Search for Serenity - 012 Desires Block Menucha

“We Desire To See Our King”

When the Jewish people stood at Har Sinai, we received two things.  First, we received the Torah.  Second, Hashem revealed Himself to us. The menuchah we experienced at the giving of the Torah contained these two aspects; the Torah, and the revelation of Hashem. These two aspects represent Torah and tefillah.  The giving of the Torah is our Torah and the revelation of Hashem to us at Har Sinai represents tefillah, as we stand before Hashem in prayer.

At Har Sinai, we uttered “It is our will to see our King.” We desired to see Hashem, and indeed we merited this at Har Sinai.

“It is our will to see our King.” What does this mean? Is this just another desire that a person has along with his many desires? Certainly not!

If a person has any desire other than to see Hashem, he cannot see Hashem. In order to see Hashem, a person needs a lev tahor – a pure heart. The heart of a person needs to be purified of any extraneous desires if a person wants to see Hashem. This was what we had at Har Sinai. 

Chazal say that when we stood at Har Sinai to receive the Torah, the spirit of impurity that came from Adam’s sin left us, enabling us to have a pure heart.

A pure heart  has only one desire: “We desire to do Your will.” The essence of the Jewish people really desires only to do the will of Hashem and nothing else. It is only the “yeast in the dough that holds us back” (a reference to the Evil Inclination). At Har Sinai, the Evil Inclination was erased, and fifty days later we reached the state of “We only have one heart, to our Father in Heaven”, and we experienced extraordinary levels.

Just like a person’s feet can run, so can a person’s heart run. When a person runs with his feet, his body is running.  When a person’s heart runs, it is his soul that is making him run. What does it mean to “run” with one’s heart? The heart of a person runs when it desires something.  Desire, which is ratzon, comes from the word ratz, to run. When a person has a desire, he runs out of his inner essence to his outer desires.

Purifying Our Heart From Its Many Desires

Chazal (Rosh HaShanah 21b) say that the world was created with fifty gates of binah (understanding). This means that the heart has many levels of understanding. Every person has fifty rooms in his heart and each room has its own gate.

How can a person access the rooms inside his heart? If a person has a pure heart – if he only has one desire, to do Hashem’s will – he is in the innermost chamber of his heart. But the more desires a person has, the more he leaves his inner rooms in his heart and remains in the outer rooms.

It is written, “And I will dwell amongst them.” Hashem is found in every person.  It is written, “The rock of my heart and my portion, G-d.” Hashem is found in the innermost chamber of our heart. If a person accesses his innermost chamber in his heart, he will find Hashem there. However, if a person has other desires, he runs away from Hashem in his heart.

When Hashem revealed Himself to us at Har Sinai, He entered our innermost chamber in our hearts, because our hearts only had one desire, to do Hashem’s will. This was what enabled us to receive the Torah.

Why a person can’t concentrate during davening

When a person davens, he stands in front of Hashem, and the only way to stand in front of Hashem is for a person to enter his innermost chamber of his heart. A person often finds it hard to concentrate during davening – why? It is because since there are fifty rooms in a person’ heart, he has to pass by all the rooms in order to get to the innermost room, which is where Hashem is.

When a person davens, he brings his heart into the davening.  The problem is that a person’s heart has fifty rooms in it and each room has its many desires. This makes a person think about the many desires he has while he davens, because he’s trying to get by all the rooms!

If a person has menuchas hanefesh, he can easily get by all these rooms in his heart when he davens. He knows how to take his mind off worldly matters and connect to his innermost point, where he can find Hashem. But if a person doesn’t have menuchas hanefesh, his thoughts wander from place to place.  Then he is all mixed up and he can’t focus.

We need to clean out our heart, just like a person cleans up his house. Dovid HaMelech said, “My heart is empty within me”. He also said, “I place Hashem opposite me always.” The first forty-nine rooms in his heart were first emptied out of its content in order to get to the fiftieth room, which is where Hashem is.

The Rema writes, in the beginning of Shulchan Aruch, that a person must always see himself as if he’s sitting in the King’s palace.

When a person brings things into his house, his house becomes more noisy and cramped. The same can be said of a person’s desires. The more desires a person has, desires which have nothing to do with wanting to do what Hashem wants, the more cramped his heart will become.

When you stuff a car with too much luggage, it doesn’t move as fast, because it is too heavy. The more desires a person has, the heavier his heart is, and he cannot be dedicated to Hashem. We need to empty out our heart from its many desires so that we can get a libo lishamayim, a “heart directed toward the heavens.”

A person is able to feel this. When a person has many extra desires, his heart feels heavy, and the more a person eliminates these extra desires, the lighter his heart feels on him and he can connect to the Creator.  When a person has all sorts of desires in life, he is constantly running away from the innermost point in his heart.  He runs away from his menuchas hanefesh.

Remembering Har Sinai

One of the six constant mitzvos we have is to always remember the day we stood at Har Sinai. What does this to mean? Does this mean that we have to remember history?

It is not just to remember, but to feel as if we are actually there today. Just like we have to remember leaving Egypt as if it’s actually happening now, so must we remember when we stood at Har Sinai, as if it’s happening now. In order for a person to feel this way, he has to purify his heart.

At Har Sinai, Hashem spoke to us and we all heard His voice. It was a “great voice, which did not stop”. Chazal say (Targum Onkelos, Devorim 5:18) that the voice of Hashem can be heard every day.

Chazal (Avos 6:2) also say that every day a bas kol (voice of Heaven) goes out from Har Sinai and says, “Woe to the people who disgrace the Torah; return, wayward children.” The Baal Shem Tov said that this bas kol tells people to have thoughts of teshuvah and feel the disgrace of the Torah. The heart of a person is able to hear this bas kol, as well as to hear the actual voice of Hashem.

Hashem resides in a person’s heart and tells a person what to do, and we need to listen to our heart. Only a person with a pure heart can hear Hashem’s voice in his heart.

How To Hear Hashem’s Voice

How can we really merit to receive the Torah and hear Hashem talking to us from the innermost chamber of our heart?

The Ramban says that when a person is in doubt about something and he wants to know how the Torah views his situation, he should nullify his desires and see two options in front of him. When a person reaches his innermost point in his heart and sees the two options in front of him, he sees clearly the light of the Torah and sees what the Torah wants of him. If a person really wants to know what Hashem wants, he needs to water down his issues until he arrives at just two options in front of him.

Our holy sefarim also revealed to us another way out of doubt.  When a person has a question and he has no one to ask, he should check his thoughts. He should see what his original thoughts were and then do the opposite. Why? It is because a person’s first thoughts are always from the Yetzer Hora (Evil Inclination), and the second thoughts are from a person’s Yetzer Tov (Good Inclination). A person’s Yetzer Hora was in him since the time he was born, while the Yetzer Tov comes later, when he is thirteen. Since a person’s Yetzer Hora has been around in him for longer, he usually thinks more like his Yetzer Hora, so his first thoughts about something are usually the wrong thing to do.

In order for a person to know what’s right, he has to access the innermost point in himself, a place that is above his first thoughts, which come from his Yetzer Hora.

How can a person reach this innermost point? All of us have had a point in time when we learned Torah and did not have a Yetzer Hora. This was when we were in our mother’s womb, before we were born. A baby in his mother’s womb is taught Torah by an angel. We need to return to this kind of situation.

How do we go back to our mother’s womb? If a person lives only in this world, he only has worldly interests. But when a person lived inside his mother before he was born, all he had was one desire, holiness. Once a person enters this world he has desires that come from his Yetzer Hora and the Torah he learns is amidst all these various desires. A person needs to return to the state when he was inside his mother.  In other words, he has to be prepared to give up all worldly desires.

Be Prepared To Give Up All Worldly Desires

Let us ask ourselves a question.  If Hashem would give us the choice to stay inside our mother’s womb and remain with all our Torah knowledge – or to be born and experience this world with all its desires – what would we choose? If a person isn’t ready to give up this world’s desires, he really wants this world. He’d rather have this world and its pleasures than to be in his mother’s womb and know the whole Torah. The fact that a person wants this world’s lifestyle is what holds a person back from reaching his innermost point in his heart. The only way for a person to really have the Torah is if he doesn’t want this world’s desires.

There were Gedolim who had great wealth, such as Rebbi, who always had the finest foods on his table (Gittin 59a). Yet the same Rebbi proclaimed that he did not enjoy anything of this world (Kesubos 104a). Rebbi was not connected to this world’s pleasures.  All he wanted was Torah.

Chazal say that when the Torah was being given, our souls left us with each commandment. After the first commandment, why did the Jewish people agree to hear the rest, when they knew that their souls would leave them each time? They knew that their souls would leave them, yet this did not hold them back from wanting the Torah.

If Hashem would come to us today and tell us that in two minutes we will receive the Torah, but that our souls will leave us, would we want it? If a person is ready for this, this shows that he is eligible to receive the Torah, but if he isn’t ready, he won’t have the Torah.

If a person really wants to have the Torah, if he really wants to have the true menuchas hanefesh,  he must be prepared to give up all worldly desires in order to become connected to the truth; Hashem and His Torah.

There are people who will read this and think that this is too harsh and that these words are beyond us. The truth is there were some members of the Jewish people at Har Sinai that felt the same way.  They thought that the Torah was only for Moshe Rabbeinu. But these were members of the Erev Rav (“Mixed Multitude”, Egyptians who escaped with our people who were not considered part of the Jewish people), and these very same people were the ones who made the Golden Calf.

But we, the souls of the Jewish people who stood at Har Sinai, only wanted what Hashem wants. Now we have a Yetzer Hora, which gets in the way of what we really want.  Hence, most people think that they really don’t want the Torah.

When a person has so many things he wants, he is scattered, and he cannot have menuchas hanefesh. However, if a person has only one desire, which is the desire to only want what Hashem wants, he has menuchas hanefesh.