) was known as the Vilna Gaon (“the genius of Vilna”) because of the exceedingly extraordinary depth and breadth of his Torah knowledge.

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Ramchal says, “If you want to know how to perform the mitzvos, read the Shulchan Aruch, The Code

of Jewish Law. I am going to tell you what is in the heart and mind of a Jew.”

Not only that, but the Ramchal tells us, step by step, how to develop that inner spirituality and

how to expand that awareness. He describes all the levels that are involved and what each level of

that awareness looks like. He tells us what we need to do to acquire each level and the things that

encourage or support each level. He also tells us which things detract from each level, and how to

avoid them.

That is the perfection of this sefer. Only a man who has reached the highest levels can do that. It

is like the difference between trying to navigate a maze from within the maze and from above it.

When a person is going through a maze, he cannot see which is the right path and which is the

wrong path, because he is in the middle of the maze. He has to make errors and blunder constantly.

However, someone who is above the maze and can see down into it is instantly aware of exactly

where you are at any moment and which paths you should and should not take, and he can advise

you.

Mesilas Yesharim advises us about the path to the inner concept of yiras shamayim.

Unfortunately, we are not used to dealing with Judaism or fear of G-d as an internal concept. We are

so obsessed with seeing Judaism as an external form, that we do not understand anymore what is

really supposed to be happening. Because of that, most of us are condemned to remain at a

superficial spiritual level our whole lives and those who grow in spirituality are few and far

between.


The Influence of Secular Culture

This situation is partly due to our absorption of the non-Jewish culture around us. What sort of

spiritual levels do we see in this culture? Most of the non-Jews in this country are not interested in

wisdom or inner development. All they are interested in is straight cash or material goods: how

beautiful are their cars or how magnificent are their homes. They are not involved in the

development of their inner selves. In fact, they believe that in order to develop oneself, one needs to

acquire property and possessions, as if those things will somehow raise the level of the person

himself. However, property and possessions are outside of a person. The lowest level in spirituality

is the belief that the person grows through the acquisition of something unconnected to either his

body or mind.

Even those who exercise and believe that having a good body is an asset are higher than one

who believes that having a good car is an asset. The weightlifter is on a higher level, spiritually, than

the person who drives a luxury car. He is higher, because at least he is concerned about his own

body. He is concerned with something that is a physical part of him.

The next level of non-Jew is the scholar or scientist who feels development has to do with the

amount of information a person has acquired.

The highest level of non-Jew is the one who realizes that the real difference between one

person and another depends on what goes on inside the person. It depends on his awareness of

reality or his sense of consciousness.

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The world today is preoccupied with these very low levels of spirituality. Everyone wants to

feel good about themselves by raising themselves to their fullest potential. So how do they do that?

Someone on the lowest level says, “Through my property or my possessions.” That is what most of

us have become about. The next one says, “Through my physical fitness.” The next one, who is

higher, says, “Through my knowledge and what I understand about the world.” Then the highest

one says, “Through my inner development, my character, and my spiritual awareness.”


These are four different levels and four different approaches to increasing potential. However,

most of mankind today is at a loss when it comes to understanding genuine human development.

That is why so many people are so unhappy. Everybody instinctively realizes that true happiness

lies in some kind of self-development, but nobody knows how that self-development is supposed to

proceed. Most people think you proceed by acquiring outside things such as property, possessions,

and money. That is a total flaw. That is the lowest level of self-development. The highest level of

self-development is alteration of consciousness. Among the non-Jews, only segments of the Far East

have still held on to that concept and even they have lost it to some extent.

East Versus West

The Torah says that a person’s essential job in this world is to develop inner consciousness to

its highest point. That is fear of G-d. Knowledge does not determine fear of G-d. There are people

who have tremendous knowledge of Jewish law, Jewish philosophy, the Talmud, the commentaries,

and so on. However, that is not fear of G-d. One of the greatest errors prevalent today is thinking

that fear of G-d is identical with the acquisition of information. We think that fear of G-d depends on

how many pages of Gemara one has learned or how much Torah one can say.


The Western Approach

The notion that acquisition of information or understanding of deep concepts determines

human greatness is the hallmark of Western civilization. Western civilization believes that in order

to understand something, you must analyze it, and that a thinker or an intellectual genius is a great

man. We live in Western society and the Western way of thinking influences us enormously,

although we may not realize it.

The essence of Western civilization is that truth is knowable through the intellect. It is

knowable by clear, rational thinking, and by observation, experimentation, and analysis. Where did

Western civilization get this? It got it from the Greeks. That is why in many ways the Greeks are the

soul of Western civilization. The concept that the universe is knowable through the intellect is the

basis for the entire scientific revolution. The notion that the intellect achieves truth is the basis for

all the technology and philosophy that we have today. That is the Greek tradition going back to the

time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

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The Eastern Approach

However, there is another tradition. There is another way of knowing truth, which the West

has lost. The Far East, India, Japan, the Orient, etc., is in contact with it. They are involved with many

false ideas, but they do understand this other method.

What is this other variable? It is the ability to experience something through the mind, as

opposed to conceiving it through the mind. In the vernacular, we call it intuition. You can know

truth by understanding it or by feeling and experiencing it. The intuitive mode is all about feeling

truth.


Cognitive Versus Experiential Knowledge

What is the difference between cognitive knowledge and intuitive or experiential knowledge?

Let us say someone has a pin and sticks it into someone else. If you would ask the person who was

stuck with the pin how it felt, he could explain verbally what it felt like when the pin went into his

arm, but you cannot compare his description of that event to what he actually experienced. If you

would ask the person, “How do you know that a pin was stuck into you?” that would be an absurd

question. He may not have seen the pin, or have known that the person was going to stick it into

him, but his whole being went, “Ouch!” He had immediate contact with information. That is what we

call experiential knowledge.

The government wants to understand what it is like to be poor. They conduct studies in

demographics and get statistics about socio-economic levels, and send researchers to interview

people, all so they can understand what it is like to be poor. This is an analytical approach to the

situation. They are trying to analyze and understand through various principles and concepts what

the attitudes of poor people are. However, there is a much simpler way to understand. If you are

poor yourself, you know what it is like.

Rabbi Elya Chaim Meisels, the Rav of Lodz, was once collecting money to buy wood for poor

people who could not afford to heat their homes. He went to the house of a rich man on a very cold

day. Reb Elya Chaim started explaining that he was raising money for poor people. Meanwhile, they

were standing outside and it was freezing. The rich man finally said, “Why do we have to stand

outside and discuss this? Why don't you come inside my house?” Rabbi Meisels answered very

simply, “Because when you stand outside, you feel the freezing air. Once you go into the living room

with your beautiful couches at your fireplace, it is going to be very hard for you to understand what

it is like to freeze.” At best, the rich man would have an intellectual understanding of what Reb Elya

Chaim was saying. However, Reb Elya Chaim did not want him to have an intellectual understanding

of what it means to freeze; he wanted him to have an experiential awareness of what it means. That

he could only get by experiencing the freezing air himself.

What the East has understood for thousands of years is that the inner personality is the

essential part of a person, not the outward part. The East has understood that men and women are

different, not so much in what they do on the outside, but in what they feel on the inside. Western

civilization has fallen behind in this. Western civilization is much greater than Eastern civilization

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in their standard of living, because they have tackled the physical part of the world and have been

very successful. The East, however, has a much better understanding of what it means to be alive on

the inside, as a person, because they concentrated on the feeling and intuitional factors of what it

means to be a healthy person.


The Two Types of Knowledge and Judaism

The experiential intuitive approach is the basis for the Mesilas Yesharim, not the intellectual

approach. The Jew in his essence is an experiential being, not an intellectual being, and the Ramchal

says that Judaism in its inner core is an experiential phenomenon. It is an essential awareness that

one must feel from the inside.

The Torah says that the great man is not the thinker who analyzes, scrutinizes, and

understands information, but rather the one who is on a certain level of awareness. What a person

feels and understands experientially is the essence of what he is. We do not judge a Jew by the

amount of facts or data that he stores in his head, because the purpose of all that knowledge is to

raise him from one level to another in awareness, not in information. Therefore, the difference

between a regular Jew and a tzaddik is not necessarily something you can see from the outside. The

highest levels of righteousness are completely hidden inside a person. The true tzaddik is almost

totally invisible.

Does that mean that the intuitive/experiential way is the Torah way? Yes and no. In actuality,

both methods are required. The Torah blends the intellectual and intuitive ways of approaching

reality in a perfect balance.

We have great difficulty with Torah because we live in the West and are missing the Eastern

approach. We only know the intellectual approach to truth, so we only learn the Torah with that

method. The intuitive approach to truth is very important, but since we do not live in the East, we

do not know that way. This is an incredible lack in our ability to understand the Torah. However, if

we would live in the East then we would not understand the intellectual part of the Torah, so the

truth is no matter where we would live we would be handicapped. Nevertheless, for us, in order to

understand the depth of the Torah, we have to acknowledge that a key factor exists today in the

East and not in the West.


The Litvishe and Chassidishe Worlds

In actuality, there is an even deeper problem than the split between West and East: The

Chassidishe world and the Litvishe world. The Litvishe world has embraced the intellect. They

measure a person by the amount of Torah he can say over, how deeply he can learn Gemara, or how

novel an explanation he can propose. The Chassidishe world is pivoted much more on feeling, and in

certain ways they do not seem to have really acknowledged the learning aspect or made it part of

their culture. Therefore, the Litvishe world seems to abound in Torah scholars and the Chassidishe

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world seems to abound in tzaddikim. Many people will go to a Chassidishe Rebbe if they want a

blessing from a tzaddik, but if they want to ask a halachic question, they go to a Litvishe Rav. That is

a strange schism. So who is right? Neither one is right and both are right because the combination

of the two is what is critical. Unfortunately, the Jewish people are losing this combination because

we are fixating on certain factors and eliminating the others, so that we hardly see a total man

anymore. It is rare to see a tzaddik who is also a halachic authority. They exist, of course, but for the

most part, you do not see this kind of development. The chassidishe world is not developing Torah

scholars and the Litvishe world is not developing tzaddikim.

If you really want to reach the truth, you have to look beyond Chassidim, beyond Litvishe

people, and beyond the separatist aspects of what it means to be Jewish. You have to go back to the

critical sources. One of the critical sources was Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, who was astounding

in both aspects. The Ramchal says that a Jew must be an intellectual who understands the concepts

of the Torah, and he must perfect himself in spirituality in his inner being, as well. In order to be

bound to the duty of G-d you have to have both of these aspects.

Summary

Mesilas Yesharim explains the process of Avoda, how to work to become a good Jew. This is

difficult for us to understand, because we hardly see Jews doing this anymore. Most people today

equate fear of G-d with mitzvah observance. However, observance of the mitzvos is not fear of G-d,

but rather the tool to develop fear of G-d. True fear of G-d is an internal state of awareness.

Others equate fear of G-d with Torah knowledge. This idea comes from Western civilization,

which measures human development by acquisition of knowledge and understanding of the

physical world. In truth, Torah knowledge is necessary to develop fear of G-d, but it is not fear of

G-d itself, either. Fear of G-d is an experiential awareness.

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Introduction

Part 2: Higher Levels of Yiras Shamayim

VI. What Is Yiras Shamayim?

VII. Four Levels of Yiras Shamayim

A. Different Levels of Existence

B. Awareness of G-d

C. The Highest Levels

VIII. The Spiritual Ladder

A. The Tzaddikim and the Spiritual Ladder

IX. Deveikus

A. How Can We Love G-d?

B. Elements of Love

C. Loving G-d

D. The Pursuit of Spirituality

X. The Neshama

XI. The Yetzer Hara

XII. The Mitzvos

What Is Yiras Shamayim?

Yiras shamayim literally means the fear of Heaven. Why do we phrase the spiritual awareness

that a Jew should have as the fear of Heaven? Fear of Heaven is not the kind of state where one is

intimidated by G-d, or constantly worried that one is about to be punished. It is not the fear of

punishment.

Fear of Heaven means the reverence or awe that one must have towards a king. When we come

to know and feel what G-d is, the immediate feeling that we have is a sense of awe and reverence for

G-d’s Majesty. G-d is an absolute King, and the most basic, surface projection that emanates from

Him is an awesome power. Yiras shamayim is the acknowledgment and appreciation of the majestic

Glory that is G-d.

Four Levels of Yiras Shamayim

What is it like to have a high level of yiras shamayim? Most of us will not get to very high levels,

but it is important to know what they are in order to understand the direction in which we are

heading, and how to relate to those who have gotten there.

One of the early Chassidic masters once said the following: In the Shabbos morning prayers, we

say:

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By the mouths of the upright (ִרים ם shall you be exalted (ְישָׁ ִרים ִתְתרֹומָׁ ְבִפי ְישָׁby the lips of the righteous (ַצִדיִקים) shall you be blessed ַרך ּוְבִשְפֵתי ַצִדיִקים ִתְתבָׁby the tongue of the pious (ֲחִסיִדים) shall you be sanctified ש ּוִבְלשֹון ֲחִסיִדים ִתְתַקדָׁand within the holy (ְקדֹוִשים) shall you be lauded. .ּוְבֶקֶרב ְקדֹוִשים ִתְתַהלָׁל

There are four different levels described here. The first level is a yashar, an upright person. The

second level is a tzaddik, a righteous person. The third level is a chassid*, a pious person, and the

fourth is a kadosh, a holy person. These are different levels in yiras shamayim, and each of these

levels praises G-d in different ways. The yashar praises G-d with his mouth, the tzaddik praises G-d

with his lips, the chassid praises G-d with his tongue, and the kadosh praises G-d with his being.

What is the difference among these various ways of praising G-d? The mouth is the most

external. When a person speaks with his mouth, you see his whole mouth move, as well as hearing

his voice. Speaking only with the lips is more subtle. You do not hear the voice anymore; you only

see the lips move. Yet the blessing or the praise to G-d becomes greater. The chassid, which is a very

high level, praises G-d with his tongue. You cannot see the tongue move inside, because the lips

conceal it. This praise is even higher. Finally, the kadosh, the holiest one, praises G-d with his

interior being. This is praise of G-d in the highest sense.

As men with higher and higher levels of yiras shamayim praise G-d higher and higher, the

instrument of that praise becomes more and more hidden. The true praise of G-d becomes

progressively invisible. What does this mean? How can a kadosh praise G-d with his interior? This

means that the true praise of G-d is really a level of awareness. The more fear of G-d connects with a

deed or a performance, the lower it is. The more it is a level of experience or in being itself, the

higher the level is. Knowing G-d from the inside is the highest level of praise, not praising G-d with

the mouth on the outside. When a person loves G-d intensely, is there a greater praise than that? Is

there anything that would bring G-d more happiness or satisfaction, so to speak? This is an

important thing to realize because we generally do not think in these terms. Acquiring fear of G-d is

not the same as acquiring knowledge or money or other more familiar things.


Different Levels of Existence

People on different levels of yiras shamayim are actually like different species. What is the

difference between a person and a chimpanzee? Some people do not know, but most people can

recognize the difference immediately. A chimpanzee does not have anywhere near the intelligence

of a person. Even someone who is developmentally disabled is still much more intelligent than a

chimpanzee. Human awareness is a completely different arena from what goes on in the mind of an

animal. And the difference between a chimpanzee and a squirrel, or a squirrel and a spider, or a

spider and a microbe is an entirely different world, as well. These are completely different levels of

existence.

* The word chassid in this context (and in the Mesilas Yesharim in general) describes a specific level of spiritual development in Judaism. It is unconnected with the term “Chassid” in use today, which refers to members of the Chassidic community.

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This difference exists between men on different spiritual levels, as well. A tzaddik is a different

species than a yashar. They are qualitatively different. Rabbi Yisroel Abuchatzeira, who was known

as the Baba Sali, the Ribnitzer Rebbe, and the previous Satmar Rebbe were part of a different species

from ours. Not that they looked a little different, were more intelligent, or were kinder than we are,

but rather that they were a different level of being because their minds were preoccupied with a

different kind of awareness then the rest of us.

Imagine that your ears suddenly had the capacity to hear all frequencies, your nose could smell

an aroma from miles away, and your eyes could see microbes and bacteria because you had both

telescopic and microscopic vision. Can you compare such a state of mind or being to that of a

regular person? Of course not. The level of awareness and the nature of the awareness are entirely

different. It is the same thing with a tzaddik and a regular person. The tzaddik’s level of awareness,

what he knows about G-d and the way he feels about G-d is such that he is no longer the same

person that he once was. His entire inner experience is different. His sense of himself is different.

As you work on fear of G-d, you work on states of being, not states of performance. It is not that

you do more mitzvos or you know more information, but rather that you are literally becoming a

different species from someone who does not fear G-d. This is a very startling fact. Most of us are

not accustomed to achieving levels of being. The classic American or European has no idea what it

means to be a real human being. The last places on earth where they do know about it are in the Far

East. Although they are involved with many false ideas there, there is one thing that the Orient

knows that the West no longer realizes: They understand that the concept of a teacher is not the

same as a college professor. A college professor teaches you information. He teaches you calculus or

history. He gives you information and helps you understand and evaluate information. But what the

real guru does is elevates his students' awareness from one level to another level. The West is no

longer aware of that kind of ascension or elevation.


Awareness of G-d

There is a very important halacha in the Torah that says, “ לנגדי תמיד' שביתי ד , I shall place G-d in

front of me, always”. A person is always supposed to be aware of the fact that G-d exists in front of

him. This is a very high spiritual level. How can a person be aware of the existence of G-d at all

times? Do you think most of us walk around all day aware of His existence? How many minutes of

the day do most of us think of the existence of G-d? The answer is almost nil. Most of the time, our

minds are preoccupied with our own lives and desires. Our own needs and the satisfaction of those

needs completely consume our minds.

If you want to think about G-d when you are praying, that is also a struggle. And this is not

when a person is at his job, but when he is praying to G-d. Do you know how hard it is to focus on

talking to G-d without letting a million thoughts come into your head about everything else?

Praying is the most critical moment of communication with G-d and look how hard it is. Why is it so

hard? It is hard because to us, G-d is a thought or an idea that has to compete with the other ideas in

our minds. And the other thousand ideas, such as our jobs, our families, and our personal

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satisfaction, are more important to us. We believe that there is a G-d, but our awareness of that

existence is an extremely low priority to us.

To a tzaddik, G-d is not a thought or an idea in the head. G-d is not an effort in the mind or some

invisible Being that he must force himself to grasp or some abstraction that he talks about. A

tzaddik does not sit there and force himself to think, “G-d, G-d, G-d”. Rather, the tzaddik is aware of

G-d all the time. A tzaddik has opened up his soul in such a way that the awareness of G-d is

spontaneous and automatic. He is always cognizant of the fact that there exists a Presence in front

of him. It is not something he can see; it is something he can feel. He can feel the existence of G-d

with the same certainty that we see the world around us. So for a tzaddik, “I shall always place G-d in

front of me,” is not a struggle, it is automatic. The struggle for the tzaddik would be to stop thinking

about G-d. To the tzaddik, the existence of G-d is tantamount to the existence of his own self.

Now this sounds quite alien to us. It almost sounds like a bizarre creature from Mars. That is

why we should consider the tzaddik literally a different species. He is a totally different person than

we are and his is a different class of being or humanity.


The Highest Levels

Who are the people who reach the top level? Look at the last chapter of the Mesilas Yesharim,

called “בבאור מדת הקדושה, Concerning the Trait of Holiness.” It is about the highest level of fear of G-d.

Aside from the Biblical characters and the Rabbis of the Talmud, very few men can exemplify what a

Jew can become on the highest level. Today, the true kadosh, holy person, is almost extinct.

Nevertheless, even in our times there are people who have reached this level, such as the Chazon

Ish, the Satmar Rebbe, the Ribnitzer Rebbe, and the Baba Sali. There are also holy people in the

world who have hidden their true levels from the public, but we, therefore, do not know who they

are.

What are these people like? The Baba Sali almost never ate. He fasted an enormous amount of

the time, and was not involved in this world in any real way. Why would one want to do this? It is

painful to withdraw from physical reality and to maintain a conduct or standard of behavior that is

totally at odds with what the body wants. Why would a man in his right mind want to do that? Most

of us would definitely suspect that there is something wrong with this person. We might run to him

when we need a blessing, because something about him tells us that he can help us, but would most

of us want to be like him? Of course not: We think he is out of his mind. We think the man is a freak.

He must have been born like that because who would choose to make himself like that? Why would

any normal person want to live like this? Does G-d actually want Jews to be like that? Impossible.

That is what most of us would say.

The truth is that this kind of level is something that most of us cannot expect to reach.

Therefore, what does G-d expect of us? That is what the Ramchal discusses in Mesilas Yesharim. And

when you hear the answer you may find it disturbing, because it may upset your mental balance.

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The Spiritual Ladder

All of us are at a certain point in spirituality. In some way, we have all created and maintained a

certain balance between our physical sense and our spiritual sense. This allows us to keep our

sanity. The essence of avoda is that your level cannot be a static position. Life exists as an

opportunity to allow you to grow in spirituality. The greatest mistake is to assume that your current

level is fine. There is no reason to feel badly about where you are, but the essence of avoda is that a

person has to work on moving upwards. No matter where you are, that is where you have to start,

but you have to move up from that starting point.

How fast can you move upwards? Only you can make that decision. With physical exercise, if a

person wants to start to work out, he cannot pick up a heavy weight at the outset. If a person wants

to start jogging, he cannot immediately try to run a four-minute-mile. He will kill himself that way.

There is something called pacing or timing. If you move too fast, you will end up going backwards

because you cannot handle it. On the other hand, if you move too slowly, you will go nowhere. Each

person has his own rhythm and each person has to discover that rhythm in order to progress.

Avoda means that you cannot stay where you are, because to stay where you are is to go

backwards. However, the exact parameters, how fast you can go and how far you can go, are an

individual affair. Learning Mesilas Yesharim will help you reflect on where you are holding now and

how to move a little further ahead. Even at our levels there is much more available to us than meets

the eye. Most of us have no idea how far we can get.


The Tzaddikim and the Spiritual Ladder

The truth of the matter is that the Baba Sali and the Chazon Ish are not freaks or abnormal

people. We are all on the same ladder called yiras shamayim. The tzaddik is not outside of our

domain; rather he is at the highest points on the ladder. Even if we are at the lowest points on that

ladder, we are still on the same ladder as the holiest people. The tzaddik is a different species, but

he is not a true alien form of life because he is a human being like all of us.

The reason why holy people look so freakish to us is that there are very few such holy people.

Geniuses like Einstein or Newton look like freaks to us to some extent, because there are very few

geniuses like that, as well. Very few people have arrived at the highest points in spirituality, so we

treat those who do like some kind of supernatural beings. Nevertheless, they are not supernatural

beings, rather they are people who exist or live at the highest points on the ladder.

Why did the Baba Sali reach the highest points on the ladder, and not us? The Baba Sali said

one day, “I want to do what is most conducive to my eternal existence. I want to do what G-d wants.

I want to go as far as I can on this ladder.” He decided this when he was a child or a teenager. He did

not want to go to college or become a millionaire. He had a different ambition. He wanted to

become a tzaddik, because he realized that this is where the real benefit is. He read the Mesilas

Yesharim and took it seriously. That is the difference between the Baba Sali and us. We read a book

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or listen to a lecture and find it interesting. He took it seriously, and decided to do something about

it. Therefore, he moved up the ladder and arrived near the top. Nevertheless, we are all on the same

ladder. The only difference between the Baba Sali and us is that his burning ambition was to move

up that ladder.

How does one move up that ladder? How does a holy person get to that spiritual level? What is

the magical trick? Obviously, he must have done something inside that allowed him to develop this

level of consciousness. He was aware that if he wanted to get anywhere he had to work on the

inside not on the outside: It is not a car’s paint job that counts, but rather the performance of the

engine. The tzaddik said to himself, “I am going to work on the engine. You might want to work on

the body or chassis, but I want to work on the engine.” Then he said to himself, “How do I work on

the engine? How do I affect my internal state of being?” That is the question that we have to

address.


Deveikus

To answer that question, we have to understand the nature of the ladder. The key to that

ladder is deveikus. That is the most important word in the avoda dictionary. It is a difficult word to

understand because there are many levels to it, and because it is not a concept, but a feeling. It is an

experience, awareness, or level of insight. It has behavioral forms in terms of mitzvos, because all of

the mitzvos are designed to lead to deveikus, but it is really an inner event.

What is deveikus? The word deveikus means to cling to or to attach to, but in essence, deveikus

is nothing more than love. Whom do we love? We love G-d. That is the beginning and end of the

entire concept.

Shir Hashirim, The Song of Songs, is a love song that the Torah considers the holiest of songs. It

is a description of the relationship between G-d and the Jews. Shlomo Hamelech felt that the best

way to describe the relationship between G-d and the Jews was to write a love song.

Is love an intellectual event? Not really. The intellect may support it based on what you know

about that person, but fundamentally, it is an experiential event. It is impossible to prove

intellectually that you do or do not love someone. You must feel it.


How Can We Love G-d?

The essence of Judaism is G-d saying to us, “Love Me. Love Me the way I love you.” That is the

beginning and end of all spirituality. Is it possible to love G-d? We do not see Him and we do not feel

Him. So how is it possible to love Him? We can say to ourselves in our heads, “I love G-d, I love G-d,”

or we can say “ אלקיך' ואהבת את ד , And thou shalt love the L-rd, thy G-d.” We can say it all we want, but

how can we feel it? How is it possible?

We question the very ability to love G-d because G-d is not concrete in any sense, and

therefore, we cannot relate to Him. A man can relate to his wife, a father can relate to his son,

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brothers can relate to sisters, but how does one relate to G-d in such a way that he actually loves

Him? The answer is very simple. Our problem is not that we have to love G-d. That is not the

problem at all. We were born with that. The problem is the things that take away that love. We have

to remove the barriers that separate us from Him, and then the love comes automatically. It is not a

positive process where we gain something new, but rather it is a negative process where we

remove elements and factors that separate us from G-d. When we keep focused on that battle, all of

a sudden we find ourselves with a set of feelings that we never knew were possible.


Elements of Love

What is it like to love G-d? It is very similar to loving another person. Probably the closest type

of love is that between a man and a woman. What is involved in that type of experience?

The first element is that when you think of the other person you have a tremendous happiness

and pleasure. The existence of that person in your life brings you such an enormous amount of

happiness that you simply want to sit and daydream about the person. There is an enormous

pleasure just in the thought of that person.

Another important ingredient is the concept of giving. In most aspects of pleasure, we have

pleasure by taking something. However, love causes you to want to give. When you succeed in

making the other person happy, you yourself feel the greatest happiness. You do not need anything

in return. It is not a quid quo pro: “You do this and I'll do that.” Instead, you say to the person you

love, “Just let me do this for you, and that will make me happy. I just want to give to you.”

This is so, because you feel the other person’s pain and joy as your own. Imagine someone very

dear to you in your life, whom you love unconditionally. It could be a parent, a spouse, a child, or

whomever. Now imagine that that person suddenly found himself or herself in a terrible situation

and they were in agony. How would you feel? You would also be in agony. Imagine that all of a

sudden that person had tremendous happiness. You too would have tremendous happiness. That in

essence is what love is. When you love someone, you have such a connection to the other person

that their pain is your pain and their happiness is your happiness.


Loving G-d

Is it possible to love G-d that way? Yes, it is. It is possible and the experience is so profound and

powerful that one no longer wants to have anything to do with the physical world. You think the

tzaddik is abnormal, because he does not seem to be eating right, sleeping right, or caring about

anything that you care about: He does not care about his apartment or that he does not have

beautiful chandeliers or couches. However, the tzaddik who is involved in avoda all day long is

much happier than you are because he is in love. He is in love with G-d and you are in love with

yourself.

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The difference between those two levels of happiness is extraordinary. If by some incredible

technological device, the Baba Sali could open up his mind and heart and allow you to feel what he

felt for five seconds, you would run faster to be a Baba Sali than he did. You would never go back to

where you were because you would say to yourself, “I must be out of my mind. Look what this man

has! Now I understand what he is doing all day long. He has this treasure safely hidden away and

nobody even knows it. It is the most extraordinary happiness and pleasure possible for a human to

have and he has it. He is not the one with the problem; I am the one with the problem. What am I

doing in life? What am I doing talking in the synagogue when I could be talking to G-d? If praying is

an opportunity for the most extraordinary happiness, because it is an opportunity to communicate

with G-d at a very deep level of intimacy and express a love for G-d, why am I talking to the guy next

to me about the stocks I bought last week or about the car I would like to buy next year?”

We should feel that way toward G-d. We should avoid sinning simply because it causes G-d

pain, so to speak, not because G-d will punish us or we will lose our reward in the next world. The

idea that our sin is displeasing to G-d should be the most painful thing that we can face. The Baba

Sali trembled at the thought of sinning. He was so in love with G-d that causing G-d the slightest

amount of distress put him into agony. It is not because the Baba Sali was afraid of what would

happen to him if he sinned. That was irrelevant to him. All the Baba Sali wanted to do was to make

G-d happy. All the Baba Sali wanted to do was to put a smile on G-d’s Countenance, so to speak. That

is the essence of love and of the relationship we should have with G-d.


The Pursuit of Spirituality

The quest for spirituality is a quest to be in love with G-d. It is a romantic pursuit, and an

adventure of the highest order. Deveikus is nothing more than a love state. It is a constant

awareness of G-d and an enormous happiness in the fact that He exists. It is not a thought. A tzaddik

does not force himself to think about G-d anymore than a man and a woman who are in love with

each other force themselves to think about each other. They cannot help themselves, because

human beings seek pleasure. It is a happy person who has achieved that level of love of G-d. Very

few people get there because nobody knows what it is like. Tzaddikim who have reached an

incredible level of deveikus do not talk about it, because nobody would believe them. Who would

believe that the Baba Sali was the happiest man on earth? Look at the way he lived. We would say

that he was a hermit or an aesthetic, but he really was an incurable romantic. That sounds very

strange to us, but that is what the Mesilas Yesharim says. The Ramchal says, “I will teach you how to

be in love with G-d.”

Our problem is that we do not know where to find true pleasure. We search for it but the

tzaddikim have found it. The Baba Sali wanted pleasure, and he found it. He lived in the city of

happiness. It sounds funny, but it is true. The difference between him and us is that the Baba Sali

knew where the city of happiness exists, and we do not. We search for it throughout our entire lives,

but he found it.

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The Neshama

How is it possible to be in love or to develop an intimate relationship with Someone who is

invisible? G-d is everywhere, but how can we connect to Him other than through the thoughts in

our heads? The answer to that question lies in who we really are: We are really neshamos, souls.

The soul is a spiritual being who is completely aware of the existence of G-d. The soul senses and

perceives G-d with the same clarity as one person can see another and is always aware of His

Presence. Therefore, the soul does not doubt that G-d exists.

The soul is also in love with G-d. However, when the soul is put into a body, suddenly G-d is

hidden. The soul in the body is very confused. It wants to reestablish that happiness, but something

is blocking it from reconnecting. What is that negative element? It is the yetzer hara, the evil

inclination. It is the function of the evil inclination to take a person away from G-d. The function of

the yetzer tov, the good inclination, is not to create an awareness of G-d, but rather to restore what

was lost.


The Yetzer Hara

The evil inclination creates what the Ramban calls a מחיצה הברזל, an iron wall, between you and

G-d. What is this iron wall that prevents you from feeling G-d? It is your own arrogance and

independence. It is your desire to say, “I am important. I come first and G-d comes second.” That

statement, “I am important,” is the barrier between yourself and G-d. You can restore the

relationship with G-d that your soul once had, but you have to work. What do you have to do? You

do not have to make a million dollars, or read thousands of books. What you have to do is say, “Who

is G-d and who am I?” You have to understand that G-d is your Creator and that you are His created

being. You have to understand that all life and happiness come from G-d and that the ultimate

happiness does not lie in feeling important.

If the key thing that keeps one away from G-d is arrogance or the obsession with self-

importance, then the key thing that attaches one to G-d is humility. Who had the greatest fear of G-d

in all time? It was probably Moshe Rabeinu. Moshe Rabeinu said to the Jews, " כי אם –ממך שואל' מה ד

What does G-d ask of you? Just to fear Him.” The Sages in the Talmud (who were astounding - ליראה

tzaddikim) ask, “What do you mean ‘just’? Do you think fear of G-d is a simple matter?” They

answer, “Yes, for Moshe Rabeinu it was a simple matter.” How was Moshe Rabeinu able to love G-d

with such an incredible intensity? In the entire Torah there is only one line that describes Moshe:

And the man Moshe was exceedingly humble.” That is why he reached the highest - והאיש משה ענו מאד"

level of deveikus. It was his humility. It was the nullification of his arrogance and his own sense of

self that allowed him to desire only what G-d wants.

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The Mitzvos

It is a mitzvah to love G-d. It says in the Torah, " יך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך ובכל מאדךאלק' ואהבת את ד -

And you shall love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.”

G-d says, “I command you to love Me.” If one of your children came back from a date and you said, “I

command you to love that person,” would that not be ridiculous? We cannot force ourselves to love

someone. How many times have we been in a position where we want to love someone or

something, like a job, but we cannot. We cannot move ourselves in that direction. We go out with

someone who is a great match, and has all the qualities we would want, but we have no feeling for

the person. If we have such a problem with human relationships, how can G-d expect us to love

Him? How can we control our emotions, feelings, or internal sense of being? We can control our

actions and performance on the outside, but how do we control the inside?

That is the function of the mitzvos. How do the mitzvos open up this love? The mitzvos say,

“Decide between what G-d wants and what you want.” G-d does not want you to ride on a bus on

Shabbos. You have to decide whether to do so. What does your decision depend on? It depends on

who is more important in your mind, G-d or you. If you are more important, then you will ride on

the bus. If G-d is more important, then you will not. Every mitzvah is designed to force you into a

decision. The more you resolve the conflicts in favor of G-d, the more you will love Him. The more

you resolve the conflicts in favor of yourself, the more you will separate yourself from Him and the

more you will feel that G-d is threatening to you. You will feel that His will and His mitzvos are

threats because they do not allow you to be your own person. When that happens, you lose the

most incredible experience possible. You lose the chance to achieve the highest form of love to

which a human being can aspire.


These are the fundamental ideas. The key is deveikus, the attachment to G-d. The essence of

deveikus is loving G-d. It is feeling what He feels, so to speak, and that the most important thing in

life is to bring Him happiness and to avoid causing Him pain. The way to achieve this is through

humility versus arrogance. The mitzvos force you to choose between arrogance and humility. They

force you to choose: Love G-d or love yourself. The more you understand these fundamental ideas,

the closer you will come to understanding the heart and soul of Judaism itself. You will understand

the incredible satisfaction that G-d gets from someone like the Baba Sali, because the Baba Sali is

His.

The Torah calls Moshe Rabeinu a ‘servant of G-d’. Very few people merit this title. What is a

servant of G-d? It is very different from a regular servant. If you have a servant and you tell him to

do something, he will do it. He does it because you are paying him to do the job. However, there is

always a resistance. He does not really want you to tell him what to do, and if he did not need the

job, he would not do what you asked. However, Moshe Rabeinu was a servant to such an extent that

he had no personal desires or sense of self outside of G-d. The Will of G-d was the will of Moshe.

Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya'akov are called the merkava, the chariot. Why? A chariot is totally under

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the control of the driver. Does a car ever have a desire to go down this street when you want to go

down that street? No. A car is your instrument. It is yours. The highest level of a tzaddik is when

personal will no longer exists. The will of the Baba Sali was to do the Will of G-d. The Baba Sali

loved G-d to such a degree that the desire to do G-d’s Will took over his whole being. He became like

G-d’s car or chariot. That is a true servant of G-d, and it is the highest form of avoda.

Summary

The development of yiras shamayim raises a person to a different level of existence. This can

make a holy person look very strange to the rest of us. However, we are all human beings climbing

the same spiritual ladder. The tzaddik has simply reached much higher levels on the ladder than we

have.

We need to climb higher than our present level, as well. We accomplish this by learning to love

G-d. Loving G-d is the most profound pleasure possible. Our souls already love G-d, but our bodies’

arrogance and independence are a barrier to experiencing that love. The purpose of the mitzvos is

to lessen this arrogance and independence so that we can experience love for G-d.

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Introduction

Part 3: Moving Up the Spiritual Ladder

I. Physical and Spiritual Substances

A. Controlling the Body

B. The Path to Loving G-d

C. The Issue of Importance

II. The Tzaddik

III. The Chassid

IV. How High Can We Aim?

V. The Yetzer Hara’s Tactics

A. #1: You Cannot Change

1. Distracting with Superficiality

2. We Were Created to Change

B. #2: You Have Already Sinned Too Much

1. We Are Always Growing

C. #3: You Are Not Growing Fast Enough

1. There Is Growth at Every Level

Physical and Spiritual Substances

Mesilas Yesharim primarily discusses two levels of spiritual development, tzaddik and chassid, a

righteous person and a pious person. The tzaddik observes the entire Torah and all the laws in the

Shulchan Aruch, The Code of Jewish Law. The chassid goes beyond that level. He is involved in much

higher levels of consciousness or awareness. How can we understand the difference between a

tzaddik and a chassid?

A human being is a combination of a body and a soul, which are composed of two different

substances, physical and spiritual. We perceive physical substances through our five senses, seeing,

hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting. Anything that the physical senses cannot perceive is

spiritual. We cannot see an angel because it is composed of spiritual material. If a soul or angel were

next to you, you would not see it or feel it because it has a different substance, and there is no way

to perceive it through the five physical senses. Because the body and soul are composed of different

substances, they have different drives and different needs. Therefore, a human being has two

different types of needs at the same time: physical needs and spiritual needs.

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Although we are composed of two different substances, one always dominates the other. If you

are in a room talking and someone is playing a stereo loudly, the other people in the room cannot

hear you because the sound of the stereo drowns out your voice. At any given time, two different

types of signals are invading our consciousness: signals that come from the body and signals that

come from the soul. However, we can only hear one of these at a time. We have a dial to control the

strength of the signal, but we only have one dial and this dial is for the body. We do not have a dial

for the soul. The higher we turn up the volume on the body dial, the less we are aware of the needs

of the soul. If we lower it, then automatically the signals from the soul become stronger.

The soul is always sending signals such as the desire for truth, the awareness of humility, and

the awareness of the existence of G-d. If we allow ourselves to hear the voice of the soul, we raise

the awareness of G-d in our minds. Once we raise that awareness, we raise the understanding and

the feeling of His existence and we raise the intense love that we have for G-d. However, that can

only happen if we lower the body dial. Involvement with the physical drives, with our need for

honor, possessions, and bodily satisfactions, deadens the soul. When we lower that physical

involvement, we begin to hear the soul’s signals and impulses, and suddenly we find our minds

invaded with G-d.

We change the inside by controlling the outside. This is similar to the way we can change how

we feel by changing how we act. For example, if you are depressed and someone forces you to

smile, it has a small impact on you. You are still depressed, but you feel a little lighter on the inside.

Similarly, we can increase the signals of the soul by altering the body dial. We do not have direct

control over the soul, only indirect control, but it is a very powerful form of control.


Controlling the Body

The tzaddik wants to raise his level of awareness. He wants to become automatically and

spontaneously conscious of the existence of G-d, and he wants to experience the extraordinary

happiness of loving G-d. He wants to join the Baba Sali in the pleasure of deveikus. What does he

need to do? He has to control the body dial.

How do you control the body? You control the body through the mitzvos: Shabbos, kashrus,

family purity, etc. Each of these mitzvos tells us to control our bodies: “You cannot have everything

you want. You cannot go into that restaurant, because it is not kosher. You cannot drive a car on

Shabbos.” The mitzvos do not address the soul; rather they address the body directly. The conflict

rests with the body. By saying no to the body, you lower the body dial. You are not killing it because

you are not withholding all food from the body or depriving it of any real needs. The mitzvos in the

Torah do not deny a person anything that the body needs. They simply say that you can enjoy

certain things at certain times and at other times, you cannot. There are certain foods that you can

eat and certain foods that you cannot. There are certain times you can eat and certain times when

you cannot. There are certain times of the month when you can do certain things and certain times

when you cannot. What you have to do is listen to what G-d says and begin to shut down the body

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when He says so. Your body wants to go into the non-kosher restaurant, but G-d says no, so you do

not listen to your body. That lowers the body dial. Your body says, “I don't want to get up in the

morning and pray. I want to sleep late. I went to sleep late last night and I'm tired.” But G-d says,

“You have to get up. There are obligations you must attend to.” The mitzvos address the body in the

name of G-d. As you listen to the mitzvos, you tone down the body dial.


Now what happens when you begin to control your body? Automatically, spontaneously, you

begin to experience the stimulus impulses of the soul, and you begin to change in being. Your

awareness slowly changes. Your priorities slowly change. Suddenly you become more concerned

with wisdom. You become more humble. You become more considerate of other people. Slowly, the

presence of G-d begins to invade your mind so that suddenly you begin to pray to G-d like you are

really talking to Him. This happens automatically. When you control your outer behavior, the inside

begins to change.

The essential concept is who is more important. Are you more important or is G-d more

important? The essence of your body’s attitude is, “I am the key of creation. I am independent. I

have free will and I can do whatever I want to do.” The body liberates your ego and says that you

are the most important thing in existence. Every time you are involved with any aspect of

physicality, you are feeling important. Every time you eat something delicious, you are saying, “I am

important. I count.” We do not realize it, but the subtle message of clothes, possessions, property,

achievement, and all other physical pleasures is, “I am important. I am powerfully important.” The

feelings of power, pride, arrogance, and aggravated self-importance, lie in the body.


The Path to Loving G-d

G-d says, “Do you want to love Me? Then limit your body.” When you reduce your body signals,

you reduce your arrogance, pride, and narcissism. Automatically the soul becomes stronger and

once the soul becomes stronger, you see that it is G-d Who is important. G-d is the Essence of all

existence and creation, not you. Your importance lies in the extent that you are aware of Him and to

the extent that you submit your will to His. When you do this, you begin to feel an incredible

happiness, so that the reward for listening to G-d is listening to G-d. The reward for submitting your

will to G-d is appreciating His Existence. It is experiencing the happiness and the pleasure in the

incredible love state that exists between you and G-d. That is the reward, and there is no other

pleasure equal to it. Choose G-d and you will love G-d. Choose yourself and G-d will disappear from

your mind and you will only love yourself.

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This is the difference between Judaism and other religions. The Torah says that if you want to

reach G-d, you have to submit your body to G-d. You do not have to vacate your body, or destroy it

or annihilate it. You must live with your body, but you have to elevate your body by saying no to it.

This is the classic mistake that the Christians made. The Christians say it is enough to believe in

G-d and love G-d. Performing the commandments is irrelevant. The essential Christian/Pauline

doctrine is that the coming of J.C. essentially removed the obligation for all mitzvos. Performance is

no longer necessary; simply believing in Christian principles is enough. That is an incredible

mistake because you cannot reach a state of awareness without performance.

You cannot force yourself to love G-d. It is not possible, because you cannot approach G-d

directly. The only way to approach Him would be by leaving the physical state. However, we cannot

leave the physical state by ignoring it and saying, “Forget about the body. Let's all run up to the

Kingdom of Heaven.” That is absurd. Love of G-d is internal, and we do not have direct control of the

inside. The way to do it is to engage the physical body through the mitzvos. The performance of the

613 mitzvos is the only path to reach G-d. The only way to love G-d is not to focus on your own

importance.


The Issue of Importance

The issue of who is more important is the most powerful issue. Did you ever wonder how the

serpent seduced Chava? How did he convince Chava to eat from the Tree of Knowledge? He must

have been an extraordinary salesperson. What did he say? “ טוב ורע יכאלקים ידע םוהיית – and you will be

like G-d, knowing good and evil.” He said, “Do you see that tree? If you eat from that tree, you will be

like G-d. The reason G-d told you not to eat from that tree is because G-d knows that when you eat

from that tree, you will give Him stiff competition.”

The fascination to be important like G-d has intrigued man from the beginning of time. It is

the 'חמה כנגד דמל - the war with G-d. Man's war with G-d starts from the moment of birth. A person is

born with a war-like attitude about who is more important. That is the body and the yetzer hara, the

evil inclination. Everything is dependent on that issue, and the way you resolve that issue

determines whether G-d will enter your life.


The Tzaddik

This is the avoda of the tzaddik. A tzaddik is a very bright fellow and understands this

information. A tzaddik knows that the task of growing in fear of G-d is an inner thing. He knows that

the way to get there is through the mitzvos, the outside performance. He knows that the entire

matter rests in his body. He knows that the critical issue is who is more important. Therefore, the

budding tzaddik begins to work on the mitzvos. Every time he comes to a mitzvah, he runs to do the

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mitzvah. Why? Because he knows that the mitzvah is an opportunity to say no to the body. He

knows that every time he says no to the body, there is a new signal coming in from the soul.

That is the difference between us and the tzaddik or budding tzaddik. He knows the value of

the mitzvah. He sees the mitzvah as an opportunity to challenge himself to lower the body dial in

order to raise the signal of the soul and the awareness of G-d. We do not see that at all. What do we

see in a mitzvah? We see the mitzvos as burdens: We have to clean the house for Pesach. We have to

buy a lulav and esrog for Sukkos. True, they give us a little happiness. It is culturally nice to feel

Jewish. However, that is not the purpose of the mitzvos. The important thing is that the mitzvos

force you to say no to your body: On Pesach, you can eat matzah, but you cannot eat chametz. On

Shabbos, you can do this but not that. Every day of the week, you can pray at this time but not at

that time. All these things say no to the body.

The tzaddik realizes this and runs after each mitzvah. He knows that every time he has done a

mitzvah he has acquired another signal. That is what he wants: the soul’s signals. He is not trying to

punish himself. He is brilliant. He knows where the wealth is. A professional knows that every time

he puts in another hour, he is earning more money. Every time he sells another object from his

store, there is more profit. The tzaddik realizes that the mitzvah is the means to a higher level of

awareness. It is a new signal. That is why he runs after mitzvos. When he is involved in the actual

mitzvah, he says to G-d, “I am doing this mitzvah so that I can become closer to You. I am not doing it

to be more Jewish. I am doing it so I can come to the level where I can know and love You.” This

attitude characterizes the tzaddik. He has an awareness of what a mitzvah means. You may do the

same mitzvah as the tzaddik did, but you will not derive the same result as the tzaddik. The tzaddik

does the mitzvah with the full awareness of what the mitzvah is going to do for him, so the signals

that come from the soul are extremely powerful. That is why the tzaddik becomes a tzaddik and you

remain just the way you are.


The Chassid

What is a chassid? If the tzaddik sounds like a Martian, then is a chassid like someone from

Pluto? The chassid goes one step further than the tzaddik. The tzaddik wants the soul’s signals, but

the chassid wants even more signals. The chassid realizes that what holds back the soul’s signals are

bodily drives, bodily needs, physical satisfaction, and emotional needs. The preoccupation with the

body is what holds back the soul. Nevertheless, the Torah says that you can satisfy your physical

drives. If you slaughter an animal in the proper way and salt it properly, you can eat an incredibly

delicious steak with all the gravy and onions on top of it. The Torah does not forbid it. There is

nothing wrong with going into the fanciest restaurant in town as long as it is kosher. The tzaddik

goes in because the Torah permits it.

The chassid says, “No, I won’t go.” Even if it is kosher, there is still damage from sensual

pleasure. Any involvement of the body to any degree decreases the signals of the soul. Even where

the Torah permits it, the simple involvement in physicality is a stimulation of the sense of self-

importance. If you eat a steak smothered with gravy and onions or any other physical action that

includes that level of sensory involvement, it is some kind of statement about yourself. You are

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saying, “I am important. I want to have a good time. I want to feel good.” It is some kind of

acquisition of power or pleasure. The chassid says, “I don't want that. I only want the soul’s signals. I

want to become as high a spiritual being as I can while I exist in my body.” In order to do that, the

chassid diminishes his physical existence.

The chassid turns the dial to its lowest part. The main part of the dial is the mitzvah part of the

dial. The chassid moves the dial down to the part called materialism. That part has to do with the

presence and absence of physicality itself. The chassid begins to lower the dial through that section.


The Chassid’s Holiness

The chassid strips himself of physicality to whatever extent possible in order to feel the fullest

capacity of spirituality. It is for that reason that the chassid becomes the prophet, the one with

ru'ach hakodesh who knows things that will happen in the future or that are not in front of him, and

at the highest level, the chassid has the ability to revive the dead. That is how high he can go. He can

bring a dead body back to life with his prayers and his holiness. That is how powerful the holiness

of a chassid is.

Every person mentioned in the Mishna and the Gemara had the ability to revive the dead. That

was a sine qua non of having one’s name mentioned in the Gemara. Today no chassid can do that

because the souls today are smaller than they once were. Today, even the highest soul cannot reach

the level of becoming a prophet or reviving the dead. However, he can go to the level of having

ru'ach hakodesh and giving blessings. He can tell a sick person that he will recover and the person

will recover completely, leaving all the doctors in shock. That is still possible, and there are people

living today who can do it. The question is who is willing to do the work to get there?

The chassidim or kedoshim who get there are not doing it so they can impress people by doing

magical tricks like curing sick people. They do it for one reason: happiness and pleasure. The

greatest happiness you can experience is an attachment to G-d. The spontaneous awareness of G-d

and the intense love of G-d in your consciousness is the greatest pleasure on earth. The fact that

they can do these other things is a spin off.


How High Can We Aim?

The Ramchal says an amazing thing. Every Jew can become a tzaddik, but not every Jew can

become a chassid. A tzaddik creates a spontaneous awareness of G-d by battling self-importance

through the mitzvos, but not beyond. Any Jew can become a tzaddik unless his physical or mental

abilities are damaged so that he cannot perform mitzvos. However, to be a chassid in the classic

sense of the word, to feel the signals of the soul in a very high form, is not available to every Jew.

It has to do with the kind of soul you were born with and who you were in a previous life.

There are more variables to this than meet the eye. A person could have been born with a mediocre

soul that gives out relatively weak signals. Alternately, a person could have been born with an

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enormously powerful soul with strong signals, even though he has not done anything to earn it.

There are 10-year-olds who have more spirituality in their heads than people at age 70 and it has

nothing to do with their avoda, but rather with the abilities of their soul. Why? Perhaps they were

very great in previous lifetimes, so G-d lets them start out now with higher-level souls with

powerful signals so they will have less work to do. Or perhaps someone had a lot of evil deeds in his

previous incarnation, so he starts out now with a lower-level soul. That person cannot reach a high

level of fear of G-d with the soul he was born with, because he started out with too big of a deficit.

Does that mean he can never achieve high spirituality? No. G-d promises that anyone who

wants to attain a very high level of spirituality can achieve it. It makes no difference at what level

you were born. If you do not have the proper soul, you can get it. If you want to achieve that high

level, G-d will give you the soul that you need in order to reach that high level. Obviously, you will

have to work harder because you started out with a bigger deficit, but G-d says, “I will not hold you

back. Don't ever say that you can get only this far in life and that’s it. I will start you out at a lower

level because of the fact that you have more to make up, but if you really want, you can go to the

highest levels.”

G-d says, “I want every Jew to become a tzaddik, and I want whoever is capable and has the

desire to become a chassid.” G-d does not expect everyone to become a chassid, because it is not an

easy proposition. However, even if we do not become chassidim, it is still important to understand

what the concept of a chassid is and why there are men like that. If we can desire to reach such a

level in some way and are distressed over our current lower level, that distress itself is a high level

of yiras shamayim.


The Yetzer Hara’s Tactics

What stands in the way of our becoming a tzaddik or a chassid? It is the yetzer hara, the evil

inclination. The first way the yetzer hara attacks us is by attempting to get us to transgress the

mitzvos. As mentioned above, the critical thing that prevents deveikus is arrogance or the obsession

with self-importance. Mitzvos fight this self-importance, so the yetzer hara tries to get us to

transgress specific mitzvos or specific details of the mitzvah obligations.

However, there is a much more fundamental way that the yetzer hara attacks us. It is more

pervasive and much more successful. The yetzer hara wants us to develop a certain way of looking

at the world. By giving us a certain worldview and a certain feeling about ourselves, it automatically

influences how much we are involved in Torah and mitzvos. The Satan is much shrewder than we

think. We think the Satan comes to us and tells us specifically, “Do this sin or don’t do this mitzvah,”

but actually, he is much more subtle. He tries to influence the way we think about the most

fundamental issues of life.

#1: You Cannot Change

One of the most powerful thoughts that the yetzer hara puts into our minds is the concept that

we are not capable of changing. It convinces us that human nature, our nature, is fixed and there is

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no way to change except in a minute fashion. It tell us that life is about growing in an outside

manner, because we cannot do anything about our inside personalities. The success of this kind of

thinking is very important for the Satan because if we believe in that notion, we will never change

as people. We will always think that the way to grow is to gain possessions, approval, or honor. We

will not think of growing internally, because that effort will appear to us as a dead end: What you

are today is what you will be five years from now, and it is what you will be like for the rest of your

life.

That is false. What preoccupies your mind now, and the kind of yetzer hara and yetzer tov you

have now, will not necessarily preoccupy your mind five years from now or even a year from now.

As you get older, there will be an enormous shift in what you consider more and less important.


Distracting with Superficiality

If the yetzer hara succeeds in keeping the spiritual battle on a superficial, external level, to a

large extent, he has won the war itself. If two countries are at war and there are several different

battlefields, one side may try to convince the other side that a minor battlefield is really the critical

one. For example, one of the most important secrets during World War II was where the Allies

would attack during the D-Day invasion of the European continent. The Allies tried to keep the

Germans off guard by allowing them to think there were a number of possible points of entry. This

way, when the allies landed in Normandy on D-Day, the Germans were essentially unprepared.

This is what the yetzer hara does. He wants to trick you into thinking that the essential battle

lies somewhere else. He tries to convince you that the essence of being Jewish is religious practice,

and thereby involve you in a low priority battle over the minutiae of the mitzvos. He tells you that

you do not have to work to change your insides or your feelings, because it is not critical to be

humble or kind. This way, he will gain territory automatically, because you will no longer confront

the real battle of growing spiritually. You will no longer be involved in the feelings behind the

mitzvos or in the feelings behind our relationships with other people. If he can convince you of this,

then he does not mind losing a skirmish. He will let you do a mitzvah here and there, as long as he

has convinced you that your personality and character traits will always remain fixed.


The yetzer hara is so subtle that we are not even aware that we are already in his camp. The

power of the spiritual darkness that exists today is a very good example of this subtlety. Living in

America gives us a certain set of ideals and values, to the extent that we are not even aware of these

values. It even influences what we think a Jew is or is supposed to be.

The yetzer hara tries to convince us that mankind as it is now will always remain the same: G-d

will always be hidden from us, the non-Jews will always be in power, scientific technology will

always be powerful, and the desires of the world will always be powerful. This causes us to give up

any thought of improving.

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29

We Were Created to Change

The Satan tries to get us to believe that we can only go so far and no further. That is the

greatest imprisonment that we face: the fact that our minds have incredible barriers regarding

what it means to be a Jew and what it means for us to change our personalities. Our greatest limit is

that we think that our awareness as it exists now is the only possible type of awareness. We think

we cannot expand it or go further.

The entire sefer Mesilas Yesharim rests on the concept that you can change as a person and you

can change drastically. Not only that, but you were created for the express purpose of changing.

Throughout your entire life, you have to ask yourself the question, “Where am I holding now in

terms of yiras shamayim? How far have I come and how far do I have to go?” Everything else is

secondary.


#2: You Have Already Sinned Too Much

Once you realize that you need to grow spiritually, the Satan’s next step is to try to get you to

stop working to improve. One of the most successful ways he accomplishes this is to make you feel

guilty about your past. He makes you feel that your past is so terrible that you can never move past

it. You have too many things to atone for or mourn for, so you are too unworthy to go any further.

He tries to make you as depressed as possible so that you will give up.

This is a very important thing to realize regarding Yom Kippur. G-d gave us Yom Kippur to atone

for sins. However, what happens if you say to yourself, “I have been involved in terrible sins or

activities and therefore, I am really not worthy?” If the Satan can get you involved in that cycle of

thinking, then he will be very successful in preventing you from going ahead.


We Are Always Growing

People have to look at themselves in an entirely different manner. A person has to say the

following: “No matter what I have done, my deeds were a reflection of me at a certain point in time.

They are not a reflection of who I am now or where I am going. I can leave my past deeds behind by

growing.” The purpose of life is to grow and to leave each series of activities behind. No level really

defines you. Rather, each different level of activity is simply true of you at a certain point in time. If

you have been involved in something that is not good, you can leave it and go higher. The concept

behind this is that you are like a line, not a fixed point. A line moves from one place to another. At

each point, there are a series of activities, feelings, desires and a level of yiras shamayim that are

true of that point on the line. However, the main thing is not the external expressions of each point,

but rather the movement of the line itself. As you change, automatically your deeds will change as

well.

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30

The yetzer hara tries to tell you that you are a point, not a line. Meaning, that what you have

done in the past defines who you are permanently so that you can never move ahead. However, that

contradicts the essence of repentance. If we believe that what we have done defines who we are,

then we would never be able to repent for our past misdeeds. When we realize that what we have

done was simply true of us at a certain point in our development, and that we have a developmental

sequence that goes from a lower level to a higher level, then we can say, “I can shed these deeds

because these deeds are no longer true of me.”

The essence of this world is movement and change, and the essence of the world to come is

fixed and static. Because the essence of this world is movement, there is nothing that you can do in

this world that will define you permanently and stop your development. Only the day of death can

do that.


#3: You Are Not Growing Fast Enough

If the yetzer hara has not gotten you through sidetracking you with the minutiae of the mitzvos,

or convincing you that because of your past you cannot move further, then he has a third tool: He

will tell you, “Yes, it is very important to work on your spirituality and fear of G-d, so why are you

moving so slowly? You have to move faster.” He will encourage you to undertake levels of avoda

that are too high for you. We pray to G-d that he should remove the Satan from before us and from

behind us. What does this mean? The Satan before us is the Satan that says, “Come, do a sin.” We

know that this is the Satan, because this is obviously wrong. The Satan behind us tries to get us to

do mitzvos that are too difficult for us. We cannot recognize that Satan, because he looks like a

Rabbi to us. He tells us that we have be a tzaddik now. He tries to get us to move too far ahead too

quickly, so we will become discouraged and think that it is impossible to be a yarei shamayim. But

that is not true.


There Is Growth at Every Level

It is impossible at this point for you to be at that level of yiras shamayim, but it is not

impossible for you to fear G-d on your level. Growth goes by levels, and at each level, there are

certain expectations. You have to know what the expectation is at your level, because that is what

G-d expects of you. G-d does not expect you to perform deeds at a higher level, if you have not yet

reached that level. At the same time, if you perform deeds on a lower level than where you are, that

is also a mistake. You need to be aware of where you are holding and what G-d expects from you at

that point.

It is like a person who wants to become a body builder. If he lifts a weight that is too light for

his muscles, then that weight does nothing for him. If he lifts a weight that is too heavy for his

muscles, then it injures his muscles. The trick is to know exactly what the expected deeds are at that

point in time and then overcome that resistance and go on to the next level and the next level. This

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is a critical balance. The Satan is constantly attacking us from both ends. He either makes us feel

guilty for what we have done or makes us feel guilty for what we have not done. You have to deal

with what you can do at each point without feeling guilty or feeling that you have to race ahead.

This is especially important for ba'alei teshuva, newly observant Jews, because as soon as they

begin to realize that they should be religious, they feel they have to be completely religious all at

once. However, it is much too difficult to alter their personalities so that suddenly they are keeping

all 613 mitzvos. They must balance and prioritize in order to begin the process. Their deeds must

reflect who they are at that given point in time, or perhaps slightly more, but their deeds cannot be

so ahead of themselves as to literally weigh them down. That could damage them. On the other

hand, their deeds should not be so minor that they hold them back. That balance is not easy to

achieve.


This is what the yetzer hara does. Most of the time, the yetzer hara tries to get us to do a

specific sin or tries to undermine a specific mitzvah we would like to do. That is a lower form of

yetzer hara. The higher form is trying to undermine our involvement in avoda itself. First, he tries to

hide from us the concept that life exists for change and that we can aspire to become real Jews. If

that fails, then he tries to convince us that we have already engraved what we are in stone and

cannot go beyond it because it is too late. He tries to make us depressed and guilty about it. Next,

the Satan tells us to move faster up the spiritual ladder, because we are wasting time. He tries to

overwork us, so we will become discouraged and give up trying to improve. The yetzer hara attacks

us at the most fundamental points to confuse and frustrate us so that we will not do any avoda.

Summary

A human being has both physical and spiritual needs and desires. However, one always

dominates the other. The way to achieve spirituality is to reduce the dominance of the body. This is

the function of the mitzvos. A tzaddik utilizes the mitzvos to control his physicality and thereby

allow his soul to grow closer to G-d. This effort is required of all Jews. A chassid chooses to reduce

his involvement with the physical world beyond that which the mitzvos require. This allows him to

grow to the highest spiritual levels possible. This is not required of all Jews.

The evil inclination tries to stop us from growing. On a basic level, it tries to get us to

transgress the mitzvos. On a deeper level, it tries to convince us that real spiritual change is

impossible, our past sins prevent us from growing, or that spiritual growth is overwhelmingly

difficult.

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