Live Belongs to Hashem

יסוד החסידות ושורש העבודה התמימה הוא שיתברר ויתאמת אצל האדם מה חובתו בעולמו.

To try to understand a little bit of the umek of Ramchal, let's begin with a simple prosaic mashal. Let's say you find a wallet, the wallet has a name in it, so you call the owner and he says, you know what, it's going to be hard for me to get it, so just take all the money in the wallet and give it to such and such tzedakah. But let's say you borrow a car from a friend and he says, yeah you can borrow it, but he stipulates that I don't want you to abuse the car, you can't drive faster than sixty-five miles an hour. So obviously in all such cases it's compellingly intuitive that you have to follow the instructions. You have to follow the instructions of the owner of the wallet, you have to follow the instructions of the owner of the car. The bealim determine. What happens to something is determined by the bealim. The yesod ve'shoresh of everything Ramchal is telling us rests in the recognition that a person is a mechuyav bedavar, a person is a mechuyav. A person is a mechuyav because his life isn't his own. The same way a person is a mechuyav when he borrows the car to follow the conditions and stipulations of the owner of the car. So he's a mechuyav, it's not his car. He's a mechuyav to comply. He can't come up with his own rules of the road. When he has someone else's money in his possession, it's not his. He has to take his marching orders from the person to whom the money belongs. The yesod ve'shoresh of everything Ramchal says rests in a person recognizing that he has a chovah. A person has a chovah because his life is not his own. His existence is not his own. Famous braisa in the gemara in Bava Metzia of Ben Petura and Rabbi Akiva:

שנים שהיו מהלכים בדרך וביד אחד מהם קיתון של מים. בן פטורא מוטב שישתו שניהם ואל יראה אחד במיתת חבירו עד שבא רבי עקיבא ולימד וחי אחיך עמך חייך קודמים.

Rabbi Akiva needs a pasuk to say that chayecha kodmim. Without a pasuk, so the sevara would have been it's not my life and his life. Without the pasuk, the starting point is there are two nefashos here that belong to the Ribbono shel Olam. So meheicha taysai that I, Reuven, that my, that my nefesh has a din kadima over Shimon's nefesh? My nefesh and his nefesh?

אין נפשו של אדם קניינו אלא קניין הקדוש ברוך הוא.

Comes the Torah and is mechadesh that yes, that reality notwithstanding, but in that type of situation, so chayecha kodmim. only possible when a person is anchored in that hakara that his existence is borrowed from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But lichora, there are at least two aspects to this hakara. The first one, that one's life, one's existence is not one's own. Is that therefore a person has no right to משנה מדעת בעל הבית. That a person is a bar chiyuva, which is why the question of mah chovaso be'olamo is the obvious question. This recognition that a person's life, a person's existence is not his own is something which has to, has to engender within one a sense of humility, a sense of hachna'a. That ikvesa d'meshicha is characterized by the prevalence rachmana litzlanu of chutzpa. And with struggles in emuna are not two different, two different phenomena. They're two sides of a coin. But there is another element, another level on which a person should experience, ultimately experience and translate that hakara of his life, his very metzius being borrowed from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The Tanya talks about, is talking about two types of ahava.

והשנית היא אהבה וחיבה שהנפש מתאוה ואוהבת וחפצה לדבקה בהשם לצרור בצרור החיים וקירבת אלקים טוב לה מאוד ובו תחפוץ ורע לה מאוד להתרחק ממנו יתברך חס ושלום להיות מחיצה של ברזל מהחיצונים מפסקת חס ושלום ואהבה זו היא מוסתרת בלב כל ישראל אפילו ברשעים וממנה באה להם החרטה אך מפני שהיא מוסתרת ונעלמת בבחינת גלות בגוף הרי הקליפה יכולה לשלוט עליה וזהו רוח שטות המטעה לאדם.

The ahava musteres within each of us is not sufficiently felt because of, because it's buried under extra layers of chomriyus that we superimpose. This dimension of avoda, of misgaber al hachomrius, of being mema'et bechomrius is a major pillar of the hadrocha in avodas hachassidus that the Baal HaTanya gives. Skipping a couple of lines.

ואחר כך יוכל גם כן להוציא ממסגר אסיר בחזק יד דהיינו להיות חזק ואמיץ לבו בגיבור להיות האהבה המסותרת נגלית בגילוי רב בכל כוחות חלקי הנפש שבגוף.

Skipping a line. Yachshov veyisbonen tamid, hear this raboisai,

יחשוב ויתבונן תמיד כפי שכלו והשכלתו בבורא יתברך איך שהוא חיי החיים.

My Ribono shel Olam is the life of everything bechlal, vechei nishmoso bifrat. Again, our existence is not our own, our life is not its own, it's borrowed. Ve'al ken, when a person has sufficiently peeled away the unnecessary gratuitous layers of chomrius to be able to experience this machshava, not just to mentally conjure it up but to be able to experience this machshava, says the Baal HaTanya. Al ken,

על כן יכסוף ויתאוה להיות דבק בו וקרוב אליו כוסף טבעי.

The person yearns, this natural yearning, כמו בן הכוסף להיות תמיד אצל אביו. What's the pshat in that natural, that natural? You see little children, they want to go wherever the father goes, he wants to imitate the father, he wants to be with the father all the time. What's the pshat in that, in that natural, natural desire that the son has,

כבן הכוסף להיות תמיד אצל אביו וכמו אש שעולה למעלה תמיד בטבעה למקורה?

A person desires, there's a natural desire, the Ribono shel Olam programmed us, programmed all of teva, the Baal HaTanya is saying, but let's talk about ourselves. The Ribono shel Olam programmed us that we have a natural desire for our source, the source of our existence. VehaRamchal says it also, not so much ba'arichus, but haRamchal says it. In talking about chelkei chassidus,

והנה זו וודאי שהאהבה הזאת צריך שתהיה אהבה שאינה תלויה בדבר.

The ahavas Hashem that a person should look to attain and experience shouldn't be an

אהבה התלויה בדבר דהיינו שיאהב הבורא יתברך על שמטיב אליו ומעשירו ומצליחו אלא כאהבת הבן לאביו שהיא אהבה טבעית ממש שתבעו מכריחו וכופיהו לזה.

When haRamchal tells us that the yesod vashoresh of everything שיתברר ויתאמת אצל האדם מה חובתו בעולמו, it begins, it's axiomatic, that a person recognizes that his life, his metzius is not his own. And that's po'el on two levels. Initially, in perek alef, it's po'el on a level of that a person recognizes he can't be משנה מדעת בעל הבית. As a person progresses, he doesn't have to move away from that. But he understands it and experiences that that reality of his life not being his own, his metzius not being his own, he understands and experiences that, not only as a mechayiv, which it is and always is, but he understands it and experiences it as a natural desire, yearning lehidavek bimekoroi to to cling to his source, the source of of all life. So im kol zos, that just as we saw that the perspective, the goal

שהאדם לא נברא אלא להתענג על ה' ולהנות מזיו שכינתו

that a person should always be oriented towards Olam Haba, that that too, the perspective, that perspective, that orientation never changes. How a person relates to it changes. Initially, maybe a person relates to it bevhinas oved meyirah, but then ultimately, it's because Olam Haba represents the kirvas Elokim, so so too the axiom, the hakara, which is the yesod veshoresh of everything, that a person's life is not his own. That's why the question, that's why everything begins with Ma chovaso ba'olamo because everything begins with that hakara that of course there is a chova ba'olam because my life isn't my own. So if it's your car, so I have to know what the what the ground rules are for driving the car. If it's your money, I have to know how you intend that money to be spent. That hakara, initially we only relate to it on one level. It says that a person is a mechuyav venishtabed and that level always remains. But besiyata d'shmaya, as a person progresses, he relates it to it on that second level as well of the

יכסוף ויערג להיות דבוק בו וקרוב אליו ככוסף תפי כבן הכוסף להיות תמיד אצל אביו וכמו אש העולה למעלה תמיד בטבעה למקורו.