We can take this one step further. Sometimes, we excel at certain mitzvos, but only in specific settings. Take the fellow who lives and breathes askanus. He is always involved in klal matters, always available to help another Yid. Yet he might behave at home like a tyrant, ruling his roost with an iron fist. How do we view such a person? We are quick to dismiss his public persona as a smokescreen, with his real character revealing itself at home, but the truth is far more complex.
Conforming to the Torah’s expectations versus forging an individual path. Fulfilling our obligations versus developing our personalities.
The past few weeks, we delved into several aspects of this apparent paradox regarding the proper approach to mitzvos. We are certainly meant to develop our inner world, and we saw that an authentic struggle to perform our responsibilities can help us identify our individuality. We also learned how to foster a connection to a mitzva without dealing with the obligation itself head on.
However, to educate others properly, we must first be involved in our own self-education. This is not to say that only after completely correcting our own character flaws can we successfully help others. Such an attitude can even be counterproductive, as it promotes an attitude that can unnecessarily further the divide between the educator and the child. Rather, our own involvement grants us the sensitivity and awareness to work together with the child, to appreciate the necessary components of education in that area.
Specifically, by working on our own connection to mitzvos, we come to realize that the entire dichotomy mentioned earlier is an illusion. In fact, it is precisely our attempts to fulfill our obligations that allow us to discover and develop our unique personalities.
We are all familiar with the famous mashal regarding the porter who was lugging heavy suitcases for a traveler. When he arrived at his destination, panting heavily, the owner confidently informed him that he had mistakenly taken the wrong luggage. “I am a diamond merchant,” he said. “You would not exert yourself carrying my suitcase.” In a similar vein, says the Dubno Magid, it is a pleasant and easy task to keep the Torah. If we are working too hard, and we find the Torah to be a burden, we are clearly not doing things properly.
A beautiful and inspirational thought, to be sure, but it behooves us to take his words seriously, and to contemplate whether this truly fits with our personal experience. Can we realistically expect to sit back and relax, and everything will go well? We hold the Torah in the highest esteem, and value its every word more than diamonds. Yet fulfilling its mitzvos certainly seems to entail much hard work and effort?
There is a way for someone to shoulder a burden with ease. If a person has a strong desire to perform a certain task, it becomes infinitely easier for him to carry out his intentions. If he is doing what comes naturally to him, if he finds himself drawn to his work, then he will not even consider it a burden, despite all the effort it entails.
Thus, the Dubno Magid is telling us we can always find an affinity with the mitzvos. They are fitting for us; they are compatible with our kochos hanefesh. Yes, they require hard work, but if we are not working against our nature, we can work serenely, not weighed down by too much pressure.
But this, too, is difficult to understand. True, we feel an innate connection to some mitzvos, and we perform them readily and easily. Others, however, we find harder to perform naturally; they are not in our wheelhouse. How can he claim that we can work easily with every mitzva?
Here, we must understand, or at least recognize, a deep truth about the Torah. We know that all Creation is made of four fundamental elements – fire, air, water, and earth. Rav Chaim Vital explains how all our various midos are merely different manifestations of these essential components of our personalities.
Now, this only refers to the physical aspect of the person, to his interaction with the tangible world around him, all his senses and feelings. However, we also know that the human body consists of 365 sinews and 248 limbs, corresponding to the 613 mitzvos. In other words, a person is connected to another dimension, to another stratum of existence. This is the miraculous phenomena of ‘Torah in this world’ – somehow, the basic, physical elements of a person serve as a vehicle for the higher, loftier reality, comprising the 613 elements, to express itself.
Our individual development is a microcosm of this very same process. We have our personality, the unique blend of character traits that make us who we are. Whenever we encounter a mitzva, our immediate reaction is to determine whether it resonates with us or not. If we do not feel that connection, we try to find the strength to persevere, to force ourselves to comply. However, this is not the way to build a person. Just as the higher dimension is completely rooted in our lower reality, so, too, the entire Torah resonates deep within every single Yid. And just as Hashem created the full stature of a person, the entire Taryag, from the four basic elements, our task is to build our tzuras adam from our midos. We do not build ourselves in a vacuum, creating a Torah-observant Jew, distinct from our natural self. We seek to develop our Torah identity from within, based on our individual midos. This requires us to dig deeper into our personality, to find ways that we can relate our natural inclinations to each mitzva, because those midos that are easily perceivable will only take us so far. We will meet up with situations where they fall short, forcing us to discern previously unrecognized abilities. This should be an ongoing, exciting process of exploration and discovery. When we work in this way, we will willingly and naturally engage with our obligations, without perceiving them as a burden.
This stands in stark contrast to the personal development encouraged by secular education. When a person sets himself a goal, he will often focus on an area of personal strength. He then directs all his efforts at building up this skill, often neglecting other aspects of his personality in the process. We are then left with a distorted version of a human being – greatly developed in one way while correspondingly stunted in another.
Torah education, on the other hand, seeks to develop the entire person. All our kochos, all aspects of our personality, are harnessed for our avodas Hashem, allowing us to deal with every situation properly. Let us consider several examples where we are confronted with this challenge.
Some people are more introverted, and do not derive much enjoyment from social gatherings and the accompanying chitchat. They might find themselves naturally drawn to the private or ‘spiritual’ aspects of the Torah, happy to sit quietly with their siddur or Gemara. To enter another person’s world, to listen to them, to give them what they need, might be tiresome and difficult. Others have exactly the opposite profile. They are social butterflies, always surrounding themselves with other people. For them, sitting alone and connecting through Torah or tefilla is challenging, but they thrive on their social interactions and acts of chesed. And of course, all of us fall somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes. Yet everyone is equally obligated in the mitzvos bein adam l‘makom and the mitzvos bein adam l’chaveiro, regardless of what they think is their “type.” Your spouse, your friend, might very well have emotional needs that require you to step out of your comfort zone.
We can take this one step further. Sometimes, we excel at certain mitzvos, but only in specific settings. Take the fellow who lives and breathes askanus. He is always involved in klal matters, always available to help another Yid. Yet he might behave at home like a tyrant, ruling his roost with an iron fist. How do we view such a person? We are quick to dismiss his public persona as a smokescreen, with his real character revealing itself at home, but the truth is far more complex. More likely, this person has a natural connection to chesed, but it is limited to the forms of social interactions which are only available in the communal setting, not to the empathy and caring needed to function appropriately at home.
Let me give you a personal example. My connection to bein adam l’chaveiro naturally takes the form of helping people, guiding them to navigate difficult life situations or decisions. However, this is only relevant in one sphere of my life, outside my home. My wife, b”H, does not require my assistance in this way. Therefore, I cannot fall back on my comfortable methods and routines. I need to discover and activate other kochos, different ways of connecting, for this relationship.
Another painful illustration of this issue is the current trend of parental alienation. A person might have valid concerns regarding certain relationships, yet the basic obligation of kibud av v’eim, in most cases, remains intact. Thus, the halacha obligates him to discover new kochos, to find new ways of relating, that allow him to maintain this vital connection while avoiding toxicity in the relationship.
In all these cases, we must remember that our task is to build ourselves as people, as Yidden. There is more to every person than meets the eye. We must be creative in accessing all these kochos and utilizing them for our Torah obligations, to allow us to deal properly with difficult circumstances, as well. And so, we come to acknowledge the truth of what we stated earlier: It is precisely our attempts to fulfill our obligations that allow us to discover and develop our unique personalities.
This affords us greater insight into the ideal situation referred to by the seforim as “the sechel guiding the midos.” They are not advocating for us to function like a well-controlled puppet, our every move dictated by our dispassionate intellect. Rather, we are curtailing our natural kochos, not allowing them free reign to express themselves at will. We use our sechel to activate these kochos in the right ‘mida’, to the proper extent. Every individual needs to find the right balance, the situations where he requires the right amount of each specific mida.
Here, once again, we recognize the crucial role played by the educator. Left to his own devices, a person will easily convince himself with delusions of self-awareness. “I know myself well, and I know I do not have certain strengths.” Yet, we must admit to the fallacy of such thinking. We are faced with Torah obligations; ergo, we possess the capabilities to perform them properly. The mechanech, as an outsider, can help identify the kochos we can utilize for a specific mitzva.
Contrast this approach with the shallowness of our generation’s preoccupation with ‘motivation’. We are always seeking ways to motivate ourselves, and it is almost de rigueur to follow the latest inspirational speaker. What does this propensity signify? It means we are working against our natural tendencies. This eventually drains us, and so we constantly need to “recharge our batteries.” If we would be working in sync with our nature, with our personal midos, our energy would be fueled by the mitzva itself, without resorting to all the external fanfare.
For the same reason, we cannot follow any of the prescribed formulas for self-improvement that are so popular nowadays, or to compare our own journey to others. Too often, we fixate on the image of a famous personality, someone who exemplifies for us a certain desirable mida. Invariably, comparing ourselves to this person leaves us feeling small and insignificant, and we become discouraged, or simply give up. If we shift our focus from perfecting our external actions to building up the tzuras adam inside us, this entire exercise becomes meaningless, because we are each built differently. By tapping into our unique kochos, we will surely find a way to connect naturally to the Torah.
