Mesilas Yesharim 4

Okay, maybe just quickly, what one or two small comments in Mesillat Yesharim. Again, the theme of Perek Aleph is that the point of Olam HaZeh is to reach Olam HaBa. What are the emtza'im that a person that which allow a person to reach Olam HaBa?

האמצעים המגיעים את האדם לתכלית הזה הם המצות אשר צונו עליהן האל יתברך שמו.

Fine. So the emtza'im are the mitzvot. Then later Ramchal says, he describes the milchamah hachazakah in which a person finds himself and having to combat the ta'avot hachomriyot. And then he says that

וכפי השיעור אשר כבש את יצרו ותאותיו ונתרחק מן המרחיקים אותו מהטוב ונשתדל לידבק בו כן ישיגהו וישמח בו. ואם יהיה לבן חיל וינצח המלחמה מן הצדדים הוא יהיה האדם השלם אשר יזכה לידבק בבוראו ויצא מן הפרוזדור הזה ויכנס בטרקלין לאור באור החיים.

So here Ramchal says that the path to Olam HaBa is being mitgaber on the ta'avot hachomriyot. Again, not that a person doesn't mean that a person starves himself, doesn't mean that a person neglects his health, but it means that a person does letachlit, not leta'anug but letachlit. So here already Ramchal says, initially Ramchal says, you want to know what determines what determines whether you get to Olam HaBa? The degree to which you mikayeim mitzvot. Here he seems to leaves mitzvot aside and says what determines whether a person gets to Olam HaBa and to what what station in Olam HaBa is the degree to which he's mitgaber on the ta'avot hachomriyot. So the kasha hashlishi is that Ramchal is assuming the Ramban's exposition of Kedoshim Tihyu which is exactly this, right? That the mitzvot themselves dictate or in particular the Ramban would say the mitzvah Kedoshim Tihyu dictates that a person has to be mitgaber on the ta'avot hachomriyot in order to דבוק בהקדוש ברוך הוא. And therefore it's shnayim shehem echad. The emtza'im are the mitzvot, but not mitzvot in a sense of naval bireshut hatorah the way the Ramban describes, but rather mitzvot in a sense of Kedoshim Tihyu. Not just to keep to keep to be makpid on kashrut, but to gorge oneself with glatt kosher food, but rather to be nizaher achilah shetiyah in a fashion consistent with Kedoshim Tihyu. We've spoken already before in conjunction with Perek Aleph Mesillat Yesharim about the excessive materialism which exists in our society, and our society meaning not just the general society but our Jewish society where you really see it and you see just how how out of balance. just just hits you in an overwhelming fashion. The the excessive gashmius compounded by the the waste of money to fund that gashmius is astounding. אבל על כל פנים, you go to weddings sometimes, you walk in—this is not a product of my imagination—you walk in, so where you walk in just to check your coat, so there's four members of the band who are sitting there and playing. Exactly how that contributes to simchas chassan v'kallah that that you're listening to the band playing while you're checking your coat is beyond me. Then when you get into the after after the chuppah and everything, get into the dinner hall, so then the band is a 10-member band with two people singing. And obviously everything else in terms of the floral centerpieces, everything else is very much in keeping and consistent with this with this approach. So A, the gashmius is just it's just the excessive gashmius is it becomes repulsive at a at a certain point, regardless of whether one has the checkbook to to be able to cover it. And even if one does, you know, the bracha of having money, like every bracha, every bracha carries with it responsibility, to to use that bracha properly. Any ability which a person has, which Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us, so that that ability is also that bracha, that ability is mechayev that a person has to use that bracha to the best of his ability. A person, again, whatever again, everyone has different a different amalgam of kochos hanefesh, but whatever one's personal composite kochos hanefesh is, so a person that's mechayev a person to use it to the best of his ability, as productively as possible. So the same is true, the same is true, one bracha which the Ribbono Shel Olam gives us is a bracha of wealth. So that's also mechayev a person, that's also mechayev a person. So it's not it's not as simple as saying, well, whose business is it if if I can write the check, so whose business is it whether or not the flowers which are which don't last any longer than yonas kikayon, so whose business is it that it costs $10,000, $15,000? And whose business is it, whose business is it if the if the wedding as a whole costs some scandalous amount? But I but there's so many tzedakos which are underfunded, so many poor people in the world, and there's so many yeshivos that that are struggling to to meet their budgets, and there's so many yeshivos which are hard which are hard-pressed because there's so many parents who can't afford the the onerous tuition. This doesn't mean that a person doesn't spend on a wedding, it's also a mitzvah. But but there has to be a little halachically informed common sense in terms of what's a legitimate expense to generate simchas chassan v'kallah and what is A, excessive gashmius and B, simply a a terrible waste of of the bracha which which the Ribbono Shel Olam gave. When Chazal say that by tzaddikim is ממונם חביב עליהם יותר מנפשו, so that's what it means. It means that there's this sense of achrayus to use a bracha, to use a bracha. So so therefore Yaakov Avinu, Yaakov Avinu wasn't cheap in the pachim ketanim. No, but the pachim ketanim... So that's part of the beracha the Ribbono Shel Olam gave me. So I have to use that beracha. It's hard to imagine that that's what one is supposed to do with one's money. It's hard to imagine. The Ramchal quotes later here in Perek Aleph a Midrash from Kohelet Rabbah describing how the Neshama can never be satisfied with Ta'anugei Olam HaZeh. So the Midrash in Kohelet Rabbah says

משל למה הדבר דומה לעירוני שנשא בת מלך אם יביא לה כל מה שבעולם אינם חשובים לה כלום שהיא בת מלך.

So what's he gonna do? She grew up in a palace. She grew up in a mansion. So what's he gonna do? He's gonna bring her home flowers? He's gonna go to the store and he's gonna buy her something? Whatever he can, he can't impress her. Nothing he'll do will even register.

כך הנפש אילו הבאת לה כל מעדני עולם אינם כלום לה למה שהיא מן העליונים.

So all the Ta'anugei Olam HaZeh can't begin to satisfy the Neshama. That's really the underlying cause, right, while we've all heard of sometimes you see people are very restless. Right, a particular form of it, right, which is has been sort of identified and isolated and named, is people have a midlife crisis. Midlife crisis. So what is it? So often, often what the real underlying cause of that restlessness is or that midlife crisis is that whatever it is that they're doing to satisfy themselves is like the ironi bringing the presents to the bat melech. If a person, when a person is 20 and a person is 25, so his dream and he works at his dream, it's not an idle dream, he works, is to climb the corporate ladder and to become very successful and very affluent. And then he gets it, and when he gets it, he feels empty. He feels empty. And ultimately the real cause, underlying cause for that restlessness is exactly what this Midrash says, that if a person can never have any sense of sippuk hanefesh if a person isn't nurturing the Neshama with what the Neshama longs for. And that's the and that's the underlying cause and that dictates what the only genuine solution is. In Perek Bet, just one he'ara on Perek Bet. Mesillat Yesharim finally begins with the first of the middot, the first rung on the ladder of zehirut. It says the definition of zehirut is that a person monitors himself. And specifically what that means is that a person is constantly checking, constantly monitoring whether what he's doing, whether his lifestyle is correct, ולא ילך במהלכ הרגלו כעיוור באפילה. And he doesn't simply pursue his routine like a blind person who nebach has to walk in the dark. And then he uses that phrase again. That Yirmiyahu Hanavi criticizes anshei doro

שהיו רודפים והולכים במרוצת הרגלם ודרכיהם מבלי שיניחו זמן לעצמם לדקדק על המעשים והדרכים ונמצא שהם נופלים ברעה בלא ראותה.

Again, that they were just so so involved with their routine that there was never any kind of self-consciousness about the validity of the routine, whether it was worthwhile, whether it was right. They were just just so busy that they didn't think. And what's more Ramchal describes that this is

מעין עצת פרעה הרשע שאמר תכבד העבודה על האנשים שהיה מתכוון שלא להניח להם רווח כלל ובל יתנו לב או ישימו עצה לנגדם.

Ramchal says something which the Gaon echoes as well. Mamash as pshat in the same psukim when it says in the beginning of Va'eira ולא שמעו אל משה מקוצר רוח ומעבודה קשה so what what is kotzer ruach represent as distinct from avoda kasha? So the Gaon says as follows. The Gaon says avoda kasha is the backbreaking labor which they had to do. He says the kotzer ruach, this is exactly what Ramchal says. The kotzer ruach is what Paroh sought. Moshe Rabbeinu comes at the end of Parshat Shmot and demands a furlough. He demands that that the Bnei Yisrael be given a vacation. So what does Paroh seek? So what Paroh's response is that they're not going to be given straw anymore, they're going to have to gather the straw. So how does that add to the to the onus of the servitude? Until now they're building pyramids and they're dealing with bricks, now they have to pick up straw? So the answer is, what it does is, apparently Paroh said in terms of the physical exhaustion, in terms of physically they're being pushed to the limit. If I make it any more onerous physically, so we'll kill them, I don't want to kill them, we want to have slaves. However, apparently they have free time, they have time to think. If they want a break, it means they can think. It means they can reflect, it means they can be misbonen. That's very dangerous. So what we have to do is keep them so busy that they have no time to think. And that's exactly what Ramchal says also. That was me'ein atzas Paroh ובל יתנו לב או ישימו עצה לנגדם. Keep them so preoccupied and so busy that there's no time to think. If there's no time to think, then you then you can't question your routine, you can't try to change your routine. You just keep on doing because you're too busy to even have time to step back for a minute and reflect on what it is you're doing. That's what the Gaon says. This part Ramchal doesn't say. That's what the kotzer ruach is. That's what the kotzer ruach is in addition to avoda kasha was ולא שמעו אל משה because they had no time to think. They didn't have a time to think. And that's what Ramchal describes as that's what the atzas yeitzer hara is that that we have to take great care, take great care to avoid. Several years ago I was davening Shabbos morning in in Rabbi Widder's shul and he was away. It was Parshat Shmot, he was away. He was in Eretz Yisrael. So Rabbi Ausband was giving the the drasha. So it was either Shmot or Va'eira, I forget which of the two parshiyos it was. He mentioned this vort of the Gaon, not the Ramchal, but the Gaon he mentioned. And then he had a very, a very insightful and and important ha'ara. He said that nowadays, not not too many of us have to cope with a nisayon of avoda kasha. Not too many people who who work in blue collar jobs. Most most Jews work in In in many ways has that nisayon magnified because what once upon a time, once upon a time, when you were away from home, okay, so you had no phone, so you could think. You were out in the street, you could think. You were driving, you could think. So nowadays on on one hip you have a cell phone and lest chas v'shalom the cell phone not be working, you have a beeper on the other hip. So the net result of all that is that a person is never away from it. So once upon a time a person was in the office from nine to five. At least when he was going to and from work, so maybe then he'd be misbonen and reflecting: 'Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing?' And now a person, a person is always, always in touch. Okay, so it has many obviously, it has many wonderful, wonderful applications and and obviously the technology can and is, is being used for excellent, excellent things. But like everything, it has its downside also. And it's very, very important that a person shouldn't just get so drawn into a routine that a person forgets, forgets what's important, what he's trying to achieve. Because what happens is too often a person goes to work. He goes to work for the right reasons, because it's a mitzvah to make a hishtadlus for parnassa. So let's say, whatever, it can be he goes to work as a lawyer out of law school in a law firm, but lav davka, not that there's, not that you don't have equal nisyunos in in so many other professions as well. But if a person gets so caught up in mahalach hergeilo, so he forgets that he's there because it's a mitzvah to make a hishtadlus for parnassa. And then you just sort of get involved in the routine. So the routine is, the routine is well, everyone else is there because you're there to make partner, and then once you're there to make partner you're there to earn a lot of money. And then as long as אין איש שם על לב, as long as a person is just being swept along by a tide of of routine or hergeil, so then a person, a person forgets. And a person then, then if he has to choose between a job which has more moderate hours, which allows more time for keviyas itim l'Torah or being osek b'tzorchei tzibur or or learning with his, learning with his children or one which brings home a bigger paycheck, so because of the hergeil, so he thinks that he's there just for the money. He's there just for the money. And if he ever realizes the mistake, so what's he going to do? He can't turn the clock back. If if at age, at age 50 he realizes that he missed his children's childhood and that he didn't learn with them while they were growing up because he was busy climbing the the ladder of of wherever he was, so what's he going to do? What's he going to do? So that's what the Mesillas Yesharim says: a person can't just get swept away with the routine. No, a person has to have, I think the Mishnah Berurah quotes at the end of chelek sheini from the sifrei mussar that a person makes a cheshbon hanefesh every night. A person constantly monitoring: what am I doing, why am I doing it, what am I seeking to accomplish, and do I have to fine tune anything? Do I have to adjust anything? If if this is just a hishtadlus for parnassa, but I'm working from eight in the morning till eleven at night, and parnassa is only supposed to be one component of the package of avodas Hashem, there's supposed to be other components, then something is out of sync here. Something is out of balance. So you have to, there's an there's an adjustment, there's a correction that has to be made. But but if a person doesn't give himself the time to make that cheshbon hanefesh, he comes home so tired at night, he can't even make that cheshbon hanefesh, gets up the next morning, vaiter the same routine, so he doesn't give himself the time to think the thought. And when he thinks the thought, he has to he has to battle the yeitzer hara again because very often the long, long days are very, very in a superficial sense, very, very financially rewarding. And a person has to again monitor and not just get caught up in the hergeil and and ask himself about what he's doing, why... What am I doing? Why am I doing it? And is what I'm doing consistent with why I'm doing it as well?