Fixing Your Wind - 001 Falsity, Part 1: Distorted Reality

Preface

We will now begin, with the help of Hashem, to learn how to fix the evil traits which stem from the element of wind in the soul.

We have already covered the bad middos which stem from earth (sadness, imagination, and laziness) and the element of water (desires, pleasure, envy and jealousy). In the last chapter of the previous series (Fixing Your Water), when we concluded the topic of desires, we explored envy and jealousy a bit [and we can really delve even more into those traits, but the time will not allow us to continue with it.]

So we have finished the discussion on the middos which stem from the element of water, and now we will begin to study the bad middos which stem from the element of wind.

1) Wind and Speech

The main evil trait which stems from the element of wind is evil speech; to be general, it is called devarim betailim (“idle speech.”) Man’s power of speech is called “ruach memalelah”, a “talking spirit”; the element of ruach\wind is revealed through the mouth\speech.

There are also additional functions of the element of wind, such as movement, which mainly stems from wind. But the element of wind is specifically manifest in the power of speech.

(Rav Chaim Vital lists the middos stemming from earth as sadness and laziness; water is about desires, and fire is about conceit and anger. These are all middos, however, and they are not active uses of their respective elements. However, when it comes to the element of wind – which is actually the root of all the elements – Rav Chaim Vital lists the power of speech as being the main active use of the element of wind).

2) Four Kinds of Idle Chatter

The evil trait that stems from the element of wind is idle speech, and Rav Chaim Vital lists four branching kinds of “idle” speech:

1) Words that speak falsity (sheker), which stems from the “earth” aspect of wind.

2) Words of flattery (chanufah), which stems from the “water” aspect of wind.

3) Words of gossip (lashon hora), which stems from the “wind” aspect of wind.

4) Words of bragging (shevach atzmo), which stems from the “fire” aspect of wing

We have not listed the order here according to the exact order of Rav Chaim Vital; rather, we have listed it like this purposely so that we can explain them each in order of the four elements, beginning from earth, then water, then wind, then fire.

3) The Four Branches of Wind

3-A) Fire-of-Wind (Bragging)

When one brags about his own praises, he seeks to elevate his status, and this stems from conceit, which is a trait of the element of fire. Since he is speaking about himself, and speech is rooted in wind, bragging about oneself is thus a trait which stems from fire-of-wind.

3-B) Wind-of-Wind (Gossip)

One who speaks gossip on a regular basis (of whom Chazal say will not be able to greet the Shechinah) is someone who talks continuously, without restrictions to his speech; and this shows that his idle speech is stemming from wind of his wind. His speech has become dominant, and speech is the defining nature of wind; thus, gossip stems from wind-of-wind.

3-C) Water-of-Wind (Flattery)

Words of flattery are from water-of-wind, because a person who speaks flattery to another is seeking love and connection with others, and love stems from water.

3-C) Earth-of-Wind (Falsity)

Words that are false stem from earth-of-wind; this is when a person speaks words that are not true; and when he does this on a regular basis.

These are the four kinds of idle speech which all stem from the element of wind in the soul.

We will begin with discussing idle speech that stems from earth-of-wind, which is about speaking words of falsity [and within this, there will be four kinds: earth-of-earth-of-wind, water-of-earth-of-wind, wind-of-earth-of-wind, and fire-of-earth-of-wind).

4) Four Reasons Why People Lie

Why would a person lie? We will discover here that there are four reasons that would motivate a person to lie.

We are dealing with evil speech that stems from earth-of-wind (the source of speaking words of falsity), and there are four applications of this [earth, water, wind and fire].

4-A) Earth-of-Earth-of-Wind: Lying As A Result of Imagination

False speech that stems from earth-of-earth-of-windis whena person lies as a result of his tendency to imagine. Earth is the root of the power to imagine, because “earth” is “adamah” in Hebrew, from the word “medameh” (imagination).

Thus, when one has a distorted picture of reality and that is why he described something falsely, his lying is being produced from his “earth” aspect in earth-of-wind. (It is this kind of false speech which we focus the discussion of this chapter on.)

6-B) Water-of-Earth-of-Wind: ‘Dragged’ After Lying

Another kind of false speech stems from water-of-earth-of-wind, and this is a very common problem: A person can be telling over a story and making up things that never happened. When asked why he said such a thing, he says something like, “Oh, that’s just how it came out of my mouth in the conversation….”

He was sort of “dragged” after saying certain words in the conversation. As we have explained in the past[1], “dragging” is a nature of the element of water.

6-C) Wind-of-Earth-of-Wind: Habitual Lying

A third kind of false speech stems from wind-of-earth-of-wind. This is when a person lies because he is missing an inner sense of “yashrus” (uprightness).

The Vilna Gaon said that ever since the sin of Adam, man deviated from the state of yashrus\uprightness, and instead entered into “cheshbonos rabim”, the “many calculations”, the nature to be cunning and deceitful. All of mankind was affected by this, but in some people, this evil nature can be more dominant than the usual. When a person has a nature to be deceitful, he naturally is drawn to speak words that are false. Not only does he lie all the time and on a regular basis; his whole nature becomes that of habitual lying.

6-D) Fire-of-Earth-of-Wind: Bragging About Non-Existing Qualities In Oneself

A fourth kind of false speech is from fire-of-earth-of-wind. This is when a person exaggerateswhat he’s saying, and as a result, he fabricates words.

This is not to be confused with the regular case of bragging, which stems from the general kind of fire-of-wind[2], which we will address later. With fire-of-wind, the person will brag of qualities that are true. But when a person brags about himself about qualities that do not exist in himself, this stems from fire-of-earth-of-wind.

For example, there are people who generally will not lie, but when they talk about themselves, they will brag about themselves and make up things about themselves that are not true.

5) Earth-of-Earth-of-Wind: False Speech That Results From Imagination\Fooling Yourself

We will first discuss false speech that stems from earth-of-earth-of-wind, which is when one speaks falsely as a result of one’s tendency toimagine.

The imagination can cause a person to convince his mind about certain things that aren’t true. We see this very dominant in children, who will make up stories and really believe it’s true. The person who lies because his imagination is leading him is not lying intentionally. Rather, he has fooled himself, so he ends up saying a lie.

Of course, he is still saying something not true, but he’s not consciously trying to lie. The problem here is that he really believes that a certain thing happened, when in reality, it did not happen. So when he describes something, he is giving an inaccurate description of the facts, because he didn’t realize that his imagination has fooled him and has shown him a distorted view of reality.

We have discussed imagination in the past (in the series “Getting To Know Your Imagination”), but here we are discussing a different kind of imagination, which is more subtle and not as obvious. It is a kind of imagination in which a person has gotten used to having a false view on things, so he doesn’t realize that his imagination is fooling him and distorting reality.

6) Outline of the Solution: Gaining A Truthful Lens On Reality

When a person doesn’t realize that he is being fooled by imagination, this needs to be countered with getting used to developing a more truthful viewpoint towards things.

The word “emes” (truth) is an acronym for the Hebrew letters Aleph, Mem, and Tav – the beginning, middle, and final letters of the Aleph Beis. The implication of the concept of “emes”, the truth, is totake into account the view of the beginning, middle, and end of a matter. Emes is about connecting the beginning and end together, including the middle point - leaving out nothing in between.

To apply this concept, sometimes a person thinks he gets the whole picture of something when he reads a little about it, and he is really missing information. For example, a person reads the beginning lines of an article and the end of the article, and based upon that, the person thinks he knows what the middle of the article discussed. Sometimes he guesses right - but sometimes, he is wrong!

The ability of emes\truth is thus to see the beginning, middle, and end of a matter, which connects all the details together.

7) False Reality: Focusing Too Much On A Detail & Failing To See The Bigger Picture

Now we will examine the opposite of emes (truth): what sheker (falsity) is. We will also see the differences between emes and sheker, and how it is sheker that really fuels the subtle kind of imagination we are discussing.

Imagination (medameh) is a problem that affects all people. Everyone is somewhat affected by imagination, some more and some less. There are only a few people in the world who see a truthful lens on reality.

The classic example of imagination-based life can be seen in children. Children live only for the moment, and they don’t think about the past or the future. An adult has the power to be sensible and think in a mature way, so an adult can think about past or future and he can see how they relate to and affect the present moment. However, the immature kind of thinking which a child has, often remains unchanged even in adults!

How can we see this? When a person focuses too much on a particular detail, and he doesn’t take into account the other factors that make up the picture, he sees a distorted view of reality, because he does not see the bigger picture. It resembles a child’s thinking, who lives in imagination and therefore doesn’t see how past or future connect with the present.

To illustrate, the Gemara says that a chazakah of ownership is established through three consecutive acts. If one’s ox gores three times, it is considered to a wild ox, which must be guarded by its owner, or else it is negligence on the owner’s part. But a person who has a superficial perspective sees the third time in which the ox gores and he doesn’t see how this connects to the previous two times that the ox gored.

This was just an example; there are more examples as well of the concept we are saying. The point is that when a person isn’t used to viewing things with a truthful lens, he is dominated by a false kind of view, and this causes him to overlook details; when he sees a detail, he focuses on the detail alone, failing to take into account what came before and what comes afterwards.

We can give another example. A person is purchasing a table for the house, and he also needs a few chairs to go around it. He purchases four chairs, and then he gets to his house and he finds that the four chairs can’t fit, because he didn’t measure the exact centimeters of the table. He saw some chairs he liked, he saw a table he liked, but he didn’t think about how they can all fit with each other.

Connecting Your Life Together

Here is a deeper example: a person goes through different stages of life. First he is a teenager, then he is married, and so forth. When a person has an immature perspective towards life, he never thinks that much, so he only focuses on his current stage of life, not before that and not after that.

When he is a teenager, he just sees himself, and he doesn’t think about what he was like when he was child, or what he will be like when he is married. When he gets married, he is a little more mature, and he has many memories about his childhood, but he doesn’t think that much about what he was like when he was child; nor does he think about what old age will be like. He spends most of his time thinking about his current stage of life, and he doesn’t think about past or future. (Maybe he will think about old age if he is concerned about getting his pension.)

People usually don’t think about their past childhood, the current point they are in, and the point they are heading towards. The Mishnah in Avos says: “Know from where you come from, and to where you are going, and in front of Whom you will have to give an accounting”. In other words, one has to contemplate his beginning point, his current point, and his later point. This is a perspective towards life - it is the perspective of truth.

Most people want to focus just on the present, without thinking about past or present, and this really comes from being so used to a false view towards things.

8) “Emes” Vs. “Sheker”

When a person has a view of sheker (falsity) on things, he doesn’t realize that his view is really splitting apart pieces of reality, and thus he doesn’t see how the bits and pieces connect together to form a bigger picture. By contrast, the view of emes (truth) is to see a beginning and end point, and to connect it with the middle (or current) point.

When a person speaks falsely due to earth-of-earth-of-wind, it is not a lie in the regular sense. It is true that the person is lying, but that is just the result of a deeper issue. He doesn’t see reality correctly, because he doesn’t know how to think beyond the present moment - and that is why he speaks falsely. He is speaking from his incomplete view of reality.

“The truth” is: there isn’t that much “truth” in the world today. Anything truthful that we usually know of on this world is only truth when we compare it with sheker, but the perfect level of truth is rare to find.

9) The Basic Level of Truth Vs. The Higher Level of Truth

To explain this concept further, a true Gadol is someone who sees the entire picture of Creation, from beginning until end, and how it relates to the present moment. A Gadol sees the totality of things.

A person who is not a Gadol is greater than people who are below his level, but a Gadol is someone who sees how the many details of Creation connect together, and thus he knows how to use all of the details to serve Hashem. Of course, nobody can see all the details that are in Creation since the beginning of time; no human being is capable of this. But the basic perspective of truth to have on life is for a person to take into account the beginning point, the current point, and the later point, of the details.

9-A) Examples of Basic Level of Truth

For example, you go home and you see a table. Here is a question: When did Hashem create a table? You can simply answer that “Hashem didn’t create a table; He created the tree, which the wood of the table comes from”. It appears that tables were not part of the act of Creation. But a table comes from a tree, so the table’s beginning is that it comes from a tree. When did Hashem create trees? On the sixth day of Creation. (The plants were created on the third day, but nothing sprouted until the sixth day).

So the question here appeared silly, but the answer wasn’t that simple. The point is that everything has a beginning point you can connect it with. A table is not just a table that comes from a piece of wood manufactured in a factory. Its origin is that it comes from a tree. That is its beginning.

So in everything you see, you should try to think how it somehow connects with the beginning of Creation. The Chofetz Chaim would do this exercise all the time: he would see how everything he came across was contained in Maaseh Beraishis (the first six days of Creation).Of course, what you see in front of you is not the way it looked at the beginning of Creation. But it was definitely at Creation, just it was in its raw form.

A person needs to get used to seeing the beginning point in the things that he sees. Without getting used to this kind of thinking, a person doesn’t see a truthful lens of reality.

Of course, you definitely see what you are seeing, and you are ready to swear that the table you see is a table. But from a truthful perspective, if you don’t contemplate the beginning point of something, you don’t really see the table – you are not really seeing what you are seeing. You aren’t seeing it as it really is.

Taking this further, when a person isn’t viewing reality as it is, he surely won’t be able to attain a perfect bond with the Creator. Only the Creator is found completely in everything. In order for a person to completely reach the recognition of the Creator, he must first see realities in a truthful way. In each thing a person sees, he must take into account the whole picture of what he is seeing.

9-B) Noticing The False View

When a person doesn’t know of truthful perspectives towards things, that really means he is deeply immersed in sheker (falsity). In fact, he will even think that his view of sheker is really the emes!

To begin rectifying this, a person first has to intellectually contemplate what the emes (truth) of something, and then he can begin to realize that all the emes he sees is only “emes” in relation to sheker, but that he still doesn’t see reality as it is. The first step is - that a person has to begin to absorb that he simply does not see reality as it is. Seeingthe emes (truth) is to see before and after the current point. If one cannot see the previous point and the later point of something, he needs to realize that he does not see emes yet!

10) The Importance Of Seeing The Truth

The words here, when a person hears them the first time, will often sound very strange. But that is only because a person is so far from emes that he is not ready to absorb a truthful perspective.

If a Sefer Torah is missing a letter, it is invalid, because if it is missing even one detail, it is not a “true” Torah, for Torah has to be “Toras Emes”, a “Torah of truth”.

When a person is learning a certain sugya in the Talmud, like if he is learning Tractate Eruvin, it seems that Tractate Niddah has nothing to do with the current sugya. But the truthful perspective is that all the details of the Torah are always relevant to whatever you are currently learning.

Again, the words here will seem strange to most people when they hear it, because most people do not understand what emes and sheker is. For example, people tend to think that “lying” is only called lying when a person says that it’s raining outside when really it’s not raining, and that emes is to say it’s raining outside when it is raining outside. But emes and sheker really go much deeper than that.

When a person really understands what emes is, his entire perspective changes. Someone who reaches the real understanding of what emes is someone who will reach true understanding of Torah, and he will have a true connection with Hashem.

11) Leaving The View of Falsity & Getting Used To A View of Truth

Now we will make these concepts practical. We elaborated upon the concept a lot until now due to the intense nature of this concept; hearing these words the first time are hard for most people to understand even on a very simple level.

How indeed can we draw ourselves closer to emes?

1) Firstly, one has to begin to contemplate, at least on an intellectual level, what the concept of emes (truth) is – it means for one to see beyond the present moment, to take into account what comes before and after something; to see the bigger picture of things, as opposed to just focusing on a particular detail of any given situation.

2) The second step is for a person to see in his own personal life that he is not yet living a life of emes yet.

Practically speaking, in whatever you see, think about what came before it, what came after it, and what the details are that it is made of.  When you begin to think like this, you will notice that your initial perspective of things is inaccurate, but in doing so, you will draw yourself closer and closer to what a truthful perspective is.

11-A) Some Practical Examples of Becoming More Truthful

For example, pay attention to what you say, and you will notice contradictions. You will discover that you weren’t paying attention to what you were saying. When you take apart your conversations like this, it helps you get used to the idea of distancing yourself from sheker and instead getting used to emes.

Another example: often a person asks a question in Halacha to a Posek, and he gets an answer from the Posek. But the Posek is only answering you according to how you are presenting the question! A very large percent of responses from a Posek to a person are really not the answer to the question asked – not because the response was incorrect, but because the question was phrased incorrectly.

A person is telling over an episode what happened, and there are many factors going on; is he saying over all the details? A person would have to be extremely wise in order to know all the details that are involved. If a person is used to thinking about before and after, he will be able to ask a question accurately.

One should get used to taking apart the details of everything he comes across: to think about before and after the current point. Obviously, this should be worked upon slowly; one cannot become perfect so fast when he tries to work on this. The point is to think about what came before and how it relates to something else that comes after it. Often a person focuses on the current point and doesn’t see what comes before it and what comes after it.

Here is another example: when a person thinks about our generation, he should think about what the previous generation looked like, and what it will look like in the next generation. For example, what will the generation look like if this generation doesn’t merit Moshiach?

In Summary

Thus, a person first needs to become aware of what the concept of emes\truth is. Then, one should admit that he is far from truth.

Don’t look at something as it is; see what comes before it and what comes after it. Getting used to this will give you a whole new perspective on things. This is the depth of distancing yourself from falsity.

12) In Conclusion

The concept described here is something we can relate to very well from when we learn a sugya in the Gemara. When a person learns a sugya of Gemara, a person should think about the details that are involved with the current page of Gemara he is learning, and see how the details connect to the current sugya.

A person without this perspective will merely be aware of the details, but he doesn’t know how to connect them to the current point he is learning about. He can know the details well, but he doesn’t know how to connect it with the beginning, middle, and end of the sugya. By contrast, a true Torah scholar, who has a truthful perspective, knows how to take other details he is aware about and connect them to the current point he is learning about.

Just as we can relate to this concept from how learn Gemara, so can we learn how to connect details in all other aspects of our life we come across.

We have described here the point of earth-of-earth-of-wind in the soul, the source of speaking words of falsehood. We can fix it with the trait of emes\truth, which is when we pit emes against sheker. It was explained here the depth of how we use the trait of emes\truth - a power deep in our soul.