Growth During Downtime: Serving Hashem 24×7

Thank you very much, Rabbi Yuden, for those auspicious and warm words. I ask your indulgence for the frequent interruptions for drinking. But achreikh lo yeguneh. The Rambam writes in Hilchos Deios, he quotes a mishna with which we're all familiar from Pirkei Avos. The mishna says וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים. Whatever a person does should be geared towards, should be oriented towards HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Now on the one hand, so why quote it from the Rambam if it's an explicit mishna in Pirkei Avos? And the answer is that if you study Pirkei Avos and you follow up the cross-references to the mishnayos in Pirkei Avos to the Rambam, so you'll notice that some of the mishnayos in Pirkei Avos when the Rambam quotes them, he quotes them in Perek Hey, which is the perek which deals with the higher standard of expectation from a talmid chacham. The Rambam introduces פרק ה הלכות דעות, I think it's Perek Hey, by saying that כשם שהחכם ניכר בדעותיו, that just as the chacham is distinguished by his knowledge, so too the chacham is supposed to be distinguished through his conduct, through his demeanor, through his way of speaking. And it's quite clear from the Rambam that there is a higher standard, a different set of expectations for the talmid chacham than for others. And as you make your way through that perek in the Rambam, you'll encounter some of the mishnayos from Pirkei Avos. So clearly the Rambam understood it that not everything which we're taught in Pirkei Avos is necessarily intended for all of us, some of it is intended for the rather elite group of talmidei chachamim. Now that being the case, so I think our guess would have been if there was any mishna from Pirkei Avos which would be assigned to Perek Hey, which would be limited to talmidei chachamim, it's this rather demanding mandate of וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים, that everything you do should be l'shem shamayim. And that notwithstanding, the Rambam actually quotes this mishna earlier in Perek Gimmel when he's addressing all of us, not when he's addressing the talmidei chachamim but when he's addressing all of us. So apparently everyone, in his or her own way, with his or her own unique blend of Torah, Avodah, Gemilus Chassadim, is capable of devoting his or her entire life, his or her entire being, to the service of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Everyone of us has the ability, the capacity to answer this exhortation of וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים. But we also know that one of the hallmarks of the Torah, one of the hallmarks of Halacha, is that Halacha, Torah, is very realistic. And thus we find it in Hilchos Deios again when the Rambam gives us advice and counsel. He says, the average person needs to sleep eight hours a night. So he doesn't tell us you have to make do with three hours, with four hours, and you know, you'll get by on coffee and Coke the rest of the time. Rambam says no, the average person needs eight hours. There is a very beautiful passage in the Shemonah Perakim in the Rambam's introduction to his commentary in Pirkei Avos where the Rambam describes how if a person is overcome with a certain sense of sadness, maybe depression with a lowercase d, so the Rambam describes how the person should try to dispel that sense of sadness, that mild depression. Mordechai Ben David, that the Rambam was too diplomatic to take a position on. But one should listen to songs, one should listen to different melodies. U-be-tiyul be-ganos, u-be-ginnei pe'er, walking in a garden, walking... u-binyanei pe'er, excuse me, and looking at impressive buildings, Vi-yeshiva bi-tzuros na'os. He should revive himself by looking at aesthetically pleasing images. So clearly this is sort of symptomatic. The Torah recognizes that we have a need to relax. The Torah recognizes that there is a need for downtime. Now, there's clearly no contradiction between on the one hand the mandate of וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים that we're supposed to orient ourselves 24/7 towards the service of Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu, even when sleeping, even when resting, the Rambam says under the rubric of that halacha. With on the other hand the realism which acknowledges that we need time to relax, that we need downtime. The harmonizing third verse is provided by יסוד ושורש העבודה. He quotes from the Chovos ha-Levavos that when a person needs to relax, it's a mitzvah to relax. A person can relax le-shem shamayim also. The same way a person learns le-shem shamayim, a person davens le-shem shamayim, a person engages in chessed le-shem shamayim, a person can and should when necessary relax le-shem shamayim as well. And truth be told, the same way there are halachos to govern that teach us about ribbis, about interest, and other halachos relating to business transactions so we'll know how to conduct business, and the Hilchos Shabbos to tell us how to conduct ourselves on Shabbos, and the Sefer Chofetz Chaim to tell us how we should speak, what we can speak about, what we shouldn't speak about, the truth is that there is also to be elicited halachos of yemei ha-chofesh also, of how to relax, how to enjoy downtime le-shem shamayim. What we're going to try to discuss a little bit of this evening, in no way will it be comprehensive, but at least try to highlight perhaps one or two perhaps misconceptions that we have which underlie and which bring about various mistakes and mishaps as well. The first one is clear already, which is that we have a very overly narrow conception of what avodas Hashem entails. We generally associate avodas Hashem again with learning, with davening, with chessed. But clearly what the mandate of וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים teaches us is that that's an overly narrow conception and that avodas Hashem is really something which can and should, everyone within his or her own unique blend within Torah and mitzvos, is really something which should encompass all spheres and all activities of life. Another I think basic misconception, one which we sort of imbibe via osmosis from the culture in which we live, is that we don't begin to understand or appreciate the reality of our senses. Of the sense of speech, the sense of sight, the sense of hearing, etc. The modern Western mentality... I don't know and I don't know what's the case in terms of history of Western thought, I don't know whether it was any different then, but certainly in contemporary society, there's no appreciation for the significance of the five senses. Let me just explain. Obviously, everyone understands that God forbid, for a person to be mute or deaf or blind, that's a severe physical handicap, Rachmana litzlan, and everyone recognizes the physical reality. But what we're talking about is that the five senses not only connect us, expose us to a physical reality, but also to a moral and spiritual reality. And there's a moral and spiritual reality which we experience, to which we expose ourselves when we employ the senses. Maybe let's begin to just illustrate this with the again, the ability, again, not necessarily the senses, but again, in terms of just physical actions, the ability to speak. The ability to speak. So we know, right, there's a nursery rhyme of the "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me." Okay, it's a nursery rhyme, but the truth is it's one that we don't really outgrow and it's one which insinuates a certain Hashkafas olam, a certain outlook. And that is that while sticks and stones, that's a reality, but words? No, it's not really real. The Torah doesn't view it that way at all. Lav bichti, when the Torah describes, albeit metaphorically, and Chazal remind us of this in Avos that בעשרה מאמרות נברא העולם, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world through ten utterances. Again, when we talk about Hakadosh Baruch Hu speaking, it's a metaphor. Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't have vocal cords, he doesn't have a voice box. But the very fact that we employ that metaphor, that the Pasuk says, the Rambam quotes, the Pasuk in Mishlei, תפוחי זהב במשכיות כסף. Shlomo HaMelech, when he talks about the use of metaphor, describes how metaphor is gold, golden apples in a silver encasement, in a silver packaging. Meaning that with a Mashal, generally the case is that even though the ultimate meaning is the Nimshal, the ultimate meaning is that which we're trying to express via the Mashal, but the Mashal, the metaphor itself, also contains wisdom. So if metaphorically we're told בעשרה מאמרות נברא העולם, so that means there's a reality to speech. There is a rather sobering Gemara in Moed Katan. The Gemara in Moed Katan tells the story of the brothers Pinchas and Shmuel. Shmuel, the famous Amora. Pinchas was sitting Shiva for a relative that the two of them didn't have in common, I don't think the Gemara specifies. Shmuel comes in for Nichum aveilim and he notices that Pinchas's nails have grown very long. And Shmuel tells him, "why don't you do something about it? There are ways in which it's permissible, not the normal ways necessarily, but there are ways in which it's permissible for an Avel, for a mourner, to trim his nails." So Pinchas looks back to Shmuel, he wasn't aware of this Halacha, and thought perhaps that this represented a shortcut, and Pinchas says to Shmuel, "well, if you were sitting Shiva, so would you avail yourself of something like that?" The Gemara quotes the Pasuk, Bris krusa lesfasayim. There is a covenant, a pact, which Hakadosh Baruch Hu has established with the lips. There's a reality, there's a potency, and and. efficacy to the utterance of one's lips. And then, sure enough, a short time later, Shmuel find himself found himself sitting shiva and he accosts his brother Pinchas angrily as to why he had said that. Similarly, the Sefer HaChinuch in offering a rationale for the Torah's prohibition against cursing a fellow Jew. So the Rambam in Sefer HaMitzvos says that the underlying rationale for lo sekallel cheireish, the prohibition not to curse a fellow Jew, is that if a person curses, obviously it's in a tremendous fit of anger that he can't restrain. And really the Torah is condemning and prohibiting such deep and unrestrained anger. Sefer HaChinuch says one doesn't need to go that far. Sefer HaChinuch says klala, to curse someone, is forbidden because of the damage that can result from a curse. So we don't think that because it doesn't involve action that there's no reality. No, there's a very, very real effect to speech. Probably our lack of appreciation for that fact is probably one of the underlying causes for why the various mitzvos regarding lashon hara and rechilus we're not sufficiently careful about because just we sort of instinctively don't really believe well how can the Torah really be so strict about this? It's only words. But the Torah's approach is very different. There's no such thing as only words. It's words. Reb Chaim Volozhiner explains in his Nefesh HaChaim that in terms of the celestial effect of what we do, a person's words reach and reverberate to a higher place than a person's deeds. That because speech is something even more spiritual than action, because of that, speech reverberates and and has even more far-reaching consequences than simple action. The same is true for the in terms of the reality, the moral spiritual reality, for choosh hara'iyah, for the sense of sight. And again, so our sort of Western mentality is: okay, just to see something is one thing. There are certain things you can't do, but to see is is not so terrible. The Torah teaches us otherwise. When the Torah says u're'isem oso u'zechartem that tzitzis is a reminder, so it's true Rashi tells us how tzitzis adds up to minyan taryag, but it means more than that. How do we know it means more than that? Very simple: in the beginning of Parshas Va'eschanan, Moshe Rabbeinu beseeches Hakadosh Baruch Hu:

אעברה נא ואראה את הארץ הטובה הזאת אשר בעבר הירדן.

Ribono shel olam, let me please cross over the Jordan so that I may see the land on the other side of the Jordan. Evrah na ve'ereh. Why did Moshe Rabbeinu want to see it? Moshe Rabbeinu didn't have a tourist mentality. No, he has to go look for he's got a delivery from Uri's pizza. He didn't have something that Moshe Rabbeinu wants to he wants to see. So Chazal say: what did Moshe Rabbeinu want? So clearly what Moshe Rabbeinu wants, he wants to experience kedushas ha'aretz. He wants to soak in, he wants to partake of the special sanctity which exists in Eretz Yisrael. And the way Moshe Rabbeinu expresses this is: evrah na ve'ereh. So apparently seeing is a way of experiencing, a way of soaking something in, a way of internalizing. Similarly the Gemara in Eruvin tells us that Rebbi says: האי דמחדדנא טפי מחבראי. The reason I have an advantage over my colleagues, Rebbe says, is דחזיתיה לרבי מאיר מאחוריי, because I was privileged to see the great Rebbe Meir from behind. I saw Rebbe Meir's back. And if only I had been zocheh, if only I had merited to see his front, then I would have been able to advance even more. Now obviously again, obviously there's a metaphor here, but again, the metaphor is expressed in terms of seeing. והיו עיניך ראות את מוריך, there's a tremendous power which is associated with sight, with vision. The pasuk in Koheles tells us זה לעומת זה עשה אלקים, that the world is all symmetrical. The greater potential something has to be a force for good, the greater its potential, הן לטוב הן למוטב, to be a force for what's not good. So it follows that if re-iyah, avona de-re-iyah, if by looking at what we should look at, a person can experience kedushah. Kedushah can, can impact him. Kedushah can, can make an indelible imprint upon him. It stands to follow according to what Koheles tells us about how Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world that זה לעומת זה עשה אלקים, that if we look at the wrong things, so then there's an equally rachmana litzlan powerful force to be dragged down, to be drawn away from kedushah. Instead of being uplifted and purified, being dragged down and, and overcome with, with contamination. And thus Chazal tell us in Masechet Sotah that אין יצר הרע שולט אלא במה שעיניו רואות, that the yetzer hara only gains the upper hand, only holds sway over a person if he's able to see the object of his desire, of the yetzer hara. Similarly, the sefer Shemiras Hamachshavah calls attention to the Tur in siman alef. The Tur in siman alef says pshat in the Mishna in Pirkei Avos when Yehuda ben Teima says that we should be kal kanesher. We should be light as an eagle gliding through, through the heavens. The Tur writes as follows: קל כנשר כנגד ראות העין, the same way the eagle does nothing that stands in the eagle's way. The eagle flies above all other birds. It doesn't have to, it doesn't have to be in touch with the tower and the air traffic people about, about which, which lanes are going to be busy, which not. It, it's above everything else, so its flight is, is smooth and, and unimpeded. That's the way our lomar, what's the nimshal, what is that, שתעצים עיניך מראות ברע, to close your eyes not to see anything bad. The Tur continues וכן דוד המלך עליו השלום. Dovid Hamelech in Tehillim kuf yud tes has a bakashah. He asks Hakadosh Baruch Hu: העבר עיני מראות שווא. Dovid Hamelech says, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I'll make a deal with you. I'm going to do my best not to voluntarily see what I so shouldn't see. You, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, please make sure that involuntarily I'm not exposed to that which I shouldn't see. What we see, what we, what we let our children see, it leaves Erev Rosh Hashanah is a time to perhaps think about issues which maybe we don't have the time to think about, perhaps we're not in the right mindset to think about at other times of the year. It's a time to think about difficult issues, it's a time to think about real challenges. In light of what we've been discussing about the power of vision and sight and the tremendous effect that visual images have on a person's neshama, and it's a time to reflect on television and its effect on our spiritual well-being. Now, right away, there's an impulse within us because television is probably correctly and accurately associated with popular culture. So there's an almost instinctive reaction we have. Well, I identify myself as a, again, what we operate with slogans, with buzzwords, I identify myself as a centrist, and because of that, so I don't just reject culture, I'm open to elements of culture. Television represents popular culture. It's so important, it's almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of this next point, rabosai, and that is, it is impossible for a person to have a fixed, unwavering, absolute attitude towards culture, towards popular culture. And the reason for that is because Torah values don't change, the values of the culture around us are constantly in flux, and what might be an appropriate attitude towards the popular culture in one time and place may be holy, with a W in front of the H, may be wholly inappropriate in another time and place. When one lives in a world which doesn't begin to understand modesty, which doesn't begin to have any understanding, any sense of modesty, where things which previously, a decade, a generation, two generations ago, would have been unthinkable to print in the paper, there's no shame, no sense of decency, so clearly one has to constantly be updating one's attitude towards popular culture and one has to be very carefully discriminating in terms of, well, which elements of popular culture are wholesome and consistent with Torah and which are totally antithetical and highly insidious. The Rav zichrono livracha was fond of pointing out that in the Rambam's fourteen books of Mishneh Torah, so there's one which is called Sefer Kedusha, the Book of Holiness, and the only thing which makes its way into Sefer Kedusha are Hilchos Ma'achalos Asuros and Shechita, halachos governing what we're allowed to eat, and Hilchos Issurei Biah and the halachos which govern relationships between men and women. And the Rav says the reason for that is because it's davka in these two realms that the test, that the The challenge for kedushah is met. Kedushah stands or falls. Kedushah is realized or Rachmana litzlan lost in these two areas in terms of how we eat, what we eat, and in terms of the area of modesty. The pervasive, the absolutely pervasive, crude, vulgar, animalistic perception of intimate relations which, again, just pervades all of TV is about as antithetical to Torah, to Torah values, as detrimental to a pursuit of kedushah as anything could possibly be. There is a, there is an essay attributed in all likelihood mistakenly to the Ramban, but if it could even be attributed to the Ramban, that's already a pretty high compliment, which talks about marital relations. It's called Iggeret HaKodesh because from the Torah's perspective, it's something which has tremendous potential for kedushah. Kedushah can be realized. To allow, again, and we have to remember here again, the power, ovonav vaerev, the power of vision, the power of sight, to allow whether it's ourselves or even worse, our children, to allow their minds and their conception of what should be, what is the subject matter of Iggeret HaKodesh to be sullied, again, by the crude, vulgar depictions on TV should be unthinkable. The fact that it's popular culture is only an indication of how lost popular culture is and how a moral compass is totally, totally missing in so many areas of popular culture. In addition to its harmful, injurious effects on one's attitude to questions of intimacy, there's also, there's a seif in Shulchan Aruch in Hilchot Shabbat. It's forbidden for a person to incite the yetzer hara. Giruy yetzer hara is forbidden. Thus a person is not allowed to read and על אחת כמה וכמה how much more so to look at that which incites the yetzer hara. That's what, that which incites the yetzer hara within him. If we close our eyes to the very real damage which television does in our communities, we do it at our own risk and very great risk. Children today, primarily through TV and even what they hear indirectly, a lot of it ultimately it gets traced back to TV, are robbed, are deprived of innocence, they're robbed, they're deprived of an ability to see kedushah in these areas, and the chief, although by no means only culprit, is TV. Totally, totally pervasive. Secular music also contributes also. It's not that TV is the only thing, but TV is even more powerful because it employs, again, the visual aid, the visual stimulus, and אין היצר הרע שולט אלא במה שעיניו רואות. Obviously, whatever one says about TV is true about certain sites on the internet. Many times over. Now is not the time or place to talk about the internet. Obviously, the internet is much more complex because it has become so integrated into our whole system of communication and business. It's a more nuanced conversation. But the conversation about television should be a simple one. And before Rosh Hashanah is a time when one can have clarity to make decisions. I remember many years ago my family and I we spent Shavuos in Yeshiva. And at the time Rav Dovid Lifshitz zecher tzadik livracha was still alive. And he spoke bein Mincha u'Maariv in the Beis Medrash. And he gave the following words of advice. He says, sometimes, he says, you have to make an important decision, you're at a crossroads. And it's a weighty decision, seems like a difficult decision. He says, you know when you should make the decision? He says, before Ne'ilah. He says, you want to make a decision, you need clarity. You need yishuv hadaas. So he says, I'll tell you when you should make your decisions. Take a few minutes out before Ne'ilah. He says, before Ne'ilah, that's when a person has clarity. That's when a person has yishuv hadaas to make a decision. So as we get closer and closer to that time, hopefully b'ezras Hashem there's increased and enhanced clarity. Certainly, certainly one area in which we should train that enhanced view and we should take advantage of that enhanced clarity is in recognizing the destructiveness of television within our communities. Just very quickly perhaps to mention one or two other again more schematically than in depth, one or two other associated ideas with making sure that how we relax, how we engage in recreation can genuinely be construed as being done l'shem Shamayim so minimally that has to mean that whatever we're doing is consistent with halacha and Torah values. One way that many of us relax is by schmoozing, right, as they say in French, you chapp a schmooze. And that's a common form of relaxation. Precisely because we're relaxing at that time, there can be a tendency to sort of let our guard down in terms of what we talk about and again if Sefer Chafetz Chaim isn't foremost in our minds and again we're sort of relaxing, too often rachmana litzlan that innocent relaxation can deteriorate and can trespass upon boundaries in terms of forbidden speech. The same awareness of maintaining standards on vacation. That, yes, on vacation one doesn't perhaps have the pressure of punching the clock which one has at work all the time. But the mindset can't be that there's going to be any relaxation of religious standards, whether it's standards of dress or other areas. Again, vacation is a time when we seek respite from the pressures of work. It's not a time when we relax all standards in our lives. And the final again just to mention programmatically, schematically, I think I've already trespassed on Rabbi Willig's time. But the final point to just mention programmatically and schematically is that I think our society has an exaggerated sense of how much downtime and how much relaxation people need. Granted, again, granted, In assessing that need, how great it is. Mesillas Yesharim writes that hayom la'asosam, but life is about work. No, it's not about work at the office necessarily. That's one component. A person is supposed to earn a parnassah. A person is supposed to be עוסק בישובו של עולם, but life is about avodas Hashem. And avodas Hashem, as the phrase suggests, means a person is supposed to work. So yes, at times we need to recharge our batteries. At times we need to relax, and then it's a mitzvah. But we have to do our best not to be influenced by the western culture in terms of just how great that need is. Not every day off from work is a day that a person has to just spend the entire day lounging around. A day off from work can be an opportunity to spend more time in the beis medrash. Can be an opportunity to daven a little bit slower. The Sunday minyanim should take longer than all the minyanim the rest of the week. It can be a time to be involved in chesed that a person perhaps doesn't have that much time for the rest of the week, and so forth. Thank you, a gut yuhr, kesiva v'chasima tova.