First Vaad Elul – Making Teshuva from our Home Turf in Avodas Hashem

The Main Area of Avodas Hashem – The Constant battle between Ratzon and Sechel

Our Avodas Hashem has a main theme which we can call “the constant battle between Ratzon (Will) and Sechel (Reason).” That is to say that our standard approach to our Avodas Hashem is that our ratzon is pulling us away from the will of the Torah/Hashem, and our sechel tells us what is appropriate to do in line with the will of the Torah/Hashem, and we need to follow our sechel. 

Expanding the constant battle even to a place where the ratzon is “good.”

We see from the Mesillas Yesharim that Avodas Hashem by zehirus is that even though we have the motivation as a result of our ratzon to reach the center of the maze, the eitzah of the chochamim is “do not go with your ratzon but rather with your sechel i.e. make a cheshbon.” The Mesillas Yesharim is expanding this constant battle of Avodas Hashem between the ratzon and the sechel even to a place where the ratzon is good and necessary!

Now we can understand the hakdomo of the Mesillas Yesharim, where he says that he is going to be telling us things we already know and people dismiss as obvious. He means to say that since everyone has clarity in what they want, i.e. their ratzon – then they do not see any reason to use their sechel in those areas.

R’ Yisroel Salanter in the beginning of Ohr Yisroel says the same thing to his students; “in your Avodas Hashem when it comes to mussar, you are following your ratzon according to your tayvo’s and not your sechel.” Superficially we would say he must be rebuking them for sinning. However R’ Yisroel Salanter is clear that the issue is that they are going with their ratzon and not with their sechel “when it comes to mussar” – clearly he cannot be saying the talmidim are sinning, as that would be going against mussar entirely! Rather he is saying that the students do the mussar, but only according to their ratzon, and not with their sechel.

The Mesillas Yesharim and R’ Yisroel Salanter show us that the battle in Avodas Hashem between ratzon and sechel has more depth to it than our surface approach to Avodas Hashem. The battle even applies when the ratzon wants a “good thing!” Even then we must exert the sechel upon it.

What it Means to be a Real Chocham

The Pasuk in Mishlei Chapter 12 Verse 15 says וְשֹׁמֵ֖עַ לְעֵצָ֣ה חָכָֽם “One who listens to advice is wise.”

This pasuk seems to be mixing two worlds together; that of the one who is called a chocham – which develops from learning Torah, and that of the one who “takes advice” – which means being involved with figuring out practical obligations in the world. This is what advice means after all, we ask a bigger person for advice always from a place where we already have different practical options of what to do and we need to ask someone. 

Therefore the pasuk cannot be interpreted literally to be telling us that one becomes a chocham when he listens to practical advice. So what is this pasuk telling us? 

It is telling us that when we are ready to listen to an eitza even in a place where we are already a chocham, meaning we already have a good ratzon, then we are a real chocham. We are a real chocham because we are exemplifying that the sechel exerts itself even when the ratzon is good. We are ready to listen to a bigger person who has a different way to do something than our ratzon’s way.  

How the Sechel works

We see from the Sanhedrin that we need a unanimous decision from the 23 judges to hold a person liable for something. Rebbi Akiva says that if he were on the Beis Din they would never kill a person because he would always be the differing opinion to look at the case from a different angle. This is the nature of the sechel, there are always multiple angles.

The ratzon ruling the person is a “single minded – focus” and this myopic approach is unfortunately our habitual approach to Avodas Hashem in Elul. We exert tremendous pressure on our ratzon, and from our ratzon we try to grow in Avodas Hashem. 

This fails, because a foundational point in mussar is that Avodas Hashem is built on the sechel.

The Wrong and Right Way to do a Kabbala Ketana 

We are very familiar with the obligation on Yom Kippor to do teshuva and R’ Yisroel’s insight that this teshuva is embodied in the “small kabbalah” which we do. The issue with this type of teshuva in the way we have done it in the past is that the kabbala ketanas which we do are insufficient in the sense that our aveiros are numerous and the kabbala ketana is only attempting to fix one or two of those hundred plus areas of aveiras. 

To have a successful teshuva this year, we need to define teshuva as “change.” At home, when an object is moved a few feet from where it belongs, we notice it. In the public domain, even a major change we do not notice. This distinction is the key for us to understand how to do teshuva. We need to make a minor change in that which we feel at “home” with.

This is the polar opposite of what we do every year when it comes to teshuva. We say “how is my learning? Yes, it is pretty good, so no teshuva is needed there…OK, so how is my chesed, oh, it is not good, OK, so there I need to do teshuva! My davening is also not good, OK so there I need to do teshuva!” With this old approach our teshuva doesn’t go past the kiddush levana we make on motzaei yom kippor! For thirty years now we have not had a “ratzon” for the tefilla or the chesed, it cannot be changed on the dime. Rather we need to make a change where we feel at home. We are home where we consider ourselves OK and fine and we think we know our obligations in that area and fulfill them. This is the idea of taking eitzah where we are already a chocham. We feel at home with our strong point, and specifically there we can find that we need work. 

Gedolim worked their whole life on one middah

When R’ Chatzkel Levinstin said a Shmooze, It would always be on Emunah and Yitziyas Mitzrayim and most bochurim did not attend. It seemed he kept going on the same topic his whole life! The Mashgiach, Rav Wolbe, was working for years on one topic. This is because that is where they change, because that is where they are! The smallest change there is interesting and successful as they already have a ratzon in that area of Avodas Hashem. This is the fertile home turf we are talking about which will generate real personal change for each one of us!  

Discovering where our home turf is

When I was in Kiev, I went to Bavia, it was a forest where a terrible tragedy happened to the Jewish people. It was the first mass murder perpetrated by the Germans in the area.  33,000 Jews were murdered over Erev Yom Kippor and Yom Kippor  and only 29 people survived. When I returned I spoke with a “frum” yid who told me he doesn’t go to such places because it is a contradiction to emunah. I was shocked and told him it is an open verse in Ha’azinu that we will ask “how did one person i.e. Hitler, chase thousands of Jews?” He viciously responded “if so then you can start out your pesach seder by shouting “Heil Hitler!”” I wanted to toss him off the bus. In fact, simply knowing that he is not a believer, the next day I literally could not daven shacharis at the regular minyan we both go to.

I revealed something amazing for myself through that encounter; If he would tell me “davening is boring” I would laugh with him and say “it took you this long to join the club?” if he would say “learning is not so interesting” I would be able to empathize with him. Surely I would have zero qualms about davening in the same minyan as him. But when he says “there is no borei olam in the tragedy of Bavia!” then I just explode and cannot even stand to daven with him.

What to do when we found our home turf

When I discovered what my home turf was, I understood that there was much work to be done. I saw that my emunah, which is my home turf, was rotten and does not penetrate into my life as it needs to. I realized I have no kavvana when I make Birchos Hanehenin. There is a “riboy” of shefa when a person makes a bracha. What does this mean? It means that a person needs to believe that they can eat one portion of food and it will be blessed within them to satisfy them and give them the life sustenance of two portions of food! Sure I always believed in the sechel of emunah in Daas Tevunos, etc. But I never worked on it from this angle. I am “home” in emunah. But I have a whole area within it that I still need to work on.

Everyone of us can do this with a kabbala ketana just as the gedolim did their whole lives.