48 Ways - 020 Leave Business on the Side

One of the 48 ways to acquire the Torah is to have “less business.” Simply speaking, this means that one has to learn more Torah is his life and only consider business as a side thing. That is true, but there is more to it.

Knowing The Inner Point

The Torah should be the center of one’s life, because there is supposed to be an “inner point” (‘nekuda penimis’) in one’s life. Anyone who is used to learning Sfas Emes on the parshah can see what the “inner point” is. What is the “inner point”?

Every day, we go through countless emotions and thoughts. This makes our soul inside feel scattered. Just like the countries of the world are scattered all over the world, so is the soul scattered. When the “inner point” of the soul is concealed and we have never accessed it, our soul is scattered.

Business Can Scatter A Person

Business means “sechorah” in Hebrew, which comes from the word “sechor” – to travel for business purposes. If a person just travels and travels on business, and he has no inner point to connect all that goes on in his life, his soul is scattered, and he comes home to his house very scattered.

When people make business into the main part of their life, they have no joy or pleasure in life. When business is everything, there is no pleasure in life.

Uncover Your True Pleasure

How many people do you know have pleasure in their life? Rarely do people have any real pleasure. A person was really created for pleasure (as the Mesillas Yesharim states), yet people in the world are lacking pleasure. It is because people are missing the “inner point” in their life.

To try to illustrate what the inner point (nekuda penimis) is: What is the deepest experience you have in your life? That deepest experience you have is the source of your pleasure. You need to connect to that source of pleasure.

If a person doesn’t have enjoyment in learning Torah, he has no pleasure in life. Even if a person forces himself every day to go to a shiur, if he doesn’t have some enjoyment out of it, he isn’t connected to any pleasure in his life. Although he is getting the mitzvah of learning Torah and he will get reward for it, he has no pleasure in his life, and this is not a good situation. People were really created for pleasure, for real pleasure - and we need to be connected to a real kind of pleasure.

Bursts of Pleasure Don’t Last 

Some people get their main pleasure out of life from helping people. There is a satisfying feeling in helping someone. But how much time of the day already can you spend trying to help people? These are only rare times. You can’t get your pleasure in life from rare moments, where you feel bursts of pleasure; there must be a constant source of pleasure in your life in order for you to survive.

People also talk all day, yet they don’t get pleasure out of their conversations. How can it be that people talk all day, yet they don’t have enjoyment out of even one conversation…?

If people learn Torah and daven without any enjoyment, and their day isn’t either filled with any enjoyment in it, how can they come home in a good mood and enjoy their family? Without pleasure throughout the day, a person can’t enjoy his family either. If someone talks on the phone, eats supper and reads the newspaper at the same time – is it possible that he’s having any enjoyment?! He isn’t concentrated on any one thing, so it’s not possible that he’s having enjoyment.

Preparing For Gan Eden

Gan Eden (paradise\the Next World) will be spiritual pleasure. But in order to enjoy that spiritual pleasure, we need to first experience some spiritual pleasure already on this world. We don’t suddenly transform in Gan Eden and learn how to have spiritual enjoyment.  Chazal say that what a person enjoyed on this world, that is what he will enjoy in the next world.

It’s not like there are better lecturers in Gan Eden that are more inspiring to listen to. In order to appreciate the pleasure of Gan Eden, which is spiritual pleasure, we need to first open up our spiritual pleasure already on this world.

This perspective can change your whole life and fill it with vitality.

How many people get up in the morning and are happy that they got up in the morning? It is hard to find such people. But there are happy people in the world, and you can be one of those people.

Deriving Pleasure From Spirituality

Hashem gave us the Torah. Why did He give us the Torah? It is because Hashem desires to bestow the world with goodness.  Hashem gave us the gift of the Torah. If so, why don’t people feel any gratitude to Hashem that He gave us the Torah? Maybe it is because people feel that they didn’t get a gift…

The Torah is called “tov” – “good.” Does anyone feel that Torah is “good”?

Anyone who wants to feel more alive in his life needs to figure out from where he is deriving his enjoyment from in life. A life without pleasure – even if it is a life immersed in spirituality, with exertion in learning Torah – is still not a life! Although working hard is part of our life, we need pleasure in our life. And we need real pleasure.

Whether you work hard at your job, or even if you work hard at learning Torah – without enjoyment in life, life is not a life.

This entire generation is living without any sense of inner vitality (chiyus) in their life. Does this bother anyone? It’s very bothersome if you think about it. The Mesillas Yesharim says that “a person was not created except to bask in the pleasure of Hashem.” But is anyone pursuing spiritual pleasure??

This is a very deep question you need to ask yourself in your life: From where are you getting your pleasure from?

Find Your Real Pleasure

There are many ways to serve Hashem, and each person has to find the way that is for him. But the common denominator between all people is that all people need to live in an inner kind of world and derive enjoyment from it.

The Rambam writes that pleasure is really found inside yourself.[1] But, this can only come if someone is connected to a spiritual kind of pleasure.

This perspective can change everything in your life – your marriage, the way you raise your children, the way you deal with others in the shul and Beis Midrash – everything!

May Hashem merit us to connect to the pleasure found in ruchniyus (spirituality).