Fixing Your Fire [Honor] - 012 Desperate For More Honor

Fire-of-Wind-of-Fire: Moving Towards Elation From Honor

With siyata d’shmaya we continue here to discuss the trait of honor, and now we will discuss the particular kind of honor that stems from fire-of-wind-of-fire. This is when a person moves towards a place [wind] where he thinks he will receive honor, because he wants to feel the elation [fire] from such honor [fire].

A person may feel that he is in a place where he is not valued by others, where others are not giving him enough honor, and therefore he will move towards a certain place or situation where he can get honor. Such a person is not getting any honor in his life, or at least not enough of it. But here we are talking about a different situation: there are people who think all day of how they can receive more honor, even though they are already receiving honor; they are never satisfied with the honor that they do receive, and they will continue to obsess over honor, no matter how much honor they are already receiving.

They are jealous of others who receive more honor than they, and honor occupies their minds throughout the day. As soon as they encounter an opportunity to receive any small amount of honor, they pursue it with almost no self-control at all, out of desperation to receive more honor. People who observe this can see how degrading his behavior is, of what he is willing to do just to get a little more honor, when he already receives plenty to begin with.

The Concept of “Someiach B’Chelko” (Happy With What You Have)

What this person needs to learn is how to be someiach b’chelko, “happy with his portion.”

To be brief about this concept, every person has areas that he has already reached, and areas that he hasn’t yet reached, which he desires to reach. Nobody is totally lacking, and nobody feels totally fulfilled. Everyone has certain achievements that he has already reached, and everybody has things they want, whether in the material realm, or in the spiritual. Each person, at his own level, is striving for certain things. But the question is where a person feels vitality from. Is he mainly living in what he has, and upon that he has aspirations to reach more things? Or is he mainly ‘living’ in what he doesn’t have?

If he is mainly living in what he doesn’t have, even if this is a spiritual aspiration that is truthful, the problem is that he is always living in what he’s missing, in what he doesn’t have, so he will have nothing to draw support from. The right way to approach life is to live off what you have already achieved, and upon that, you can aspire for more, to reach the next step or higher level.

Of course, when a person is first starting out, it is not enough for him to live mainly from his achievements, because then he will never aspire for anything, remaining complacent with whatever he has reached. But if a person is sensible about this concept and he is truly connected to what he has already achieved, he will feel a demand to reach more, and it will be a deeper kind of aspiration. It won’t be a longing that stems from absence of achievement, from an emptiness in the “I”, but from an aspiration that stems from the previous achievements.

That is a brief but fundamental definition of the concept of “someiach b’chelko”, happy with one’s lot.

The Inevitable Vitality We Receive From Our Unrefined Character Traits

Now let’s return to our current topic, honor. Here this concept takes on a more subtle meaning. Before continuing, we will need another brief introduction, concerning the matter of “bad middos” (unrefined character traits) that are found in man.

Before the sin of man, unrefined character traits were not a part of man’s soul. They existed as a force outside man, and they were not yet a part of man’s character. When Adam sinned, a change took place, and unrefined character traits became an inseparable part of man. Ever since then, every person has been born with good middos and bad middos. Each person has a different percentage of certain good middos and bad middos that are part of his makeup, which Hashem has designed as part of the personality in the person, and man’s task is to utilize his free will, to improve his character.

Man has free will to change his inner character, at least partially – but he cannot transform himself entirely. Every person has good and bad character traits, and a person should have the aspiration to uproot the bad character traits. But every sensible person understands that we cannot immediately change bad character traits. We are not able to break our bad middos completely, even though it is commendable to have such an aspiration. Every person has certain bad middos which will stay with him for many years, and in fact, they will remain him with until death!

In spite of this, a person should not give up, chas v’shalom, from trying to work on his middos. He should always know that he can certainly weaken his bad middos, even if he will never break them completely. But everyone must know that certain bad middos will remain with him his entire life. How much of it will he be able to improve? That will be his task. But there will be some bad character traits which will be with him his entire life.

After a person accepts this fact calmly (someone with a very emotional, sensitive personality will have a hard time accepting this fact, because it will feel very painful, knowing that certain bad middos will never go away from a person), there are now two different perspectives he may have towards this. He might look at this as Hashem’s design, that Hashem created a person to have certain bad middos; or, he may look at this as a result of Adam’s sin. But either way, bad character traits are here to stay with us, and it is Hashem’s will that these traits stay with us our entire life.

Bad character traits cannot just be ignored; they are very noticeable in a person’s life. Here are some clear examples. A person has evil lusts. Can a person reach a point where he has no physical desires at all? There is no such thing. The Ibn Ezra said that since the Torah commands a person not to covet that which isn’t his, he should understand that the desire isn’t in his reach at all, just as a pauper doesn’t even have a desire to marry the princess; but it takes a lot of personal avodah to internalize these words of the Ibn Ezra, and simply reading these words of the Ibn Ezra will not cause a person to stop having desires for things he shouldn’t.

So for the time being, a person does have evil lusts for certain things. Now what should he do? To try to wage war with the desire is not either possible, because it is impossible to fight everything all at once. A person has to make peace with the fact that he has certain desires and that he is not able to uproot them right now.

If he tries to have his food without enjoying it, such as by pouring salt on it until it tastes worse than dog food, this is too high of a level to try to attain. One can lessen how much he desires something, but he cannot uproot his desire, in the time being. So a person will be enjoying his food, even though lust for food is a desire that should really be uprooted.

Now that he will be enjoying it, there is a deep issue he needs to consider. Desire is not simply an unrefined character trait; the person will be living off this character trait and getting vitality from it. The depth of the soul’s exile on this world is that there are bad character traits embedded into it, and in addition, it gets vitality from these bad character traits.

To a person who is not spiritually refined, this will not feel painful, but to a person who is refined in his soul, this will feel painful. Part of the atonement for bad character traits is that a person is pained over them. But even when we suffer from them, we still feel vitality from them, which is a gnawing contradiction. A person’s body lives off food and drink, a person’s higher soul lives off spirituality, and the lower soul lives off evil, unrefined character traits.

It is a painful realization, for anyone who is spiritually refined: a person does feel some vitality from his unrefined character traits. This is the depth of our exile: inevitably, we are forced to get vitality from the bad middos present in our character.

(From all of the bad middos, the worst is the trait of cruelty. If a person gets vitality from cruelty, this is an even more painful realization for him, because cruelty is by essence an evil trait; as opposed to the other traits, which are not evil by essence). So far, we have given the example of desire, which is a very basic example of this idea, because a person enjoys a desire and he gets vitality from it. When a person becomes aware of this, he realizes that he is deriving vitality from an impure source.

When a person receives vitality from desire, he will want more, meaning that he wants to receive even more vitality from this impure source. Instead of being disgusted that this is his source of vitality, he wants even more – and he cannot change this. If he tries to develop disgust for the desire, his tension for it will build up, and then it will burst out of him at a later time, in full force. Therefore, it is not the will of Hashem to try to form a disgust for his desires. Rather, one must be at peace with their existence.

Instead of Disgusting Honor, Derive Vitality From It

Now we will return to discuss the topic of honor, and see how the above concept applies to our subject. 

The Mesillas Yesharim says that everyone needs honor. Therefore, it is impossible to live without honor. How, then, should a person react to honor, when he receives it?

Should he try to disgust the honor? If he does, he would be denying his human nature which Hashem has designed. We have no choice but to enjoy the honor that we need, and even though it is all false, there is nothing we can do to deny this nature, and this is the depth of the soul’s exile on this world. Since we are going to receive honor anyway, we are receiving vitality from it.

If a person receives honor but he tries to deny the vitality he is getting from it, he is really focusing on that which he doesn’t have. But a person really must be “someiach b’chelko” even when it comes to evil character traits, since it is a part of our life that is here to stay. So if a person receives honor, he should enjoy that which Hashem has given him, since that is the reality that Hashem has placed him in.

What is the reason that one should do this? It is because if a person tries to disgust any honor he receives, he never absorbs any of the honor he receives, and then he will be left with no honor, so he will look for more honor! That explains why a person can be receiving honor all the time, yet he continues to look for even more honor, as if he was never satisfied from the previous honor he received. It is because he never absorbed it properly.

A person really wants honor, because that is human nature, and he cannot stifle this desire. If he tries to deny the honor he does receive, he will look for it later, becoming desperate for it. So he must learn how to absorb the honor properly, and derive vitality from it! If he doesn’t it, he is only suppressing his need for honor, and he will look for more of it later, when he gets hungry for it.  This is the soul’s exile – it has to endure the vitality it gets from honor, because there is no way to avoid it, because avoiding it will only backfire.

Paradoxical Feelings of Vitality and Pain At Once

One therefore has to absorb the honor when it comes his way, and when he feels vitality from it, he should then feel pained that he inevitably enjoys it. That pain is our soul’s exile on this world, which is forced to derive vitality from unrefined character traits. This sound like a complete paradox, because a person must not pursue honor, yet he must also be able to enjoy it, otherwise he will only run after it even more; and when he does enjoy it, he should then feel pained that he needs it. Yet, as paradoxical as this is, it is part of our avodah.

Here is another example of paradoxical feelings of vitality and pain at once.

Most of the world does not keep Hashem’s mitzvos. The gentile nations of the world do not keep the seven Noachide laws, and most of the Jews in the world are not observing of the Torah, scattering amongst the nations of the world and living like gentiles. Even amongst the most observant Jews, how many are keeping half of Shulchan Aruch, or a third of it, or even a quarter of it? Most of the entire Creation is not doing Hashem’s will, which is a very painful reality, to anyone who thinks about it. One should think about this and feel pained at this.

Yet, at the same time, it is also Hashem’s will that things be like this, for the time being, when we are in exile, which is currently Hashem’s will. Therefore, one should also be at peace with this painful fact. This is not to say that a person should allow himself to be complacent with evil, chas v’shalom. If he does, his heart will become dulled from feeling the spiritual. Rather, one should be aware of the exile and what it means for us, and to be pained at it, yet at the same time, to be aware that it is Hashem’s will for us to be in exile now!

Hashem can redeem us all in one moment if He wills it, or He will bring us “a king as harsh as Haman” who will cause us to repent. In either scenario, it is His will that things be like, and we must be at peace with His will.

The same is true for our own personal exile of the soul. One needs to become aware of the fact that he does receive vitality from his bad middos, and in addition to this awareness, he also he needs to feel pained at this. He needs to feel the paradoxical feelings of vitality and the pain at once!

As an example, when a person is informed that his parents have died and that he has received an inheritance from them, the Talmud Yerushalmi says that he makes a blessing of Baruch Dayan Emes over their death, and a blessing of Shehechiyanu, for the joy of receiving the inheritance. This is a paradox of mourning and joy at once.

One needs to be able to gain vitality from something, and at the same time, to feel pained from it. This is also known as the concept of “the oneg (pleasure) that is nega (pain)” – even as one is feeling the oneg\pleasure in the mundane, he can feel the nega (pain) in it, feeling pained over the very fact that we must inevitably enjoy the mundane, as a part of our soul’s exile on this world.

Honor is intangible pleasure, as explained in the previous chapter, and that is why if a person doesn’t feel enjoyment in it when he gets it, he will want even more. He never experienced it to begin with, because it is so subtle, and when he remains without it, he will eventually seek it.

Revealing Higher Honor

There is also a deeper point here to work on.

We explained that there is “higher honor” and “lower honor”. “Higher honor” is when a person receives honor and he attributes it to the spiritual, and not to himself. “Lower honor” is when a person receives honor and he attributes himself as the source of it. “Higher honor” is tangible, while lower honor is not. When a person receives “lower honor” and he is enjoying it, he is enjoying something that is not really his, because it is really a force that belongs solely to the spiritual realm.

Honor is very different from other traits. With the trait of desire, most people will be satisfied from it when they indulge in it. They fill up their stomach with food, for example, and the desire is calmed. But with honor, many people have the problem that they are not satisfied with it, even after receiving plenty of it, because they don’t absorb the honor when they get it. It is really because they don’t derive vitality from it in the first place, and that causes them to want more of it.

Therefore, there is a stronger pull to pursue honor that stems from fire-of-wind-of-fire, as opposed to honor that stems from fire-of-water-of-fire. It is because there is a difficulty to absorb honor in the first place, being that it comes from above [so it not within the human realm of emotions].

So far, we have explained the first step in rectifying this type of honor: A person must be able to feel the paradoxical feelings of not wanting the honor as well as gaining vitality from it (which we have explained as “the soul’s exile”). We also explained that the reason for the difficulty in absorbing honor is because honor is really a spiritual force which does not belong to a person, so when a person does try to absorb honor, he is trying to enjoy something that is not really his.

Therefore, when a person experiences honor, he should attribute it to the spiritual. As for “lower honor” – the superficial honor which a person inevitably enjoys – a person should absorb it, feel the vitality in it, and then feel pained at the fact that he needs it.

This alone, however, will not be enough to completely rectify fire-of-wind-of-fire, because honor does not belong to a human being; it is a spiritual force, and when a person longs for honor, he is really looking for the “higher honor”, for true honor. It is like the parable of the pauper who married the princess, who was not able to make her happy, in spite of everything he brought to her. The soul, which comes from the spiritual realm, is therefore never satisfied from superficial honor.

For this reason, when a person learns how to derive vitality from honor, the soul is never completely calmed by this. Therefore, while it is clearly not easy to leave behind the trait of honor, the way that honor is fixed is a two-part process, as follows.

The first part includes all that has been explained until now, and there is also a second part that is needed: one needs to reveal what true, higher honor is. Without revealing true honor, a person will never be able to absorb any honor. That is why it is not enough to try to uproot evil of honor [which is “lower honor”]; a person must also access “higher” honor.

This is true about all character traits as well. For example, when it comes to the trait of evil desire, a person won’t succeed in uprooting evil desires unless he can uncover holy, spiritual desires. A person won’t be able to rectify evil jealousy, unless he discovers holy, constructive jealousy.

The same is true of honor, especially the particular honor that is fire-of-wind-of-fire, which is rectified through: (1) The contradictory forces of enjoying it, and then feeling pained at enjoying it. (2) Through revealing “higher honor” – attributing the feeling of honor to the spiritual source that it comes from.

In Conclusion

When one works on doing all of the above, and mainly through trying to reveal Hashem’s Presence within him - that is where the true honor can be found.

From a deeper understanding, there is no way to rectify honor from within man himself. In order to rectify the trait of kavod\honor, one needs to reveal the Melech HaKavod, the King of all honor, Who is revealed within man. When one nullifies himself to Hashem, that is where the rectification to honor lies.