via Rabbi David Lapin, iawaken.org
“Happiness is not about how much you have, but about how little you miss.”
Would you daven three times a day (assuming you are a man) if there were no chiyuv (obligation) or reward for davening? Which mitzvot would you continue to keep consistently if they were voluntary and there was no reward for doing them nor negative consequence for not keeping them? Think about it carefully and consider asking it of your children.
I recently put this question to a group of Benei Torah from various walks of life that had come to join me in a “Tefillin Workshop.” They answered candidly: very few would keep anything, some would continue to keep Shabbat because it was good for family cohesiveness. This means that their shemirat hamitzvot (mitzvah observance) was inherently fear driven, and they experienced no inherent attraction to and benefit in most mitzvah observance, or not sufficient to warrant the commitment to it. This contrasts with, say, practitioners of Meditation who practice it religiously even though there is no chiyuv or reward. They do it for the benefits they feel. Why are so many of us not feeling similar benefits from our davening?
I reviewed some halachik, Talmudic and kabbalistic elements of the mitzvah of Tefillin with the Workshop and then took them through a process of learning how to put Tefillin on mindfully. We used some simple breathing and concentration techniques to still the mind from distraction and focus it on the mitzvah. We learnt how to feel the various contact points of the Tefillin with the body. We practiced staying with the experience of the mitzvah for a few moments before launching into the davening. I urged them to practice these techniques and let me know their experiences. For many it was life changing and has remained so. Those young men would now put on Tefillin each day even if it were not a chiyuv. Several are investing a little more time and a lot more thought in this precious mitzvah than they ever have before.
Part of the allure of Eastern and New Age Philosophies is that they enhance their practitioners’ Olam Hazeh (This World) experience rather than merely promise them a better Olam Habbah (World to Come). People who practice yoga and meditation feel the benefits almost immediately. Relaxing their bodies and clearing their minds, they learn how to access deeper levels of their subconscious wisdom.
The practice of shemirat hamitzvot is no different. Our problem is that we are seldom as mentally disciplined about the “mindfulness dimension” of kiyum hamitzvot (performing the mitzvot) as serious followers of meditation are about their practice. People who do take the time to practice mitzvot with deep, mindful intention, or Kavanah, and mentally connect with and meditate[1] on the cheftza shel mitzvah (object used for a mitzvah); experience more profound transcendence than is possible from secular meditation.
Many of our educators through no fault of their own are not skilled in helping people perform mitzvot in ways that are instantly pleasing and transcendentally uplifting. Instruction is exclusively focused on the ever-vital area of halachah and halachik technique. Even when Kabbalistic ideas are introduced, they are spiritually captivating as a philosophy but seldom learnt as a hands-on technology for spiritual self-mastery and ego-abolition. The outcome is that many of us spend a lifetime growing in technical observance but remain crippled in our spiritual evolution, emotional fulfillment and development of character. The result: The Torah world is losing too many young people.
The science of Mussar
There is a specialized area of Torah that focuses on spiritual growth and transcendence, the science of Sheleimut Ha’adam (developing human wholeness). This area is Mussar. And Reb Elya Lopian z”tzl, one of my teachers, was one of its contemporary masters (please visit the new Reb Elya page on iAwaken for Reb Elya shiurim).[2] What is Mussar really?
Mussar has many different faces, and it has suffered from still being presented in the packaging of yesteryear. We have changed the way we present Gemarra. Look at the Artscroll and countless other packaging’s of Shas particularly to help Daf Yomi learners. The siddur has been repackaged into a thoroughly user-friendly presentation; we daven in smaller, more intimate and serious minyanim instead of the awe-inspiring structures filled with cantorial and choral music. We have learnt new ways to present Hashkafa and Halachah to the modern intelligentsia who are becoming more and more serious about their Torah study and observance. Times and tastes have changed and we have changed the presentation of our Yiddishkeit while trying not to change its essence. But we have failed to change the packaging of Mussar. What should the new packaging for Mussar look like?
Like many of you, this week I was transformed by some of Reb Elya’s shmuessen (conversations/presentations) and am struck by how stunningly “New Age” they are! I could repackage almost all of what he teaches in the language of Eckhart Tolle[3] and others, and without changing the meaning at all, you would think Reb Elya was their source rather than the Upanishads and the ancient Vedanta texts of India!
The first Shmues I listened to, titled Haolam Hazeh Lamai,[4] was on Olam Hazeh (This World) and Mussar. Reb Elya explained that all pain is a function of loss, or fear of loss. The more we crave and the more we need, the more we open ourselves to pain and loss. He talked about chazal’s comment on man’s insatiable desires: “Man does not leave this world with even half of his desires satisfied; for if he has one hundred he craves to convert them into two hundred; he has two hundred and wants four and so on.”[5]
Having much vs. Being great
Happiness, explained Reb Elya, is not about how much you have, it is about how little you miss. Not missing much is a function of how great you are rather than of how much you have. It is a function of BEING not of HAVING. The bigger the person is, the less they need in order to feel satisfied. Great people are nourished by the richness they find in small things. Small people need big things and many of them to nourish themselves; and then they live in fear of losing those things, and they feel pain when they do. To become a greater BEING requires avodah (practice [n]): the practice of daily Mussar, an emotional avodah of personal and spiritual improvement. To perfect yourself, you need to work on yourself with the same diligence that you would to perfect anything else.
Mussar is an avodah and not a textual study (Reb Elya says that one should master the classical Mussar texts, but that is standard Torah learning, and is different from the spiritual practice of Mussar). As such it is enhanced by repetition much as a chorus or a poetic refrain enhances the work of art. He tells of a chazzan who davened maariv at a wedding he attended. When the chazzan got to Hashkiveinu and said “Vehaseir mimenu oyeiv dever vecherev vera’av . vehaseir sattan..etc” (and remove from us the threat of the enemy, of war, and of famine.remove the Satan from us) everyone including he began to cry. Why did they cry, he asked? Had they never before contemplated these ideas? Had they never said this prayer before? Did they not previously know what a cherev (enemy) was or the Satan? No, he explains, it was not the linear meaning of the words that moved the people to tears, it was the Chazan’s voice, and the emotions he evoked with his feelings that moved people and changed them. Mussar works too by the feeling of the images it evokes: Mussar is right-brain work, not left-brain analysis. You need to work on each few lines before continuing to the next. You need to work not only to absorb them, but also to experiment with them, to try them out in practice.
I remember when he gave that shmuess in the Yeshiva. After he finished, he invited us to listen to him learning the opening chapter of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto’s Mesilat Yesharim. With a voice that could shatter a window pane (and on more than one occasion did) he would piercingly chant the opening phrases over, and over, and over again: “Yesod hachasidut, veshoresh ha’avodah hatemimah, sheyitbareir veyitameit eitzel ha’adam mah chovato be’olamo” (The foundation of piety and the root of perfect practice, requires that a person know with clarity and with truth, what his responsibility is in the world, and what his vision and his mission should be in everything he works for, his entire life.) He would chant it many times. He would send shivers down our spines. He transformed us in front of his eyes. Then, the whole of that week, he would run practical hands-on workshops to mentor us in the practicalities of implementing those ideas. This was modern strategy, mission and vision. This was current “New Age” thinking: focus and visioning, meditation with use of a “mantra”: in this case the Mesilat Yesharim.
Reb Elya’s Mussar, however, had two palpable dimensions that “new Age” spirituality cannot have: kedusha and mitzvah – the dimensions of sanctity and satisfying the will of the G-d we adore. Using Reb Elya’s methodology of Hitpa’alut (emotional enthusiasm), the mindful and alert Mussar practitioner experiences these dimensions of kedushah and mitzvah tangibly.
Sanctity is not the creation of Divine intent, but its fulfillment
Even Hitpa’alut though has its limits. It is designed to heighten spiritual experience and to convert knowledge into personal movement and action. The excitement we feel in those transcendental moments of connectedness with Hashem and His Torah changes who we are and the quality with which we act. Emotional enthusiasm should never translate into a level of volunteerism that creates spiritual practices not designed and instructed by Hashem. Even when Torah reformation is motivated by a zealous excitement and commitment, even when that reformation ads rather than detracts from Torah, it is still reformation and as such it is forbidden. In the parsha we see the tragic outcome of two of our greatest, the sons of Ahron, expressing their hitpa’alut in a way that innovated a temple practice not ordained by Hashem.
In spiritual practice the Torah way, kedusha and mitzvah go hand in hand: sanctity is achieved not by the creation of Divine intent but in its precise and enthusiastic fulfillment.
Notes:
[1] Meditation is a technique that uses breathing and sometimes exclusive focus on an object or phrase of the practitioners choice, to still the clatter of the conscious mind opening access to deeper intuitive and subconscious levels of da’at (knowledge). Meditation is a secular instrument, like therapy or psychoanalysis, with no inherent religious association, and many secular licensed therapy practitioners use it today. It helps to access the subconscious, and with practice sometimes seems even to penetrate to deep soul levels. However in pure Eastern and New Age Philosophies meditation does not associate with any deity. If it did, it would be Avodah Zarah (an idolatrous practice). Just as concentration is a secular tool that can be used to enhance any study including the study of Torah, so too meditation can be used to focus your mind on Torah and Tefillah. Refer to my shiurim on Nefesh Hachaim by Reb Chaim Valoshner to see how Reb Chaim uses principles of meditation (which as Aryeh Kaplan in Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide, shows is indigenous to our Mesorah [tradition] and always has been). He shows different techniques including focusing exclusive attention on the formation of the letters of the prayers.
[2] http://www.iawaken.org/shiurim/rabbiElyaLopian.asp
[3] The Power of Now.
[4] http://iawaken.org/shiurim/view.asp?id=6540
[5] Kohelet Rabbah, also quoted in Menorat Hamaor, Introduction to Neir 1.
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