The Greeks were very intelligent, but their lives had no higher spiritual dimension. We have the opportunity to have life from an upper realm. Recognizing that this elevated life is the only ‘real life’ is real mesirus nefesh.
Home > Lessons > Holidays > Chanukah > Chanukah 5785 > Chanukah – what is the real meaning of Mesiras Nefesh
The Greeks were very intelligent, but their lives had no higher spiritual dimension. We have the opportunity to have life from an upper realm. Recognizing that this elevated life is the only ‘real life’ is real mesirus nefesh.
Chanukah-what is the real meaning of mesirus nefesh?
We will discuss a specific aspect of Chanukah with practical implications: mesirus nefesh, which is based on recognizing and desiring life from a higher realm.
First, we will see this type of life as expressed in the berachah ahavah rabboh:
אַהֲבָה רַבָּה אֲהַבְתָּנוּ, יְ-יָ אֱלקינוּ. חֶמְלָה גְּדוֹלָה וִיתֵרָה חָמַלְתָּ עָלֵינוּ
You have loved us with a great love, Hashem our G-d. You have shown us great and extra compassion.
Hashem gave us the Torah.
אָבִינוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ. בַּעֲבוּר אֲבוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁבָּטְחוּ בְךָ וַתְּלַמְּדֵם חֻקֵּי חַיִּים כֵּן תְּחָנֵּנוּ וּתְלַמְּדֵנוּ. אָבִינוּ הָאָב הָרַחֲמָן, הַמְרַחֵם, רַחֵם עָלֵינוּ, וְתֵן בְּלִבֵּנוּ לְהָבִין וּלְהַשְׂכִּיל, לִשְׁמֹעַ, לִלְמֹד וּלְלַמֵּד
Our Father, our King, for our fathers who trusted in You, You taught them statutes of life, so too teach us. Our Father, the Compassionate Father, give us compassion and place in our hearts to understand, to hear, to learn and to teach.
Chukei chaim, does not refer to laws of chukim in the Torah that we need to observe, and from their observance, we will be given life. Instead, it refers to ‘laws of life’. Just like laws of driving tell us how we are supposed to drive, so too chukei chaim are the laws of how to correctly bring down elevated life from the upper realm of Hashem.
The Rokeach says that ‘avoseinu‘ refers to Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov. We say that the Avos had bitachon in Hashem since they passed numerous tests through their bitachon.
Bitachon means to be connected to a realm higher than our own. The Avos lived a life rooted in a higher realm where Hashem was the source of life.
Whilst the Avos didn’t observe the mitzvos and the halachos in exactly the same way as ourselves (for example, Yaakov married two sisters, which for us is absolutely forbidden), nevertheless, they lived a life of the Torah, with Hashem being its source. Their passing all their tests with bitachon was how they observed the laws of life. Hashem taught them the chukei chaim, the rules of such an elevated life.
כֵּן תְּחָנֵּנוּ וּתְלַמְּדֵנוּ
May You be equally gracious to us and teach us
The Avos were zocheh to live this elevated life since they went through all their tests with bitachon; Avrohom’s kivshon hoesh, akeidas Yitzchak and Yaakov’s encounter with Lovon. We, on the other hand, do not live life like this. So how can we ask Hashem to be zocheh in the same sort of life as the Avos? The answer is that we ask Hashem to teach us Torah, which also comes from this higher realm. Our learning Torah enables us to be zocheh to have such a life.
אָבִינוּ הָאָב הָרַחֲמָן, הַמְרַחֵם, רַחֵם עָלֵינוּ, וְתֵן בְּלִבֵּנוּ לְהָבִין וּלְהַשְׂכִּיל, לִשְׁמֹעַ, לִלְמֹד וּלְלַמֵּד
Our Father, the Compassionate Father, give us compassion and place in our hearts to understand, to hear, to learn and to teach.
We ask Hashem to give us rachamim.
Every morning, in Shacharis, we ask Hashem’ berogez rachem tizkor’-‘ In Your anger, remember compassion. ‘If Hashem is angry, it is not our place to ask Him to abandon His anger and instead be compassionate to us. Rather, when we ask for rachamim, we ask Hashem to give us the tools to save ourselves from being destroyed by His anger.
This is why we ask Hashem to put in our hearts to understand, etc. We are asking Hashem to give us these tools to use.
וְלֹא נֵבוֹשׁ לְעולָם וָעֶד
And we should not be embarrassed forever.
We ask Hashem that we shouldn’t live a life contaminated by a shortcoming. We are concerned about failing to live the elevated life sourced from Hashem, for if we fail, we will have eternal bushah since this contaminated life will not merit olam habo. Why not? Since we already rejected the life from the higher realm why should we be given the elevated life of olam habo?
כִּי בְשֵׁם קָדְשְׁךָ הַגָּדוֹל וְהַנּוֹרָא בָּטָחְנוּ
Because in Your great and awesome holy Name, we have trusted
We also have bitochon that real life is from the higher realm.
נָגִילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בִּישׁוּעָתֶךָ
We will exult and rejoice in Your Salvation.
We will rejoice when You will help us live this elevated life.
וַהֲבִיאֵנוּ לְשָׁלום מֵאַרְבַּע כַּנְפוֹת הָאָרֶץ, וְתוֹלִיכֵנוּ קוֹמְמִיּוּת לְאַרְצֵנוּ
And bring us to peace from the four corners of the earth, and guide us elevated, to our land.
The natural outcome of everything we have asked for is that Hashem should emerge in our lives when Moshiach arrives. We will have ‘komemius‘, meaning a 2-layered life-a life on the lower layer and the higher layer from the realm of Hashem.
THE LIFE OF TORAH
The central theme of this berocho is that Torah provides us with chukei chaim. Torah does not just tell us how to act correctly in doing the mitzvos. It provides us with something much deeper. It provides us with a life of Torah, whereby Torah becomes connected to our basic life. This is an elevated life sourced from Hashem.
CHANUKAH-THE LIFE OF YOVON
The Yovonim lived very intelligent lives. All the great philosophers, such as Aristo, came from Yovon. However, they had no upper-realm dimension to their lives. Their lives were centered on reality. Anything outside of reality did not interest them. There was no possibility of the existence of bitachon in their type of life.
MESIRUS NEFESH
Many Jews were attracted to their culture and adopted their practices. The Chashmonaim came to repair the Jewish soul after many had converted to the Greek life. The Bach in hilchos Chanukah tells us that the process of repair was done through being moser nefesh for avodah, and they gave their lives over to death for this.
We commonly misuse the phrase mesirus nefesh. We think that it describes putting in an extra amount of effort. This is not correct. Mesirus nefesh means that we are clear that true life is an elevated life of avodah from the upper realm. Any other life is not worth living, as it’s not a life. This is what the Chashmonaim meant when they wanted to give up their lives for a life of avodah.
Mesirus Nefesh does not describe the extent of the effort you will put in until you succeed. It describes having clarity about what real living is, implying that any other life is not worth living. The only life worth living is the elevated life.
This explains why the mitzvah of Chanukah is the candles and is not related to the war’s success. The central theme of Chanukah is not to celebrate the extent of the Chashmonaim‘s effort and their successes. Instead, we focus on the clarity that the only life worth living is that of avodah. This is captured by the mitzvah of the candles, which, of course, is a mitzvah related to the avodah of the Menorah in the Beis Hamikdash.
OBSERVANCE OR LIFE ITSELF?
Is our perception of life similar to that of the Chashmonaim?
People genuinely care about how well they are performing halachic and mitzvah actions. They even make cheshbon hanefesh. However, in truth, this is not Cheshbon Hanefesh. It is cheshbon hamaaseh. They are only analysing how successful they are in their actions. This approach falls very far short of the Chashmonaim. The Chashmonaim viewed Torah as being part of life itself, whereas we only view Torah as an addition to life.
Consider an ‘onen‘ who is exempt from making brochos. He finds it very hard and uncomfortable to eat without making a brocho. This, however, is because he is so habituated in making brochos, rather than halocho being part of the essence of his life. This is not the elevated life of Torah that we are speaking about!
When we say that Chanukah is a time for mesirus nefesh, we do not mean that we should put in more effort to learn better. The mesirus nefesh demands something deeper from us. It requires that we discern that life itself needs to be connected to Torah, and life without this is not worthwhile.
We are not trying to reach the level of the Chashmonaim and endangering our lives to achieve this goal. But we should realize that living any other way does not make sense.
A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO MESIRUS NEFESH
RUCHNIYUS MEANS GROWING THROUGH TORAH AND NOT JUST AMASSING INFORMATION
I propose what we can work on to help us approach mesirus nefesh. I will illustrate it from my personal life experiences.
Over the years, I heard many things from the Mashgiach, some of which, on rare occasions, sounded wrong or outdated. I never asked him what he meant. If I had asked him for an explanation, he would have given me an answer. Seeing as I was in my late twenties, I wouldn’t have been able to grasp the depth of his answer. This meant that I would have written down the answer in my folder and filed it away.
In essence I would have only received information but nothing more. You do not grow from information. A question or thinking about a problem is what makes you grow. Many people believe that the main aim of chinuch is problem-solving. This is incorrect. The main objective of chinuch is to live with a problem and patiently wait until you can grasp the elevated depth of the Torah, which comes from the higher realm.
Close to 40 years ago, the Mashgiach said something I did not understand until this morning when I finally got clarity on the matter. American schools asked him if they could add to their curriculum the presentation of ethical dilemmas to the children so that they could resolve them by themselves. The Mashgiach was very against this educational approach. He said that bechirah means that we need to select what the Torah wants from us in light of the attempts of the yetzer hora to pull us away from this. Ethical dilemmas are not part of the Jewish bechirah.
It seemed to me that the Mashgiach was saying that the bechirah that Judaism wants is merely to choose to be a ‘good boy’ and observe what the Torah wants (in an external fashion). The Mashgiach always spoke with great depth and meaning, but this made no sense to me. It was in opposition to my approach to Yiddishkeit.
On this occasion, I asked the Mashgiach about what he had said, which contradicted this: Avrohom Avinu went away from speaking to the shechina for the sake of doing hachnosas orchim with the three malochim. Avrohom decided that hachnosas orchim is greater than talking to the shechina. Avrohom, in his bechirah, solved this dilemma. This dilemma was not halachic. This was an ethical dilemma. If so, we see that bechirah does include the resolution of ethical dilemmas.?
The Mashgiach responded that the basic fact of Jewish bechirah is halachic, and this action of Avrohom Avinu needs understanding as it seemingly doesn’t fit with what true bechirah is. I did not understand the Mashgiach. At that point, I could have just accepted and written down the information he had told me and filed it with other information I had amassed. I could have hoped that since Chazal say that a talmid only understands his Rebbe after 40 years, beezras Hashem after 40 years, I too will be zoche to understand these words! The problem, though, is that information in a cupboard does not develop by itself. The only way to grow is by living with the lack of understanding and working on it. About 40 years later, I now understand that what the Mashgiach said is true!
People think that ruchniyus is the amassing of information to gain knowledge. This is not ruchniyus. Ruchniyus requires growth. The world outlook on the greatness of the computerized AI, which only has knowledge but possesses no option for growth, is against the Jewish outlook of ruchniyus.
AN EXAMPLE OF A LIFE OF TORAH FROM CORPORATE LIFE
We have already said that we are striving for a life of Torah, where Torah is the chukei chaim. We do not want just to do what the Torah says because it’s a mitzvah, but because it gives us real life itself.
One thing that we can do to this end is to search for something that is spoken about by the Torah and the secular world, then compare these two outlooks and discern that what we want is how the Torah views it because this is what life is!
There is often pressure on corporations to be dishonest and make a profit. A person who says that they cannot live with their conscience of cheating others despite the popular opinions of the world is already doing a certain mesirus nefesh.
Let me give an example from a ger tzeddek who came to speak to me. He was working in a business selling protective clothing for those working in nuclear reactor plants. He received a letter signed by the chief executive of the atomic reactor requesting a massive order of clothing. The chief executive knew that this company’s clothing was too thin and would not protect the workers, and they would die from the radiation, but nevertheless, he authorized the clothing.
Despite taking a huge loss for his company, the ger tzeddek rejected the order. He told me he was so happy that he hadn’t accepted the deal-he wouldn’t have been able to live with his conscience knowing that he had caused so many people to die.
This was mesirus nefesh. He knew that if he didn’t produce the clothing for them, they would take it from a different company that would get the same authorization from the uncaring chief executive. If so, effectively, he wouldn’t have been doing anything so bad, just that this ger tzedek realized that being a part of killing these innocent workers was not the life that he wanted. Giving up these significant profits for the sake of real life was mesirus nefesh. Mesirus nefesh is not for the sake of being successful (to gain something important as a nice addition to life) but for the sake of life itself.
COMPARING THE TORAH VIEW OF LIFE WITH THE SECULAR VIEW
We need to try and see that we have the opportunity for a secular and intelligent life versus a life with Torah. The secular life stems from our lowly realm. The life of Torah stems from a higher realm because it is illuminated by the Torah, which exists above. Once we recognize that we want an elevated life, not a worthless type of Yovon‘s life, we will have a backdrop for mesirus nefesh.
_______________
Written by Rabbi Rapport
Chanukah-what is the real meaning of mesirus nefesh?
We will discuss a specific aspect of Chanukah with practical implications: mesirus nefesh, which is based on recognizing and desiring life from a higher realm.
First, we will see this type of life as expressed in the berachah ahavah rabboh:
אַהֲבָה רַבָּה אֲהַבְתָּנוּ, יְ-יָ אֱלקינוּ. חֶמְלָה גְּדוֹלָה וִיתֵרָה חָמַלְתָּ עָלֵינוּ
You have loved us with a great love, Hashem our G-d. You have shown us great and extra compassion.
Hashem gave us the Torah.
אָבִינוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ. בַּעֲבוּר אֲבוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁבָּטְחוּ בְךָ וַתְּלַמְּדֵם חֻקֵּי חַיִּים כֵּן תְּחָנֵּנוּ וּתְלַמְּדֵנוּ. אָבִינוּ הָאָב הָרַחֲמָן, הַמְרַחֵם, רַחֵם עָלֵינוּ, וְתֵן בְּלִבֵּנוּ לְהָבִין וּלְהַשְׂכִּיל, לִשְׁמֹעַ, לִלְמֹד וּלְלַמֵּד
Our Father, our King, for our fathers who trusted in You, You taught them statutes of life, so too teach us. Our Father, the Compassionate Father, give us compassion and place in our hearts to understand, to hear, to learn and to teach.
Chukei chaim, does not refer to laws of chukim in the Torah that we need to observe, and from their observance, we will be given life. Instead, it refers to ‘laws of life’. Just like laws of driving tell us how we are supposed to drive, so too chukei chaim are the laws of how to correctly bring down elevated life from the upper realm of Hashem.
The Rokeach says that ‘avoseinu‘ refers to Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov. We say that the Avos had bitachon in Hashem since they passed numerous tests through their bitachon.
Bitachon means to be connected to a realm higher than our own. The Avos lived a life rooted in a higher realm where Hashem was the source of life.
Whilst the Avos didn’t observe the mitzvos and the halachos in exactly the same way as ourselves (for example, Yaakov married two sisters, which for us is absolutely forbidden), nevertheless, they lived a life of the Torah, with Hashem being its source. Their passing all their tests with bitachon was how they observed the laws of life. Hashem taught them the chukei chaim, the rules of such an elevated life.
כֵּן תְּחָנֵּנוּ וּתְלַמְּדֵנוּ
May You be equally gracious to us and teach us
The Avos were zocheh to live this elevated life since they went through all their tests with bitachon; Avrohom’s kivshon hoesh, akeidas Yitzchak and Yaakov’s encounter with Lovon. We, on the other hand, do not live life like this. So how can we ask Hashem to be zocheh in the same sort of life as the Avos? The answer is that we ask Hashem to teach us Torah, which also comes from this higher realm. Our learning Torah enables us to be zocheh to have such a life.
אָבִינוּ הָאָב הָרַחֲמָן, הַמְרַחֵם, רַחֵם עָלֵינוּ, וְתֵן בְּלִבֵּנוּ לְהָבִין וּלְהַשְׂכִּיל, לִשְׁמֹעַ, לִלְמֹד וּלְלַמֵּד
Our Father, the Compassionate Father, give us compassion and place in our hearts to understand, to hear, to learn and to teach.
We ask Hashem to give us rachamim.
Every morning, in Shacharis, we ask Hashem’ berogez rachem tizkor’-‘ In Your anger, remember compassion. ‘If Hashem is angry, it is not our place to ask Him to abandon His anger and instead be compassionate to us. Rather, when we ask for rachamim, we ask Hashem to give us the tools to save ourselves from being destroyed by His anger.
This is why we ask Hashem to put in our hearts to understand, etc. We are asking Hashem to give us these tools to use.
וְלֹא נֵבוֹשׁ לְעולָם וָעֶד
And we should not be embarrassed forever.
We ask Hashem that we shouldn’t live a life contaminated by a shortcoming. We are concerned about failing to live the elevated life sourced from Hashem, for if we fail, we will have eternal bushah since this contaminated life will not merit olam habo. Why not? Since we already rejected the life from the higher realm why should we be given the elevated life of olam habo?
כִּי בְשֵׁם קָדְשְׁךָ הַגָּדוֹל וְהַנּוֹרָא בָּטָחְנוּ
Because in Your great and awesome holy Name, we have trusted
We also have bitochon that real life is from the higher realm.
נָגִילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בִּישׁוּעָתֶךָ
We will exult and rejoice in Your Salvation.
We will rejoice when You will help us live this elevated life.
וַהֲבִיאֵנוּ לְשָׁלום מֵאַרְבַּע כַּנְפוֹת הָאָרֶץ, וְתוֹלִיכֵנוּ קוֹמְמִיּוּת לְאַרְצֵנוּ
And bring us to peace from the four corners of the earth, and guide us elevated, to our land.
The natural outcome of everything we have asked for is that Hashem should emerge in our lives when Moshiach arrives. We will have ‘komemius‘, meaning a 2-layered life-a life on the lower layer and the higher layer from the realm of Hashem.
THE LIFE OF TORAH
The central theme of this berocho is that Torah provides us with chukei chaim. Torah does not just tell us how to act correctly in doing the mitzvos. It provides us with something much deeper. It provides us with a life of Torah, whereby Torah becomes connected to our basic life. This is an elevated life sourced from Hashem.
CHANUKAH-THE LIFE OF YOVON
The Yovonim lived very intelligent lives. All the great philosophers, such as Aristo, came from Yovon. However, they had no upper-realm dimension to their lives. Their lives were centered on reality. Anything outside of reality did not interest them. There was no possibility of the existence of bitachon in their type of life.
MESIRUS NEFESH
Many Jews were attracted to their culture and adopted their practices. The Chashmonaim came to repair the Jewish soul after many had converted to the Greek life. The Bach in hilchos Chanukah tells us that the process of repair was done through being moser nefesh for avodah, and they gave their lives over to death for this.
We commonly misuse the phrase mesirus nefesh. We think that it describes putting in an extra amount of effort. This is not correct. Mesirus nefesh means that we are clear that true life is an elevated life of avodah from the upper realm. Any other life is not worth living, as it’s not a life. This is what the Chashmonaim meant when they wanted to give up their lives for a life of avodah.
Mesirus Nefesh does not describe the extent of the effort you will put in until you succeed. It describes having clarity about what real living is, implying that any other life is not worth living. The only life worth living is the elevated life.
This explains why the mitzvah of Chanukah is the candles and is not related to the war’s success. The central theme of Chanukah is not to celebrate the extent of the Chashmonaim‘s effort and their successes. Instead, we focus on the clarity that the only life worth living is that of avodah. This is captured by the mitzvah of the candles, which, of course, is a mitzvah related to the avodah of the Menorah in the Beis Hamikdash.
OBSERVANCE OR LIFE ITSELF?
Is our perception of life similar to that of the Chashmonaim?
People genuinely care about how well they are performing halachic and mitzvah actions. They even make cheshbon hanefesh. However, in truth, this is not Cheshbon Hanefesh. It is cheshbon hamaaseh. They are only analysing how successful they are in their actions. This approach falls very far short of the Chashmonaim. The Chashmonaim viewed Torah as being part of life itself, whereas we only view Torah as an addition to life.
Consider an ‘onen‘ who is exempt from making brochos. He finds it very hard and uncomfortable to eat without making a brocho. This, however, is because he is so habituated in making brochos, rather than halocho being part of the essence of his life. This is not the elevated life of Torah that we are speaking about!
When we say that Chanukah is a time for mesirus nefesh, we do not mean that we should put in more effort to learn better. The mesirus nefesh demands something deeper from us. It requires that we discern that life itself needs to be connected to Torah, and life without this is not worthwhile.
We are not trying to reach the level of the Chashmonaim and endangering our lives to achieve this goal. But we should realize that living any other way does not make sense.
A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO MESIRUS NEFESH
RUCHNIYUS MEANS GROWING THROUGH TORAH AND NOT JUST AMASSING INFORMATION
I propose what we can work on to help us approach mesirus nefesh. I will illustrate it from my personal life experiences.
Over the years, I heard many things from the Mashgiach, some of which, on rare occasions, sounded wrong or outdated. I never asked him what he meant. If I had asked him for an explanation, he would have given me an answer. Seeing as I was in my late twenties, I wouldn’t have been able to grasp the depth of his answer. This meant that I would have written down the answer in my folder and filed it away.
In essence I would have only received information but nothing more. You do not grow from information. A question or thinking about a problem is what makes you grow. Many people believe that the main aim of chinuch is problem-solving. This is incorrect. The main objective of chinuch is to live with a problem and patiently wait until you can grasp the elevated depth of the Torah, which comes from the higher realm.
Close to 40 years ago, the Mashgiach said something I did not understand until this morning when I finally got clarity on the matter. American schools asked him if they could add to their curriculum the presentation of ethical dilemmas to the children so that they could resolve them by themselves. The Mashgiach was very against this educational approach. He said that bechirah means that we need to select what the Torah wants from us in light of the attempts of the yetzer hora to pull us away from this. Ethical dilemmas are not part of the Jewish bechirah.
It seemed to me that the Mashgiach was saying that the bechirah that Judaism wants is merely to choose to be a ‘good boy’ and observe what the Torah wants (in an external fashion). The Mashgiach always spoke with great depth and meaning, but this made no sense to me. It was in opposition to my approach to Yiddishkeit.
On this occasion, I asked the Mashgiach about what he had said, which contradicted this: Avrohom Avinu went away from speaking to the shechina for the sake of doing hachnosas orchim with the three malochim. Avrohom decided that hachnosas orchim is greater than talking to the shechina. Avrohom, in his bechirah, solved this dilemma. This dilemma was not halachic. This was an ethical dilemma. If so, we see that bechirah does include the resolution of ethical dilemmas.?
The Mashgiach responded that the basic fact of Jewish bechirah is halachic, and this action of Avrohom Avinu needs understanding as it seemingly doesn’t fit with what true bechirah is. I did not understand the Mashgiach. At that point, I could have just accepted and written down the information he had told me and filed it with other information I had amassed. I could have hoped that since Chazal say that a talmid only understands his Rebbe after 40 years, beezras Hashem after 40 years, I too will be zoche to understand these words! The problem, though, is that information in a cupboard does not develop by itself. The only way to grow is by living with the lack of understanding and working on it. About 40 years later, I now understand that what the Mashgiach said is true!
People think that ruchniyus is the amassing of information to gain knowledge. This is not ruchniyus. Ruchniyus requires growth. The world outlook on the greatness of the computerized AI, which only has knowledge but possesses no option for growth, is against the Jewish outlook of ruchniyus.
AN EXAMPLE OF A LIFE OF TORAH FROM CORPORATE LIFE
We have already said that we are striving for a life of Torah, where Torah is the chukei chaim. We do not want just to do what the Torah says because it’s a mitzvah, but because it gives us real life itself.
One thing that we can do to this end is to search for something that is spoken about by the Torah and the secular world, then compare these two outlooks and discern that what we want is how the Torah views it because this is what life is!
There is often pressure on corporations to be dishonest and make a profit. A person who says that they cannot live with their conscience of cheating others despite the popular opinions of the world is already doing a certain mesirus nefesh.
Let me give an example from a ger tzeddek who came to speak to me. He was working in a business selling protective clothing for those working in nuclear reactor plants. He received a letter signed by the chief executive of the atomic reactor requesting a massive order of clothing. The chief executive knew that this company’s clothing was too thin and would not protect the workers, and they would die from the radiation, but nevertheless, he authorized the clothing.
Despite taking a huge loss for his company, the ger tzeddek rejected the order. He told me he was so happy that he hadn’t accepted the deal-he wouldn’t have been able to live with his conscience knowing that he had caused so many people to die.
This was mesirus nefesh. He knew that if he didn’t produce the clothing for them, they would take it from a different company that would get the same authorization from the uncaring chief executive. If so, effectively, he wouldn’t have been doing anything so bad, just that this ger tzedek realized that being a part of killing these innocent workers was not the life that he wanted. Giving up these significant profits for the sake of real life was mesirus nefesh. Mesirus nefesh is not for the sake of being successful (to gain something important as a nice addition to life) but for the sake of life itself.
COMPARING THE TORAH VIEW OF LIFE WITH THE SECULAR VIEW
We need to try and see that we have the opportunity for a secular and intelligent life versus a life with Torah. The secular life stems from our lowly realm. The life of Torah stems from a higher realm because it is illuminated by the Torah, which exists above. Once we recognize that we want an elevated life, not a worthless type of Yovon‘s life, we will have a backdrop for mesirus nefesh.
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Written by Rabbi Rapport