Getting to Know Your Inner World - 008 Detaching From Ta’anug and Ratzon, Part 2

(To summarize our avodah thus far, we are attempting here to realize some of our end goal already in the beginning of our way, so we can navigate the confusing “garden maze” of life. For this we need some degree of menuchah (serenity), which we explained about before. This helps us get in touch with our actual essence (our very havayah). We have described that the way to reach menuchah is through halbashah (wearing) and hafshatah (removing) the soul’s various abilities, which helps us learn how to detach from our soul’s layers and thereby get deeper and deeper into our soul.)

The Torah Approach To “Detachment”

We must have “detachment” (hafshatah) in two ways. We need to divest ourselves from evil, which are sins and bad middos. We have to wage war with evil and take on different kinds of resolutions that will help us overpower evil; but that is not our discussion here. We also need to learn how to divest ourselves from even the faculties of our soul; this is the focus of our discussion here.

If someone just wants to detach from his soul faculties simply to feel what it’s like to detach, this is the way of the non-Jewish nations, and it is not the Torah way. The Torah way is to learn how to detach because you are trying to gain something positive from it – because you are trying to reach your very essence.

We need to learn how to both “wear” and “remove” our soul faculties; we wear them by learning how to use them, and we remove them by detaching from them when we have to. If you know how to detach from your soul faculties, you will become free from your inner imprisonment, and you will become truly free. If someone can’t detach from his faculties, he’s imprisoned to them; even though the soul faculties are all good and holy, if someone can’t get past them, he’s still imprisoned by them.

Learning how to detach (“hafshatah”) is really a very complex discussion; we are just giving a few examples of the concept. It is a great wisdom to know when to ‘wear’ your soul faculties and when to ‘remove’ them. Just like there is no end to how many ways the letters of the Aleph Beis can be combined, so are there endless scenarios of how to wear and remove your soul faculties.

Using Ratzon To Remove Emunah

The highest soul faculty (after your very essence, which is your havayah) is the faculty of emunah (faith): the ability to believe. Sometimes, it is necessary to detach from emunah! We do not mean, chas v’shalom, to deny Hashem. There is no such thing. We are referring to a different kind of “denial” which you can make use of. This is when you need to detach from emunah, like when a person is having too much emunah and acting improperly, blaming everything on Hashem. The person is having misguided emunah.

In order to remove yourself from emunah, you need to make use of its opposite ability, which is the ability to deny. Usually denial is evil, but sometimes it can be good; how?

Such a situation needs to be dealt with by opposing the extreme emunah: by “denying” the faculty of emunah. How?  Denial (kefirah) is really the power of free will (bechirah) in a person, which stems from the faculty of ratzon (will). If so, ratzon is the opposing force to emunah. So when you need to detach from having too much emunah, you need to make use of your ratzon and instead choose to deny your misguided emunah.

Detaching From Taanug/Pleasure

In the previous chapter, we spoke about how to detach from ta’anug/pleasure. Although we know that a person was created in order to have pleasure, if the power of pleasure is too extreme in a person and being used in the wrong place, it needs to be opposed.

This can be done by accepting non-pleasurable activities, such as taking on responsibilities. That is how you “detach” from pleasure. The temptation comes your way, so what do you do? You awaken from within yourself the ability to restrain from pleasure, which is by accepting upon yourself the responsibility of not going after evil pleasures.

(We also find two titles for how one serves Hashem: ben, a son, and eved, a slave. What is the difference? A son serves his Father only out of pleasure, but a slave serves his Master because he has responsibilities toward Him, whether he likes it or not.)

The power to detach from ta’anug is essentially the faculty of shiflus (lowliness) in the soul, which is the thirteenth soul faculty. A person fights forbidden pleasures by being subservient to Hashem, awakening his feeling of shiflus and obedience to his Master.

Exertion and Enjoyment in Learning Torah

In learning Torah, there are two kinds of learning: ameilus/exertion and ta’anug/ pleasure.

On one hand, a person has to exert himself in learning as much as he can. On the other hand, learning Torah has to be enjoyable; “A person does not learn except for what his heart desires (libo chofeitz)”.

These are two abilities in our soul which we use to learn Torah – exertion, and enjoyment. We need to “wear” and “remove” both of these abilities when it comes to learning Torah.

If a person only learns Torah when he enjoys it, then he will only learn when he likes the particular subject in Torah at hand, but if he doesn’t like it, he won’t learn it. Chazal say that “one is not allowed to say, “That statement of Torah is nice, and another statement of Torah isn’t nice.” Such a person needs to remove his ta’anug and instead have ameilus in Torah, which is essentially by using shiflus. He has to give up his desire for pleasure and instead accept upon himself the kabalas ol Torah, the “yoke of Torah.”

On the other hand, if a person is only exerting himself in Torah but he never has enjoyment in it, he should remove his shiflus and instead focus on how to get ta’anug out of learning; he shouldn’t exert himself so much, and instead he should only learn what his “heart desires” – libo chofeitz.

It is not our aim here to tell a person what to do and how to behave in his life. We are describing how we build up our soul. You can only know what to “do” in your life as a result from building up your soul.

If you are faced with an evil temptation, it is very clear that you must learn how to detach from pleasure. But even with spiritual pleasures you need to know how to detach from sometimes, like when you’re having too much ta’anug. The point is that we cannot be imprisoned by the faculty of ta’anug.

It takes a lot of wisdom to know when a person should use ta’anug or when he should use ameilus/shiflus.

If a person only knows of ta’anug in learning Torah but he doesn’t have ameilus in learning, on a subtle understanding, he is throwing off the yoke of Torah (perikas ol).

But when ameilus is balanced with ta’anug, and ta’anug is balanced with ameilus, such a person has the kaballas ol Torah, and in addition to this, he truly gains from the kind of ta’anug he has in it, because it is a pleasure that is well-balanced.

That is a summary of what we explained in the last chapter.

Detaching from Ratzon

The next soul faculty, after emunah and taanug, is ratzon/will. It is also a broad discussion, and we will describe it briefly.

There are two kinds of ratzon in a person: wanting to do what you want, and wanting to do what Hashem wants. It is really our will to do the will of Hashem (“It is our will to do Your will”) but the “yeast in the sourdough” (a reference to the yetzer hora/evil inclination holds us back); on a subtle note, the will of Hashem is realized when we do His will.

The yetzer hora doesn’t just hold back our ratzon to do what Hashem wants – it sways us to come up with a new ratzon, a ratzon to do something bad.

That is regarding where our ratzon leads to – we are not describing how to remove it yet. We are just describing the roots; if this is not understood properly, we cannot understand what is to follow.

If a person doesn’t first understand what ratzon is and he attempts to remove his retzonos, what will he be left with? He will be left with no ratzon at all, and this is not good. Thus, first we need to learn about the roots of the faculty of ratzon, and only after that can we attempt to remove ourselves from it.[1]

The opposite of ratzon is emunah. When a person wants something, he really thinks that it’s all up to him. Rebbi Eliezer ben Durdaya said, “The matter is dependent only on me.” Ratzon is when a person thinks that everything is up to him. (Ratzon can be used for good or evil).

How can a person nullify a negative desire for something?

The Torah commands, “You shall not covet” (lo sachmod). How is it possible for a person not to desire something he wants? The Ibn Ezra has a famous explanation. Just like a pauper who sees the princess passing by has no desire to marry her, because he knows that this is impossible, so can a person tell himself that his desire is impossible to be realized, because Hashem doesn’t want him to have it. This is essentially the power of emunah in the soul.

If so, one can use emunah to oppose an evil ratzon. A person can remind himself that Hashem “was, is, and always will be”, which is emunah, and this will remove himself from ratzon. This will not make a person freeze from whatever he’s doing; it will instead eliminate his ratzon to do something.[2]

If a person overdoes this, he will use too much emunah and eliminate his ability to act. This will breed laziness and sadness. But if a person uses emunah in the proper amount, he can eliminate an evil ratzon. When our desire for something is eliminated based on a proper usage of emunah, we will be able to give up what we want, but this will not cause us to be sad.

If I want something, then I must always be prepared to give it up, using emunah. If I want something and I’m not prepared to give it up everything, such a ratzon will make me imprisoned to my ratzon. Even if it’s a ratzon for something holy, if I’m not prepared to somehow give it up when I’m supposed to, then it’s also a ratzon that traps me.

How can a person know if his ratzon for something holy has him trapped or not? The way he can know this is what he feels like when he wasn’t able to fulfill it due to a circumstance which he could not have prevented. If he is sad that he couldn’t fulfill the ratzon and it was totally not his fault – for example, he wanted to do a certain mitzvah, but he got held back from fulfilling it, and he’s sad - that shows that he isn’t prepared to nullify his ratzon for Hashem’s Ratzon. If he would really be able to nullify his ratzon, he wouldn’t be sad, because since it is not his fault, it is Hashem’s will that his mitzvah shouldn’t happen.

As we mentioned before, a person has to go through a recurring cycle in his soul faculties. Ratzon needs to be sometimes removed by emunah, as we just explained, but then emunah can also become too extreme, and it can be removed through ratzon.

The cycle has to keep taking place: a person goes from emunah to ratzon (he can detach from his misguided emunah using ratzon, as we explained previously) and then from ratzon to emunah (he can detach from an evil ratzon by using emunah).

Two Kinds of Ta’anug/Pleasure

When a person detaches from ratzon using emunah, and he detaches from emunah using ratzon in this way, he is able to “wear” ratzon or “remove” it, just like garments need to be put on or taken off. A person can also wear his “emunah” or take it off,when the situation calls for it; and vice versa.

In between the faculties of emunah and ratzon is the faculty of ta’anug, though, so a person will often encounter his power of ta’anug when he is trying to detach from either his emunah and ratzon. 

There are two kinds of ta’anug – a person can enjoy what he has and believes that he has everything already, which is ta’anug in his emunah; or a person enjoys his very will to do something, which is taanug in his ratzon, because the fact that he has possibilities in front of him also gives him a certain pleasure.

(How do we know this is true? This we can see because a person has a feeling of despair when he gives up on what he wants; despair is a form of sadness. This shows us that when a person has an aspiration for something, he derives certain pleasure from the fact that he even has the possibility to fulfill his aspirations.)

Since there are two kinds of ta’anug, a person has to learn how to make use of one kind of ta’anug and know how to remove it as well. There are times where we should use ta’anug in our emunah, and times where we instead need to use ta’anug in our ratzon.

For example, if a person isn’t happy with his accomplishments in life, he lacks ta’anug in his emunah, so he can give himself ta’anug from his ratzon, which is by being happy with the fact that he has aspirations in his life to go higher. There are times in which a person isn’t deriving pleasure in his life, and he remembers how there was a time in his life in which he had aspirations, and he longs for that situation ago. This is how we can see that a person can get pleasure just from his very aspirations.

Another reason for this is because ratzon comes from the word ratz, to “run”. A person enjoys running; he feels “light like an eagle.” This is how a person can have ta’anug just from his ratzon. When a person loses ta’anug in his emunah, he can give himself taanug by summoning his taanug in his ratzon.

The opposite situation is if a person has high aspirations and then he falls from his level, he loses pleasure from those aspirations, and he needs to derive pleasure now from what he has at least accomplished so far; he can focus on what he has already. In this way, he removes his ta’anug from his ratzon and instead awakens in himself a ta’anug in emunah.

Before, we mentioned a different way to remove ta’anug, and that is when one makes use of shiflus. That is a total detachment from ta’anug. Now we have described a different kind of detachment from ta’anug, which is to remove ta’anug in your emunah and give yourself ta’anug from ratzon, as well as vice versa.

Although this is not a total detachment from the faculty of ta’anug as in the case of using shiflus, it is still somewhat of a detachment, because it is detaching from one kind of ta’anug and awakening a different kind of ta’anug, which can still be helpful.

Again, let us mention that this is a vast subject. It’s like an endless ocean.

Detaching from Chochmah

The next faculty in the soul is chochmah (wisdom).

Hashem created the world – and people – with chochmah.  We say in the Asher Yotzar blessing, “He Who fashioned man with wisdom.” Hashem looked into Torah and created the world from it; the whole Creation is a reality of chochmah. Hashem first had a Ratzon to create the world, but He created it with Chochmah. This is what is written, “Say to wisdom, you are my sister.”

When should a person detach from chochmah, and how?

Chochmah is rooted in the element of water, which is calm and unmoving (unless wind come and moves it). This shows us many ways how a person can detach from chochmah when he has to. The Torah is called mayim shekaitim, “calm waters.” This shows us that by using a calm kind of chochmah/wisdom, we can detach from our wisdom when the situation calls for us not to use chochmah.

The Ramchal writes that it is the way of scholars to always think about Torah, wherever they are; if he cannot stop thinking when he is in a place where it is forbidden to think about Torah (such as a foul-smelling place), what should he do?

The advice brought is that he should think about math or some other calculations. Since he can’t stop thinking, he has to give his thoughts some outlet, so he can think about math in such a place. (On a subtle note, such thinking isn’t really called chochmah, but hirhur). But this is a solution for one who doesn’t know how to detach from chochmah. If he would know how to detach from chochmah, he wouldn’t have to resort to any thinking at all.

How can you detach from chochmah? A person can do this through using emunah. Emunah is the ability to believe even when something is not understandable; if I can’t understand why something is good, I can believe that somehow it is good, just I don’t understand it. If so, emunah can overpower chochmah. I am removing myself from my chochmah and returning to my emunah.

(On a more subtle note, I am removing myself from chochmah and returning to my ratzon, which is called ayin, the power of “nothingness” in the soul. It is written, “Wisdom is found in ayin (nothingness).” This shows us that chochmah is rooted in a ayin, “nothingness”, the deep place in the soul that is above the thoughts; it needs to be accessed sometimes. Ayin is also identified with ratzon; it is the hidden kind of ratzon. If so, I can remove my chochmah by instead awakening my ayin/ratzon.)

The first method, which is to return to emunah, can only be possible if one has already developed his emunah before the difficult situation comes. A person has to build up a place for emunah in his soul way before he finds himself in a situation where he’s not allowed to think; it can’t be developed when he’s at the time of the difficulty. You have to work on your emunah long before a difficulty comes, and to live in that clear perception on reality; if you have already developed your emunah, you will be able to detach from chochmah by returning to the emunah you have already built up in yourself.

Otherwise, you will have no “place” in yourself to return to when you remove your chochmah, and working on your emunah now won’t be enough. The emunah has to be in you from beforehand. Detaching can only work when you already have the “clear world” from before; if you are already living in a clear world of emunah, then you are able to detach from chochmah.

There are more kinds of chochmah which we need to also detach from sometimes, and that is when one has too much ta’anug or ratzon in his chochmah.

A person can have ta’anug in chochmah, which is when he feels pleasure from wisdom, or he can have chochmah even without ta’anug. When a person is having the wrong kind of ta’anug in chochmah, he needs to detach from the pleasure he finds in the chochmah, and instead learn how to connect to chochmah even when it doesn’t involve pleasure. This will be explained more in the next chapter, if we merit it.