Nefesh haChayim Gate 1 - 008 Sifting Out Good From Evil

נפש החיים 008 שער א פרק ו

1] The Nefesh HaChaim [Shaar 1 Perek 6] continues: “[Now that we are after the sin of Adam], “It is almost impossible for most people in the world to perform any action that is completely holy and clean from evil motives.”

The Nefesh HaChaim is careful to say that most people cannot perform a perfect action, which implies that there a few people who can. How are those few people able to do it? It is because these few people are aware that they are essentially a pure soul; they recognize that “My G-d, the soul You placed in me is pure.”

However, after the sin of Adam, everything in Creation has become a mixture of good and evil. Evil not only entered the physical body of man, but even parts of the soul (the Nefesh, and the Ruach) became affected by evil.  Most people have not revealed their higher part of the soul, which is called “Neshamah”, and therefore people come to sin, and even the good deeds that most people are not completely with pure intentions. Even the few people who have revealed their Neshamah are still lacking perfect deeds, due to the evil present in the two lower parts of the soul, the Nefesh and the Ruach.

For example, when a person gives tzedakah, it is often not with completely good intentions, and this is due to the Nefesh and Ruach of the soul, which contain some evil.

2] The Nefesh HaChaim continues that ever since the sin of Adam, our thoughts are mixed with good and evil, and there are times where we think we are having good thoughts, but they are just being imagined.

Here the Nefesh HaChaim is referring to the power of imagination. Often a person can be having good intentions, but the action he is performing is wrong and evil. There is some good spark of good here, which are the good intentions he is having; but it is being clothed by an evil garment, which is the evil deed being performed.

Here it is being explained to us a fundamental point: if a person would know for sure that the action he is performing is truly evil, he would immediately disengage from the act. Why do people come to do evil deeds? It is all due to our imagination. The imagination convinces a person that he’s doing the right thing.

This is the mistake that most people are making. We are living in a world of imagination, and therefore we tend to imagine that everything we are doing is always good. When people get into heated arguments with others and persist about this, they believe they are right in doing so, because they feel that this is “an argument for the sake of Heaven.”

How does a person avoid being swayed by his imagination? Even if a person sits down to write a cheshbon hanefesh (soul-accounting) it won’t help him, because he thinks that everything he does is good – he’s being fooled by imagination, and he cannot see what he is doing wrong.

How can we realize what is right and wrong? If everything in the world is a mixture of good and evil, how do we sift out the good from the evil? The only way to do this is by rising above our various personal motives (negios), and the way to get around our negios is through attaining the state called hishtavus (equilibrium), which is a trait described in sefer Chovos HaLevovos.

The way a person attains hishtavus is to take your options and narrow them down into two possibilities, which both equally make sense to choose. Then, you will be able to notice the part of the situation that is evil, and thus avoid it.

3] The Nefesh HaChaim continues that had Adam remained in Gan Eden and eaten from the Eitz HaChaim, he would have lived forever, but he would remain forever with his evil. Therefore, for his own benefit, Hashem banished him from Gan Eden and cursed him with death and the pain of the grave, so that he would be cleansed from the evil upon him.

According to these words, we can understand why there are many people who learn Torah all day and even write sefarim, yet they aren’t shining with the light of Torah. It is because they haven’t cleansed themselves from their internal evil, and thus they go their whole life remaining with the evil in them…

4] What is the purpose of the Mussar throughout all the generations [ever since it was introduced]? It is not meant to be hisorerus (inspiration), nor was it meant to improve our mitzvos. Inspiring ourselves or improving our mitzvos do not represent the soul of Mussar; these things are only the outer layer of Mussar.

Of course, improving our mitzvos is definitely a good thing, but it is only a means to a greater end. The purpose of improving our mitzvos is so that we can get to the inner layer of our avodah.

The inner layer of our Avodah is to clarify everything; to clarify what is good, and what is evil. The Ramchal writes (in Mesillas Yesharim) that “fear of Hashem is wisdom (chochmah)”; what, essentially, is chochmah\wisdom? Wisdom is to see the good and the evil that is contained in everything we come across.