Part I: The Necessity of Self-Confidence in Avodas Hashem
Every Beginning Is an Opportunity
Every beginning is an opportunity for renewal. The Borei Yisborach, in His boundless goodness, perpetually renews Creation, granting us repeated opportunities to start afresh. Indeed, every new beginning fills us with hope and lofty expectations of ourselves. When we begin learning a new masechta, we are imbued with the desire and optimism to master it properly; similarly, at the start of a zman, we arrive laden with good intentions for growth and ascent.
Yet all too often, these expectations fail to account for the shortcomings we have long since come to know within ourselves. When those very failings resurface rather quickly — as they inevitably do — they plunge us into despondent thoughts of failure. We feel as though, once again, we have failed to truly grow and rise. These thoughts obstruct and impede our development in avodas Hashem. We are therefore obligated to reflect carefully on how to avoid falling into this same pattern again and again.
The Root of the Problem: Misplaced Self-Confidence
It would seem that the root of this difficulty lies in our middah of self-confidence. For reasons that are not entirely clear, we have come to accept the notion that we simply cannot be people with shortcomings. Our entire sense of confidence and self-image rests exclusively upon our virtues and strengths. Consequently, whenever we encounter a failing within ourselves, we scramble to ignore it, to push it aside, and to turn the spotlight back upon our merits — or else we frantically search for a quick solution to that particular flaw, all in order to prevent it from undermining our self-confidence.
The truth, however, is that there are shortcomings that never leave a person at all, or that at least take decades to overcome and uproot. It is therefore abundantly clear that seeking quick fixes or suppressing our awareness of our failings while focusing exclusively on our virtues is neither the proper path nor the true foundation upon which to build self-confidence.
The True Foundation of Self-Confidence
It becomes evident, then, that the proper foundation of self-confidence should not be dependent upon any particular virtue or failing. Rather, it should rest upon the remarkable capacity that the Borei Yisborach has granted each of us — the ability to work upon ourselves in every situation and circumstance, with our strengths and with our weaknesses. Our confidence lies in the very fact that we are capable of avodah.
We must not suppress or ignore our shortcomings. And while we are certainly obligated by the Torah to work toward self-improvement and refinement, the recognition of a failing should never induce in us a sense of helplessness — as though we are somehow worthless. On the contrary, we must strengthen our conviction that even as we remain distant from where we ought to be, we have nonetheless been granted the ongoing capacity to work and to grow ever further.
The Purpose of Learning Mussar
The entire discipline of learning mussar is grounded in the recognition of one’s shortcomings, for mussar functions like a mirror held before one’s eyes, through which every flaw and every virtue become visible. Mussar is not intended to prompt us to seek out virtues that will cover over our many failings. When a person recognizes that he struggles with jealousy or covetousness, he shouldn’t console himself with the thought that at least he is also a lamdan. Quite the opposite — the very purpose of learning mussar is to train ourselves to look squarely at our shortcomings and to work with them and on them.
We must therefore not be broken or flee from our failings. We must cultivate a self-confidence that enables us to view each shortcoming as a point of avodah, not as a point of failure. Even at times of new beginnings and fresh opportunities, we should not suppress the familiar failings we carry. Instead, we must trust in ourselves — fully aware that those very shortcomings will inevitably resurface again and again — and recognize that together with them comes the possibility for avodah and for contending with them.
Breaking Free from the Paralysis of Failure
The core deficiency in self-confidence stems from the fact that each time we encounter a failing, we convince ourselves that our situation is hopeless — that we can no longer advance in life. But if we learn to perceive that within every such failing lies a remarkable opportunity for inner work, we can sharpen our sense of self-worth, recognizing that we have value at all times, even with our shortcomings. From this vantage point, we can approach every challenge with confidence and resolve.
Now that it has become clear to us that avodas Hashem requires us to possess genuine self-confidence, we are called upon to engage in deep and sustained reflection on how this quality is to be developed. While the world at large abounds with ideas and programs for building self-confidence, as bnei Torah it would seem that we must consider how the Torah itself guides us in this matter. We will therefore seek, in the coming period, b’ezras Hashem, to examine and engage with this subject at greater length.
Part II: Confidence Rooted in Effort, Not Outcome
The sugiya of self-confidence occupies us deeply from our earliest years and does not relent as we grow older. Though its outward expression shifts with age, the essence of the sugiya is present and alive at nearly every stage of life. The world outside offers a wide array of approaches and solutions for cultivating self-confidence, yet as bnei Torah, it seems that we must seek our answer to this question from within the Torah itself.
We often observe that as a person matures, this sugiya takes on ever greater weight. What is more, it seems that precisely among the tzibbur of bnei Torah, the matter burns with particular intensity. From these very phenomena, we can begin to identify what it is that erodes self-confidence, and what the tools and pathways are for attaining it.
The Trap of Achievement-Oriented Thinking
One of the primary factors that undermines our self-confidence is the aspiration toward and pursuit of goals and achievements. We frequently set targets for ourselves that we wish to reach, focusing entirely on arriving at the destination, while the journey itself is perceived as nothing more than an obstacle to be navigated and overcome.
This tendency causes us to fix our gaze exclusively on results rather than on the process. Accordingly, our self-confidence becomes entirely contingent upon achieving those results: when we have reached our goal, we feel confident; but as long as it remains out of reach, we feel utterly devoid of confidence. As a person grows older and looks back, he finds that the majority of his goals and aspirations have not materialized. And as long as his primary desire remains the pursuit of achievements and outcomes, his lack of self-confidence will only deepen with the passage of time.
Among bnei Torah, the challenge is all the more acute, for we tend to focus perpetually on the bottom line — on the conclusion of the sugiya and the final psak halachah. As long as we are not fulfilling the halachah in its most precise and final formulation, we experience a sense of utter inadequacy, because we are not living within the process and the capacity for avodah, but within the expectation of a final result and a definitive achievement.
The Ramchal’s Teaching: Process Over Outcome
In truth, however, this approach is fundamentally mistaken, for the primary ratzon of the Borei Yisborach is precisely the avodah and striving — not necessarily the attainment of any particular result. This is evident from the words of the Ramchal in Mesillas Yesharim (Perek 1), where he teaches that the tachlis of a person’s avodah in this world is always “panim v’achor” — “tranquility on one hand and suffering on the other, until the battle is waged against him from the front and from the rear”. The ultimate purpose is continuous avodah, not the achievement of defined objectives.
It is natural for a person to evaluate himself in relation to others. And indeed, as long as the primary focus is on achieving outcomes, when a person looks to his right and left and sees others who have attained results while he has not, his self-confidence is diminished and weakened — for only results carry meaning, and without results there is only failure. But if the primary focus is the derech, the lifelong journey of avodah, then no meaningful comparison can be drawn between one person’s path and another’s, for each individual must act in the manner that is right for him, in accordance with his particular strengths and the traits of his neshamah.
The Confidence That Comes from Being a Ba’al Avodah
When we internalize that the avodah itself is primary, our self-confidence grows. For the capacity to do avodah is not dependent upon any particular achievement or milestone; it rests upon our enduring ability to continuously ascend and grow. This capacity grants us genuine confidence in the very fact that we are ba’alei avodah — for the essential focus is not on final results and achievements, but on the derech and the ongoing avodas chaim.
A ready example of this is the search for a position in Torah communal life. We tend to assume that only the person who secures a “shteleh” has truly arrived and can feel confident in himself, since he is able to teach and influence others. Those of us who have not received such a position, we feel, are somehow lacking and of lesser worth.
On this very point it is fitting to cite the words of Reb Itzele of Volozhin in his introduction to Nefesh HaChaim, where he relates that his father, the Grach — Reb Chaim of Volozhin — would constantly rouse his talmidim with the teaching that every single person, wherever he may find himself, was created for no purpose other than to benefit others. We must pause and reflect upon these words: Could this mean that every person must hold a formal position or communal role?!
What emerges from his words is that benefiting others is not confined to delivering a shiur or fulfilling some public communal role. Rather, through the very act of his personal avodah and his inner struggles, a person benefits others. The manner in which he strives to develop and grow, ever onward and upward, is itself what uplifts and influences all those around him. Upon reflection, we can perceive that this understanding has the power to profoundly strengthen our self-confidence — rooted in the remarkable capacity we each possess to work upon ourselves and to exert a positive influence upon ourselves and upon those around us.