Fixing Your Focus - 013 Consistent Skipping

Fire: Dilug\Skipping

With siyata d’shmaya we are continuing here to discuss the power of focus\concentration. In the coming lessons we will discuss focus-related issues which stem from the element of fire. This will include four subdivisions – earth-of-fire, water-of-fire, wind-of-fire, and fire-of-fire. First we will explain, with siyata d’shmaya, the relationship between the element of fire and the power of focus.

One of the aspects contained in the element of fire is that fire can skip. A fire can jump and skip from its place. The fire’s jumpy nature (dilug) is the antithesis to the power of orderliness (seder). The power of focus is mainly developed through the power of seder\orderliness, which is a trait of earth.

(On a deep note, the Hebrew word for “secret”, “sod”, stands for seder\orderliness and dilug\jumpiness, which hints that when one has the balance between these two contradicting forces of dilug\jumpiness and seder\orderliness together, the result is a sod\secret.)

The root of the power of seder\orderliness is clear. Creation is designed in a certain seder, in an orderly manner. Hashem created the world in six days, one after the other, which is followed by Shabbos. The entire Creation runs on seder, an orderly system of time.

Hashem also created a power in Creation called dilug, skipping. This power will appear at the future Redemption, when the Mashiach will “skip over the mountains, and jump over the hills”[1] [it will be sudden]. Similarly, on the night of Pesach, when Hashem smote the firstborns of Egypt, He “skipped” over all the Jewish homes and only killed the Egyptian firstborns.

The power of “skipping” is therefore the mode which Hashem uses for the Redemption. But in the current period of Creation, Hashem runs the world through an orderly system, which is the power of seder. The power of dilug\skipping is manifested in the side of the holiness when it comes to Redemption, as mentioned above, and it is only holy when it is balanced out by the power of seder\orderliness. Otherwise, the power of dilug\skipping becomes impaired. In essence, dilug\skipping is a holy power, as it is the secret behind the entire Redemption.

In our own souls, the power of dilug\skipping is present in our soul’s element of fire. As mentioned earlier, there are four subdivisions: earth-of-fire, water-of-fire, wind-of-fire, and fire-of-fire. Therefore, we will learn about four kinds of dilug\skipping. As emphasized, there are two basic powers in Creation which are opposite from each other – the power of seder\order, and the power of dilug\skipping.

The Four Subdivisions of Fire\Dilug\Skipping

There is dilug\skipping which comes from earth-of-fire, water-of-fire, wind-of-fire, and fire-of-fire. This is a brief description of each of them, which we will slowly explain as we go along:

1. 1.     Earth-of-fire is when the skipping has a “structure” to it.
2. 2.     Water-of-fire is when the skipping comes from “dragging”.
3. 3.     Wind-of-fire is when the skipping comes from quick movement, such as when a person has a strong will to reach a certain goal or end.
4. 4.     Fire-of-fire is the very essence of the power of skipping.

While all dilug\skipping comes from the element of fire, it can either come from earth-of-fire, water-of-fire, wind-of-fire, or fire-of-fire. We will begin by examining dilug\skipping that comes from earth-of-fire.

Earth-of-Fire: Skipping In An Orderly Manner

When dilug\skipping stems from earth-of-fire, the skipping takes place in a “structured” manner.

As mentioned earlier, there are two opposite powers in Creation – seder\orderliness and dilug\skipping. When most people use the ability of dilug\skipping, understandably, they are not using the power of seder\orderliness at all. But it is possible for a person to skip in an orderly fashion. In fact, there is an orderly, organized way of how to skip properly, and if a person learns how to skip in an orderly fashion, he is using the inner essence of the power to skip,

Example of Orderly Skipping: The Various Combinations of the Letters of the Aleph Beis

Here are some clear examples of the idea.

The letters of the Aleph Beis[2] are arranged in a seder\order of 22 letters, beginning from the letters aleph, beis, gimmel, daled, heh, (א ב ג ד ה) etc. But our Sages list different orders of the Aleph Beis which does not follow the simple order, where instead the letters of the Aleph Beis are arranged in a manner where every other letter is skipped: aleph, gimmel, heh, zayin, tet  (א ג ה ז ט),  etc. (This is not to be confused with a different system of the Aleph Beis which is called אתב"ש, atbas”h, where the skipping is done from the beginning letter all the way until the furthest letter from it). There are many orders of the Aleph Beis listed by our Sages, which includes every possible manner of skipping.

Hashem created everything through the letters of the Aleph Beis, which form words. The word Beraishis is a combination of a certain order of letters of the Aleph Beis, and this is not random, but a specific order of letters, where certain letters have been “skipped” in an orderly fashion to form the word “Beraishis”. The Torah which we have now, as the Ramban writes, is a combination of the letters of the Aleph Beis, which follows a system of orderly “skipping”.

There is an endless amount of “orderly skipping” systems within Creation. The letters of the Aleph Beis can be combined in countless different ways, where there are so many different orderly ways of how to “skip” over different letters.  And since Creation consists of combinations of Aleph Beis letters, it follows that the entire Creation consists of an endless amount of orderly systems of dilug\skipping.

From a superficial perspective, one thinks that the Creation must run solely on seder, on an orderly system. According to that thinking, if something is skipped, there is a problem, and the skipping has caused only disarray. But from a deeper perspective, skipping is necessary as well. There are systems in Creation which follow the orderly approach of seder, and there are also systems in Creation which follow an order of skipping. So dilug\skipping is also a kind of seder – it is just not the normal kind of seder.

For example, when the letters of the Aleph Beis are read backwards, from the last letter to the first letter, this is also following a certain order - it is just not the regular order. The normal way to read the letters of the Aleph Beis is to start from the first letter, aleph, until the last letter, tav, and this is the normal “seder” of how to read the Aleph Beis letters. But if the letters are read backwards, although this is not the normal seder of how to read the Aleph Beis letters, it is still following a certain seder, albeit not the normal seder.

The Depth of Dilug\Skipping – Understanding Different Kinds of Thinking Patterns

So there can be seder\order which contains dilug\skipping. This concept has many applications, but let us see the following deep application of this idea.

People are generally used to seeing only one seder\order in Creation. The more constricted that one’s soul is, he will only be able to handle one seder\order, and not more than that. The more a person expands his soul, however, the more he will able to be contain several different systems of seder.

The Sages explained that Shlomo HaMelech was the wisest man in the world because he was able to understand even insane people. What is the meaning behind this? It means that he was able to understand the order of thinking patterns in a person who thinks in a “skipping” manner. There is a way to think in a manner of “skipping”, and it follows a certain orderly pattern, which does not follow the normal thinking patterns we are used to, and Shlomo HaMelech was able to understand it.

If only we could even know our own normal thinking patterns. Most people don’t even recognize their normal, orderly thinking patterns. But at least we can all understand that there is a certain orderly way of thinking. A person can learn a deep ability of recognizing more and more orderly patterns. Everything has an order to it. The wiser that a person becomes, he can perceive more and more orderly systems. This is the depth of the power of dilug\skipping. A hint to this is that the Hebrew word for mature, gadol, is a rearrangement of the same letters as the word dilug, skipping.

Dilug\Skipping In Our Generation – And How It Affects Focus

The light of dilug shines strongly in the current era of the End of Days we are in, where we are nearing the Redemption. This is because, as mentioned earlier, the power of dilug\skipping is associated with Redemption. The various advancements of technology today have made it possible for a person to skip between different letters of the Torah and find all sorts of hints to what will happen in the End of Days. There are many baalei teshuvah today who have returned due to these kinds of discoveries, which all come from the power of dilug\skipping. This is a holy use of dilug.

But there is also an impaired use of dilug. When people make too much of use of dilug, they lose their normal seder\order. They become accustomed to different thinking patterns which causes their mind to skip around a lot and ignore the normal orderly thinking patterns. This is actually a major cause for focus-related issues which are more common today. When the mind becomes very used to the power of dilug\skipping, the power to focus normally becomes impaired.

Problems with focus and concentration always existed even in the previous generations. But these kinds of problems have gotten worse in our times, and we have so far given many reasons for it, as explained in the previous lessons. Now we are adding another reason, a very inner reason. It is because since we are nearing the time of the Redemption, the light of “skipping” is particularly strong in our times, and even though it is in essence a holy power, it can often be misused [such as when people become so used to “skipping” that they lose their normal thinking patterns].

We can give an example. How did people used to get around between places? Either they would walk by foot, or by riding a horse or a donkey, or by boat. But today, a person can take a car, a bus, or an airplane, and he is quickly at his destination. That means that a person can “skip” today from one place to another, in a very short amount of time. Certainly, it is not a total kind of skipping, because it does not take place instantly. But the means of travel today vastly shorten the amount of time it takes to get from one place to another, where a person skips a lot of time that it would have normally took in previous times.

Another example of dilug\skipping in Creation is when it suddenly rains, even when there are no clouds in the sky. The normal order of things is that the sky slowly builds up rain clouds and eventually it rains. But it can suddenly start raining, even with no warning. This is also normal, but it isn’t following the normal order of things, so it is an example of dilug\skipping.

The normal order in Creation is seder, but Creation does not only consist of seder, it also consists of dilug. As another example, the Gemara says that there is no order of the verses in the Torah – the events of the Torah are not necessarily written in chronological order, and one verse in the Torah does not necessarily precede the next verse.

Some souls have a perspective which is mainly rooted in seder\order, and other souls have a perspective that is mainly rooted in dilug\skipping.

Different People Need To Learn In A Different Order of Steps

We have given many different examples of this idea, so that we can better relate to it. Now we will get to the practical outcomes of this concept.

In our times, there is much dilug\skipping. In the educational systems of schools today, all different kinds of teachers (some of them from Erev Rav) with their various approaches are teaching their own curriculum, each with their own order of how they want to teach things. If a student isn’t doing well with the school’s curriculum, it seems as if he is behind in his development, as if he has some kind of learning disability. But who decides what the correct order of things should be? There is no one educational system that works for all schools, and that is clear. It is completely foolish for anyone to think that all schools need to have the same exact order of how they teach material, such as what should be taught in each grade, etc. This is like how the people behaved in Sodom, where each person had to fit into the same size bed, or else their feet were cut off or stretched until they fit.

There is no one order which works for everyone. Each person is his own world, and the order that works for one person is not necessarily the order that another person needs to follow.

Earth-of-fire is when skipping is done in an orderly manner. It is normal for a person to skip learning certain information, because it is a power in Creation, and if people would know how to use earth-of-fire, they would be able to relate better to those who aren’t making it in the particular curriculum or order of material that they are told to learn about.

If one is aware of this power, he can become very focused with it, even though he is skipping, because he will be able to skip in an orderly manner. This is not to say that he won’t have difficulty, because he certainly will have to deal with the particular order he is being presented with, and he feels like skipping through it. However, he can certainly mitigate the difficulty, when he is aware of the power of earth-of-fire in the soul, which provides him with the ability to skip through information in an organized, orderly manner.

The difficulty arises when a person is not aware of his earth-of-fire, he won’t know how to skip properly. Since he doesn’t know how to use his power to skip correctly, he will skip in an unorganized manner. He will fail in the normal curriculum, and he doesn’t know how to skip correctly, so either way, he is stuck. When he doesn’t know which step comes after the other, he doesn’t know what the structure should be, and he will feel scattered between all the information he encounters. And, as a result, he will have problems with focusing and concentrating.

Fixing The Problem of Habitual Skipping

The beginning of the solution to this will not be easy.

1. One needs to first understand and agree with the idea that there can be a different order of learning things, and that the normal order which he’s familiar with is not necessarily the order he has to go in. This will be difficult to accept, but that is the first step one needs to pass.

2. The second step is that one has to realize that his thought process doesn’t work in such an organized, orderly manner. He needs to accept that he doesn’t have such a straightforward thinking process as others do. This will also be hard for him to accept.

3. After one has accepted the above two facts, the next step is for him is to notice his particular skipping patterns. He should become aware of what he tends to skip.

For example, one can examine how he writes. When we read a letter, the sentences may connect to the next and it makes sense to us when we read it. But a person with the problem of dilug\skipping will write a letter and he will skip letters in his words, or he will switch letters for each other. So if a person has the problem with dilug, he can try examining how he writes and see how he skips or switches certain letters.

He easily switches letters when he is writing a word, and this is a subconscious deterrent to his power of focus, because if he habitually switches letters all the time, he cannot be truly focused. Why indeed does he switch letters for each other? It is really because his imagination is stronger, and the imagination easily switches various tidbits of information. It makes an erroneous comparison between two thinks and mistakes A for B, and B for A.

One should first identify which letters he normally switches and mistakes for the other. He may be switching certain letters that have similar shapes, like a letter with a round shape for another letter with a round shape, or one letter with a straight long shape for another letter with a straight long shape, and it is because his imagination quickly mistakes the two letters as being the same letter. One can slowly realize his pattern of switching certain letters for each other, and it is a wisdom to learn about, which takes subtlety. Certainly, it takes much siyata d’shmaya for a person to perfect this kind of awareness.

One should also become aware of how he skips in his own thinking patterns. One should become aware: “Is there a certain thought which I usually skip from to a different thought? What kind of thought do I skip away from, and what kind of thought does my mind tend to skip to?”

Perhaps it is being caused by a memory from childhood, or some other trigger, that is causing the mind to skip from one thought to another. It could even be that he was born with a nature to skip like this, or it could be that he acquired it habitually. Whatever the cause, one should become aware of the letters he tends to skip or switch. One can try finding 10 or 20 different such scenarios. In this way, one identifies the different scenarios in which he does his “orderly” skipping.

4. The Understanding That Not Every Seder (Order of Stages) Works For Every Person

After one has identified his skipping habits, the next step is for one to realize is that a person cannot constrict himself to follow any particular kind of seder\order that exists.

Every person has the abilities of seder\order and dilug\skipping, and the only issue is how much percentage of seder and dilug each person has in his soul. Each person needs both of these powers, seder and dilug. It is clear that one needs the power of seder, but it is not as clear that there is also a need for a person to use the power of dilug.

How much seder does one need, and how much dilug does one need? How does one strike the balance these two opposite abilities? This is a subtle matter, because it depends on each person’s particular soul makeup, so it will differ with each person. We cannot explain how one can attain this balance perfectly. But we can provide the following deep perspective which will help one attain the balance.

Earth is the element that provides structure, and therefore it is the epitome of the power of seder\order. The very opposite of earth is the element of wind, a moving element which lifts a person “above” earth and enables a person to operate in a different, higher system, where the rules are different. Everyone has an ability to go above the normal system of rules, his element of earth, and to operate on a higher level which doesn’t have the regular rules. Everyone has his normal, orderly system which he operates in, as well as a different orderly system he can rise to, which doesn’t have the same rules as his normal system. When one accesses it, he is in touch with the power of dilug\skipping, where he can above the normal seder.

In the language of the Torah, this higher mode of operating is referred to as the concept of miracles. A miracle is when a person is operating within a seder that goes above the normal kind of seder, with different rules to it – a whole different system, with rules that are different than the normal rules we are used to.

Therefore, the deep root of the power of dilug\skipping is not in the element of fire, but in the element of wind. The wind lifts a person above the earth, and that is exactly what the power of dilug does – it lifts a person above the normal system of rules which is seder, and it places a person in a different system. When the element of wind raises a person above his normal system of rules, his element of fire can cause him to rise higher within this newfound, orderly system of rules which he finds.

Every person has gone through many different kinds of seder in his life, from the time he is a child. He has gone through different stages of development and different schedules, each with their own specific seder. So even within the power of seder, there are already many different kinds of seder that a person has uncovered. If a person were to take a certain seder from a later stage of life and apply it to his childhood, he would be trying to operate on a higher level, and this would be dilug.

Therefore, the balance between seder and dilug lies in a previous balance, which is, to know how to balance out the many different systems of seder in his life, by not letting a more mature stage of development into a lower stage of development.

Many people have problems in their life because they became “overly mature” in a certain area of development already in their childhood, when their souls weren’t really ready to operate at that higher level. The child recognizes that there is a more mature level he can be on, and he tries to behave on that higher level, when he is really too young for that level of maturity. Such children have the problem of dilug\skipping in their development, by skipping over their current seder\order, trying to behave on a more mature level.

Example 1 – Children Who Read Very Quickly

As an example, some children are used to reading very quickly. What happens when they get older? They have a hard time understanding things, because they have gotten so used to quickly skimming through information. In reading information so quickly without trying to absorb and understand what they are reading about, they tried skipping a stage in their normal childhood development. The adult’s grasp the pace by which he comprehends, while certainly being its own seder, is not the proper seder for a child – it is instead dilug for the child, and the results are detrimental.

Example 2 – Skipping Important Words When Perusing A Sefer

When a person reads through sefarim, he must understand that it is a detrimental habit to skip words. A person may be impatient and he wants to skip through words or paragraphs so he can get to the conclusion of the topic, but this habit accustoms a person to a problematic kind of dilug, because a person will skip very important words.

When it comes to reading the more classical sefarim of older times, where every word was precise and carefully measured, it is not as common that a person will skip reading some words, but when it comes to reading the sefarim of our own times, often the author is repetitive for the sake of clarity, and a person will naturally want to skip all of the repetition so that he can get to the point. But this accustoms a person to the problem of dilug. He will keep using the power of dilug, which is detrimental.  Although there is also place for dilug (as mentioned earlier), because it is a holy power in essence, one must know when and how to use it.

One should become aware of any “skipping” habits he may have. Often when a person is skipping from one topic to another, he consciously sense how his mind is veering away from the current point and skipping to a different point.

In Conclusion

We have mentioned here the issues with focus that stem from earth-of-fire, which is when one regularly uses the power of dilug\skipping, which is detrimental.

This problem – when people make regular use of the power of dilug\skipping, on a consistent basis - is one of the major causes of focus-related issues in our times. The general solution to this problem, as mentioned, is that not everyone can be made to follow the same exact orderly system. We are not living in Sodom [where each person had to fit in the same size bed, or else they cut off his feet or stretched his body to make him fit in].

We need to understand that each person has his own unique nature, his own unique way of developing, and accordingly, we can then provide a person with the particular order of stages he will need to follow, in order for his soul to develop properly – and along with this, we will need to discover the particular areas where the person can skip over the normal rules.

With this understanding, we can help a person attain a balance between his abilities of seder, the normal orderly system of rules he must follow, as well as dilug, the ability to skip above the normal rules.