Torah Way to Enlightenment - 006 Intro Power of Thought & Nefesh – Basic Awareness

[1] Likutei Moharan: Torah: 1

[2] Tehillim 104:24

[3] Koheles 7:12

[4] Yeshayahu 43:7

[5] Koheles 7:12

[6] Tehillim 121:4

[7] Rambam Hilchos Talmud Torah 3:13

[8] Eruvin 65a

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ספר דע את נשמתך – פרק ט – מחשבת נפש

Thoughts of Nefesh – Basic Awareness

1. Building Our Power of Thought

Until now, we explained at length about the [soul’s] power of sight. As mentioned before from the sefarim hakedoshim, the eyes’ vision and the mind’s thoughts are both rooted in the same faculty. An analytical kind of thought is called iyun, which is from the word ayin, “eye”, for the mind can scrutinize and thereby ‘see’ a matter. The power of thought (machshavah) corresponds to the “Chayah” level of the soul, which is the soul’s power of inner chochmah (wisdom), in the sense of “seeing” a matter by way of the mind.

Before we proceed to discuss how we build the power of thought, we will first mention the three general stages in hisbodedus, as mentioned in the beginning of this sefer, as they apply to our world of thought:

1. 1.     Using the power of thought to reflect upon man himself: the Creation in general, and specifically, on one’s private self.
2. 2.     Using the power of thought to reflect on the bond between the creations with their Creator in general, and specifically, one the private bond between my “I” with my Creator.
3. 3.     Using the power of thought to reflect and recognize the existence of the Creator, Blessed Is He.

Until now, we explained how these stages are accessed using the soul’s sense of sight. Now we will enter a second step, which will involve the power of thought.

Thought will involve the three above stages as well. There are thoughts we can have about the creations in general, and about our private self specifically. There are thoughts we can have about the bond between the creations with the Infinite, with the Creator, Blessed Is He. And there are thoughts we can have about that are just about the truth of His existence, regardless of how this relates to the creations. We will try to explain each of these three stages, with the help of Hashem, in an orderly progression, and to explain what they are about.

Just as we divided the soul’s sense of sight into the five areas of the soul – the Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah and Yechidah – so it is with thought. Thus, there is a power of thought in the Nefesh level of the soul, in the Ruach level of the soul, in the Neshamah level of the soul, in the Chayah level of the soul, and in the Yechidah level of the soul. These are five different levels of thought.

Generally, the power of thought corresponds to the “Chayah” level of the soul (as explained in the previous chapter), so when we discuss thought, we are really discussing the “Chayah” level that is either within the Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah or Yechidah levels of the soul. In this chapter, and in the coming chapters as well, we will try to explain each of these steps, with Hashem’s help.

2. The “Nefesh” Level of Thought

The “Nefesh” level of the soul is always the kli, the “container”, of something. We explained about this earlier when we discussed the “Nefesh” level of the soul’s sense of sight, which is to see something as being made of the letters of the aleph beis. The “Nefesh” level of thought means to perceive reality as it is – to simply recognize what the reality is. On a general level, it includes recognizing the reality of the world as it is, and on a private level, it is to recognize the reality of our own existing self.

We do not mean that a person has to know everything going on in the world. A person does not have to know anything that he doesn’t need to know about. Rather, what we mean is that a person needs to generally be in touch with reality – and only that which is necessary for him to know. Thus, the “Nefesh” level of thought is when one is simply aware of necessary facts; to know the actual reality of something.

On a personal level, the “Nefesh” level of thought the simple awareness of one’s very reality - his existence. What does it mean that a person must know himself? We are referring to a basic level of self-knowledge, as opposed to knowing one’s emotions and thoughts, which are the more advanced levels. The basic level of self-knowledge, which is the “Nefesh” level of thought, is to know one’s natural abilities.

3. The World of The Soul is a Clear World

Let us first give a brief introduction.

The Gemara tells a story of Rav Yosef, who became deathly ill. His soul left his body, and after some time, his soul returned to his body. We refer to this today as “clinical death”. When he awoke from this “near-death experience”, his father asked him: “What did you see?” He answered, “I saw an inverted world. The more elevated ones (those of important status on this world) are below (are not as important in Heaven), and the bottom ones (those of lesser status on this world) are above (regarded as important in Heaven).” His father said to him: “My son, you have seen a clear world.”[1]

What is the depth of these words, “You have seen a clear world?”

The physical body clouds a person from seeing the spiritual vision of the soul. This World is compared to darkness, which distorts a person’s vision and doesn’t let a person see clearly. The Mesillas Yesharim states that when a person is walking in the dark, he will trip over objects because he can’t see, and he will also confuse objects with each other. In the same way, our clarity on This World is obscured by the physicality of our body, which causes us to stumble and confuse things. In contrast to this, the neshamah (soul of a Jew) is a spiritual light, and it allows a person to see things with clarity.

There are all kinds of phrases today, which show that people aren’t clear about things. One example is the phrase, “As if”. A person may see, “I saw something as if…” Why does he say “as if”, if he clearly saw it? Because he is not clear about what he saw. Another common word today is “About” [“for example, I’ll be there at about…”]. This is an inability to be precise.

Now, if this problem would only exist when it comes to words that people say, it would only be half of a problem. But the disturbing reality of today is that we have acquired thinking patterns which are imprecise. Everything is simply off-mark. You make up to meet with someone at 9:00, and he shows up at 9:20, without any apologies about his lateness. A habitual latecomer thinks that 9:00 and 9:20 are the same exact time. To him, there’s no difference!

Reb Elchonon Wasserman (may Hashem avenge his blood) had a chavrusa[2] every day at 9:00. Once his chavrusa came a minute late. The Rav asked him: “What happened to you? Did you have a pressing circumstance beyond your control which you had to take care of?” Today, when people hear such a story, they may think that Reb Elchonon shouldn’t have been so tough on his chavrusa for coming late. But they would be wrong. What was Reb Elchonon’s perspective? It was because he lives in a “clear world” [where precision and punctuality matters].

[In reality, there is no way around precision. If you aren’t precise, damage occurs.] If a person is driving a car down a narrow street, and the car is as wide as the street, if he isn’t careful and he veers off the street by even 10 centimeters, the wheel will hit the curb and his entire car will be totaled. When it comes to time as well, we also need to relate to it with clarity and with precision. If a person is always coming a minute later, he does not regard that minute as important. This shows that he does not live in a “clear world” in general, because it is not only the value of time which he disregards; by being careless with time, it is a sign that he does not bother to be precise about anything else.

The concept of living in a “clear world” is, for the most part, nonexistent today. It exists as an ability that is deep within all of our souls, but in the world which we are found in today, when someone says he will do something, he doesn’t even intend to do it. (We don’t even have to mention how this problem exists in the business world, which revolves around unpredictability and where nothing can be clearly defined). That is the way the world lives today, and we all recognize this well. This is a degree of falsity which has become part of the normal way of living today.

A person may learn the Gemara, and he is not clear about he learned. The clarity which he is missing is the very fact that learning Gemara is unclear to him – not only is his learning unclear to him, but his issue is that he is not even clear about the fact that he is unclear! When does he realize that he is not clear about the words of the Gemara he has learned? When questions are asked to him on the material, on the different points in the Gemara, and he slowly realizes that he does not understand what he learned.

Many times a person will say something in a conversation, and two minutes later he says something that contradicts what he said earlier. He didn’t do this because he was trying to lie. He simply wasn’t paying attention to what he is saying, because he wasn’t clear about he was thinking. If his thoughts aren’t clear to him, his words [which are the expression of his thoughts] will also not be clear to him.

4. Getting Used To Clarifying: Taking Apart Information

The problem of our life, in one word, can be called “irpul” – where everything is cloudy and unclear. The world today lacks clarity. We are not clear about even the external matters in the world, and certainly not about inner matters. It’s all unclear to us. We have general definitions, but in order to enter inward, we must know that the task in our life is to live in a “clear world” where we see things with clarity. Therefore, we need to learn how to define things clearly, with precision.

To define things with clarity does not mean that we must know, with absolute certainty, where each thing belongs to and doesn’t belong to. There is no way to know this with certainty. Rather, what we mean is that we can take something and clarify it. For example, we can analyze something and wonder: Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? There is a point to it which is positive, and a point in it which is negative. There is a point in it which is good, and a point in it which is not as good.

For example, when we encounter other people, can we know if a person is a tzaddik (righteous person) or a rasha (wicked person)? This is not on a black-or-white discussion, because even a tzaddik has parts to him which are still wicked, and even a rasha has parts to him in which he is a tzaddik. We need to clarify which parts of him are tzaddikim, and in which parts are of him are reshaim.

When a person lives without clarity, he only lives in a world of the physical body. For this reason, most people in the world today do not have minds that think clearly, because their minds are bound to the view of their physical body, and since the body is mixed with good and evil, their minds see a mixture as well.

The power of clarity is really the inner understanding of a person, which is the revelation of the neshamah. Therefore, the first step a person needs to do is get used to clarifying things.

Here is an example. A person goes on vacation in the North for a week, and then returns. He is asked: “Was it good?” And he answers: “It was very good.” Another kind of person in the same situation will say, “It didn’t work out.” We can analyze each of these responses, instead of taking them at face value. The person who said “It was very good” is really saying that in general, he had a good time, but there were some parts to the vacation which didn’t work out. The person who said “It didn’t work out” is really saying that the vacation for the most part didn’t turn out well, but there were some parts to it which did work out.

We do not mean that the person should have answered with a whole list of the things that went well and the things that didn’t work out. Our point here is that if a person wants to live a more inner kind of life, he needs to get used to clarifying things. We so far brought a few examples that were very superficial, but if we delve deeply into them, we can understand the idea.

Returning to the example of the vacation, if a person wants to get used to uncovering this power of clarity, he should try the following. After he comes back from his vacation, he should clarify to himself which parts were good, and which parts were not so good. Of course, the purpose of this clarifying, of course, is not so that the person should pick a different vacation spot next year, which doesn’t have the issues he had last time. The purpose of this thinking exercise is to get used to taking apart what happened.

The person should make a list of which parts were good, and which parts were not good. He can then conclude if the vacation was worth it or not, but even if he concludes that it was worth it, he should not just say “It all worked out very well”. That would not be truthful, because he would be mixing reality with fantasy.

We have grown used to mixing reality with fantasies. If 99% of a certain situation was good and 1% was not good, a person sees it all as being very rosy. But that is a kind of fantasy. When one has a mind that sees with clarity, he is aware that there was 99% which was good, and 1% which was not good, and he understands that it is not possible to have anything 100% good. He is happy with the 99% that is good. The purpose of this thinking is not, chas v’shalom, to dampen the happiness and satisfaction that a person feels in any given situation. Rather, the purpose is to become clear, of the reality here. One must be clear about the 99% that is good, and the 1% which was not good.

This is really an idea which one should ideally get used to already from childhood: to get used to living with clarity, by clarifying the reality at hand, by taking apart a matter.

5. Knowing Your Personal Capabilities and Limits

We can give more examples as well, to help us relate to this idea.

Some people are more capable of others, when it comes to certain jobs. A person may take a certain job, which is heavy work and which takes a lot of his energy. After two months, he tells his boss that he is ready to quit, because he can’t handle the hard work anymore. What happened?

Simply speaking, the answer is because he didn’t know what the job would entail. He applied for the job only because he was motivated by a desire to earn money, and therefore he fooled himself and thought he could handle the job. Although that is true, that wasn’t the root of the problem. If a person would ger used to living with clarity, he would have known from the start what his true capabilities are, and what his limits are. Then he would have seen what he could handle, and what he could not handle.

Of course, a person cannot know what his exact capabilities and limits are, but had he gotten used to living with clarity, he can become clearer about what his capabilities and limits are. This concept of living in a “clear world” does not mean that a person can have 100% clarity. It is not possible to be 100% clear about anything. Rather, what mean is that a person needs to reach more and more clarity.

So, for example, if a person takes a job in which he will have to work for several hours, and it is not within his natural capabilities to work for that amount of hours, he must know before he takes such a job that he will be overworking himself, and that he simply does not have the strength for such a job. If he didn’t clarify this before taking the job, he will find out later that he didn’t have the capabilities for it. Usually, when that happens, it is because he never bothered to clarify what his capabilities and limits are. Until now, he had succeeded in various jobs and tasks whenever he took them upon himself, and therefore he naturally thought he could do anything. But had he tried to learn about himself a bit, he would have seen what his limits are, and then he would have clarified if he could handle the job or not.

Sometimes a person is asked to do a mitzvah, and he resolves to do it, but in the midst, he abandons it. If he is asked, “Why did you stop in the middle?” He answers, “Believe me, I really wanted to do it. But I feel like I have no energy left anymore!”

Why did this happen? It stems from the fact that he didn’t learn about what his capabilities are. He applies himself with all his energy and then feels tired, so he stops. That is how it is in the world. When a person begins doing something and then he realizes that he can’t finish it, he stops in the middle. That is why, usually, people don’t finish what they start. They did not think about it enough before they started the endeavor.

The lack of thinking is because the person never learned how to recognize his capabilities, so he does not know “Until this point, I can do. From a certain point onward, I cannot do.” He never learned how to draw that distinction. That is why he is asked to do something and he immediately resolves to do it – he thinks that it’s possible for him to do anything, so he immediately begins to do it, and if he realizes at some point that it’s difficult, he stops and leaves everything unfinished.

Thus, one must recognize what his simple physical capabilities are – the limits of what he physically can or cannot do.

There are people who, every month and a half or so, become too exhausted from their job, so they take off three days from work. They are straining themselves physically, beyond what they can really handle, they weren’t getting enough sleep, and in the end they are falling apart. What is the cause of this? It is because they aren’t living in an organized, clear way. If a person recognizes his capabilities and his nature, he knows how much relaxation\rest he needs to get, and he makes sure not to neglect his physical needs.

When most people are asked “How much sleep do you need to get?” the answer is something like this: “I don’t know. I go to sleep whenever I can. Sometimes I am prevented, and sometimes I get to sleep on time – it all depends on how things work out for me.” Every night, the average person goes to sleep at a different time and wakes up at a different time, than the day before. Eventually, he feels exhausted because he isn’t getting enough sleep, and he needs to take off from work for a few days, so that he can refresh. This cycle keeps repeating, until the next time he falls apart. In worse situations, the person takes vitamins, blood tests, etc. until he is back to normal. And this is an average situation of most people.

This is not an issue that begins when a person becomes sick and bedridden for three days. That is not the issue we are aiming at here. We are clarifying here that a deeper point – the fact that person does not recognize himself on basic level [what his physical needs are].

If we have a room which measures 4 meters long and 4 meters wide, and we try to stuff 20 tons worth of packages in it, there is no way to get in the 20 tons of packages, even if we have the best wishes in the world to do so. We all understand that a narrowly sized room cannot hold 20 tons. This is a simple example which we can all clearly understand that there are natural limitations, which there is no way around. But for some reason, when it comes to our own life, we don’t know how much we can handle and how much we cannot.

Today, it is common to witness the following occurrence. If a person is moving into a new apartment and he hires a mover to transfer his furniture, the mover may try to move a large amount of furniture and get it through the door, and it doesn’t fit. He tries to push it in and it doesn’t go, and he tells you, “I thought it would fit.” What is that supposed to mean? Why didn’t he first check if it would all fit and give you a clear answer?

Our life is usually a situation in which we don’t do enough research and clarifying. Instead, everything is done in an unclear manner. We try to do something and then we see that there are problems. In the best situations, people seek solutions about what to do, but in worse situations, when they realize that there are problems, they abandon everything in the middle and nothing gets done.

In contrast to this, a person can learn how to live life in a clearer manner. A good example of this is to take a calendar and write down what has to get done this year. See the beginning of the year and the end of the year. Of course, even with all your planning, there can still be unexpected changes throughout the year, and those changes may be inevitable and beyond our control. But in spite of that possibility, we still need to organize our schedule for the year to begin with.

The following is another example. When a person buys an apartment, and he is told by the contractor that ir will be ready in 12 months. The contractor must write this down in a personal calendar, and then he needs to write down a plan of how his workers will split up their work over the next 12 months, to have it ready by then. There might be delays which push him off schedule, but he needs to have the plan to begin with.

That is how things should be, ideally. But if anyone is familiar with the real estate industry, we know that for the first 8 months, the workers are being dreamy and they haven’t even started, and 4 months before the deadline they begin to do everything, where the work is very stressful and accompanied with yelling and screaming.

Why does this happen? It is because they never came up with an organized plan of how everything should work out properly. Only later, when it is near the end and they have no choice of laying it off anymore, do they begin to realize that there’s not enough time to keep the commitment they made. So they begin to do everything when they are tight for time, forcing themselves to meet the deadline and working overtime, with everything done in a stressful manner.

We should understand the root of the problem when it comes to these kinds of issues. It is because we are not living life with clarity. We are not even discussing how this issue affects avodas Hashem or even how it affects us emotionally. We are simply addressing an issue that affects the basic reality in front of us, and how to properly develop the external aspects of our life. In all of the actions which we recognize - whether it the way the government deals with the country or the way that people deal and behave with themselves – is 98% done without sufficient organization and planning. People begin to do something and they just see how it will turn out, and if it doesn’t work out, they make detour from it, either to the right or to the left…

Thus, the first thing to realize is that the root of all success in everything is the idea of living in a “clear world” [where we plan and organize things from beforehand].

6. Becoming More Truthful

When a person makes a neder (vow), does he have to fulfill “just about” what he says, or must he fulfill precisely what he said? 

There was a person wanted to print a sefer, and he needed to borrow a certain amount of money in order to get it printed. When he was given the amount of money he requested, he said, “No, no, I didn’t mean this amount exactly. I meant around this amount.” This is a true example of becoming accustomed to living without clarity. What does that mean that “I didn’t mean this exactly?” He committed himself to taking a certain amount from funds of tzedakah, and each word is precise. A person cannot retract from those words – he has made a vow, and according to halachah, he must keep to his every word. But such a person might say, “Fine. If that’s the case, let me annul the vow.”

From where does this behavior stem from? It is because people are used to living with imprecise definitions. There is really no such thing as “just about” – rather, everything we must get used to living with exact, precise definitions. Of course, there are some things which we cannot predict, because Hashem can have other plans in store for us. A person may obligate himself to do something, but then he can become sick and he can’t do it. There are certainly pressing circumstances beyond our control – but that is also an ‘exact’ definition.

Again, we shall repeat that living with exactness and precision does not mean that we can be 100% precise. Only Hashem can do that. We see this from the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu said to Pharoah that he will be leaving Egypt at “around” midnight, but Hashem redeemed the nation precisely at midnight. Yet, although we cannot be totally precise, we need to aspire to reach as much precision as we can. We can never reach the level of the Creator’s precision - the was the only One who could redeem us “precisely” at midnight – but even so, we must try to draw closer to this perfect level of precision.

If we want to reveal the neshamah, which is “a portion of G-d, from above”, we should understand that this is based on the ability to be precise. The lifestyle of the world around us is built upon lack of precision, whereas the inner world is built upon precision. We must know that the ability to be precise is not only needed for the development of our inner world, but even for the development of our natural, physical, and material aspects of life.

How does a person come on time when he has a meeting? There are some people who are habitual latecomers – they will never come on time, whenever they are expected to arrive at a certain time. What is the reason for their behavior? It is really because they have a problem of not being precise. If a person would really want to be on time, he doesn’t have to change reality – all he has to do is change the way he acts. Just like he knows how to always come 10 minutes late, so can he move his thoughts to get himself to always come 10 minutes earlier than what he was used to.

Dovid HaMelech describes a perfected person as “He who speaks truth in his heart.”[3] The Gemara says that an example of this was Rav Safra, who never diverged from the thoughts in his heart.[4] We see from this that it is not enough just to speak truth. That is only the external part to being truthful. To “speak truth in his heart” is the ability in a person to be precise on an inward level – to live with clarity.

Falsity is not only if I say I will do something and I don’t do it, or if I said I won’t do it and I did it. The main kind of falsity is if I am living in an unclear world where precision doesn’t matter. As is well-known, the truth is the reality, whereas falsity is non-existent, as the Sage state, “Truth exists, falsity does not exist.” The meaning of this is that truth lasts, but falsity does not. When a person lives with anything unrealistic, this is falsity on an inner level.

We have had to elaborate specifically on this point, because it is an inner, deep point, because it is the root of the failures of every person, each on his own level. All of us have this problem, without exception. All failures in our life really come from a lack of being precise. It is the very idea that people are used to living with estimations that are not exact - the mere fact that a person does something slightly off the time he is supposed to do it.

If we would live with more precision and exactness, we would be more connected with truth, and from that, we would be more connected to the “seal of truth” of the Creator. The more a person is truthful with himself, the closer he is to the Presence of the Creator, Who is truthful and Whose seal is truth.

7. Recognizing Simple Reality

In order to build and develop our power of thought, it is essentially about developing the power to be exact and precise. It is about recognizing the reality as it is. There are levels to how well we can recognize the reality. Just as there are layers to reality itself, so are there layers to how accurate we can recognize it.

Let us now return to what we began to discuss in the beginning of the chapter, that the “Nefesh” part of the soul is the part we use to recognize the simple, material reality in front of us. If we ask the average person if he recognizes himself, he will answer in the affirmative. But if we look more deeply into it, we would discover that most people are mistaken about this. In order to recognize reality as it is, one needs to learn about that reality, and then recognize it, and then translate this understanding into acting exactly upon that reality.

[Example 1 – Money Management Today]

Today they have entire organizations which help a person manage his finances. You have to tell the person in charge all of your income and expenses, and he gives you an exact amount of how much you are allowed to spend. You are not allowed to spend even a little more than the budget limit, without their express permission. That means that an adult, who is at least 30, 40, or 50 years old, is being told that he is not allowed to spend even 200 or 300 more shekel than he is allowed to, unless he has their permission! This sounds bizarre, but it is has become the reality today.

Why do people go to such organizations? It is because they believe that they cannot control their spending habits, so they are getting into all kinds of debts and overdrafts, and they have come to the conclusion that they do not know how to properly manage their finances. So, they use a means from the outside in order to make them responsible, so that they will be able to balance their expenses according to their income.

How does a person get into such a pitiful situation?? If we were talking about an 8-year old child, it makes sense that the child must not be allowed to spend more than a certain amount, because children are not in touch with reality, and they spend their money as soon as they get it. For a mature adult to do this, it is illogical behavior. He knows that money cannot just be spent thoughtlessly. He is aware that he if he spends his money today, he might not be able to purchase bread and milk for tomorrow. So how can it be that a mature adult gets into such a financial mess, that he needs to go to an organization which doesn’t allow him to spend more than a certain amount, as if he is a child?

We are not speaking about an abnormal phenomenon. There are several such organizations which earn their livelihood from these problems. They don’t try to find the person an additional source of income (and they are right, because that is not the goal!) – instead, they show the person how his expenses must match his income, and this is all the information they give to those who turn to them. A person who goes to these organizations has come to believe that he doesn’t have any control over his financial situation, and intentionally puts himself in a position where he has to get permission over the telephone every time he is about to spend money. It is clear that the organization doesn’t own his money; the money belongs to the person who is coming to them for financial advice. So how does a person get himself into such a situation….?

[Example 2 – Living On Credit]

As we explained until now, a person today lives in a totally unclear world. Here’s another example.

A husband and wife are walking through the street and they see an advertisement. They look at it and they say, “How nice”. One of them says, “It looks good – maybe we should buy it?” The other says, “Where will get the money to purchase it?” The other responds, “What’s the problem? It says that you can pay in twelve monthly installments.” Everything today is in monthly payments! What is this new form of payment today? It is a way to lose reality!

If a person wants to get used to living with clarity and to avoid losing touch with reality, a good example of this is the plan that they have today in banks which doesn’t allow you to purchase on credit. We are not coming here to give financial advice, only to take an idea from this. There is not even one extra shekel to spend, if you don’t have it in your account. This way, there’s no possibility of having an overdraft. It is way of living with precision, where you can only withdraw exactly what you deposit, and not a cent more. If you don’t have anything to withdraw, you must deal with that reality.

Living based on credit is like living in a fantasy. Rav Dessler said that if a person is always thinking about the future, he is living in a fantasy. The same can be said of spending unearned money and withdrawing money which you never deposited yet. It is living based on a future which didn’t happen yet.

If a person decides that he wants to become more realistic, the first thing we have to say to him is: If you have money in your account, spend it, and if not, don’t spend it! This was already said by the Rambam: “A person must spend money based on his income.”[5] We don’t need to be the Rambam in order to understand this. Any sensible person can understand it.

But in reality, the lifestyle of the world today is the opposite than this. A person has a desire to buy something, so he buys it on credit, and this removes him from reality. We all know that people get overdrafts on their credit in the bank, where the bank collects heavy interest from the person, and the person doesn’t know how he is going to pay the overdraft. We all know about this yet we continue to live a kind of lifestyle which is out of touch with reality.

The credit card of this generation seems to be the best invention ever. You have a card and you can buy whatever you want with it, even when you don’t have the money for it. Where does this lifestyle come from? It is because people are used to living unrealistically.

[We Cannot Enter Inward Unless We Are In Touch With Our Basic Material Reality]

This sefer is not about the practical world of action which we live in, but we must understand that this point is where we must begin from, for it is not possible to enter into the neshamah inside us if we are not beginning our avodah from a basic understanding of reality. If one wants to build the area of thought in the soul, the first has to be balanced when it comes to the mundane aspects of daily life. Only after that can he enter inward.

There are people who wish to enter into inner avodah, but if they are confused about the material parts of their life and they aren’t responsible, they cannot enter the clear world of the neshamah, since they do not live the basic parts of their life with clarity. There is no way to get in touch with the clarity of the neshamah if a person is unrealistic in the mundane aspects of his life. It must start from the most basic level of balance, which includes: Being responsible about expenses of the home, about work, about getting enough sleep – a simple understanding of the daily aspects in our life.

Understandably, we can elaborate upon more details about this topic, of recognizing the simple reality in front of us. We have been lengthy about this topic here and we have brought many examples, in order for us to get an idea that in order to enter inward, which is a “clear world”, we first need to be clear about the simple, mundane aspects of life. The examples included were: To get used to the idea of precision; to avoid living on credit; before taking on any kind of work or undertaking, we need to see what it will require from us, and if it is unrealistic to do or not. If something seems too risky, we should stay away from it.

8. The Balance Between Disconnection and Connection To The World

Thus, the “Nefesh” level of the soul corresponds to being in touch with reality. This is the first step one needs in order to enter into his own inner reality, but it is also needed in the broader sense – one needs to simply know absorb reality as it is.

One must know that there is a minimal amount of knowledge he needs to have about the general reality of the world today which he is found in. A person should not be totally disconnected from the reality that of the world around him. A person should not have the attitude of “What do I care about what happens in the world? I am only living in the world of Torah learning, avodas Hashem, and chessed. What else do I need more than this?” Obviously, we are not advising that a person should listen to the news flashes every half hour. That is not what we mean at all. Here we mean a totally different point: the idea that one must be alert when it comes to his worldly affairs.

For example, if a person davens in a certain shul in the community, and he knows another person who normally davens near his seat who hasn’t come to shul in a while, he should be concerned about what happened to the person. He should not be totally immersed in his own life who doesn’t care and who doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings.

What should the person be attentive to? He should be attentive if perhaps his friend requires help with something. If he hasn’t seen his friend come to shul in a while, he should wonder that maybe there is a problem, and find out what happened. That is only the external part of what he must do. The more inner part of his job is to simply become aware of the reality as it is, for the purpose of developing his soul.

When a person isn’t in touch with the reality around him, he may become so self-immersed that he doesn’t see or hear anyone else around him, and he doesn’t know anything about anyone. He is just living his own life, completely absorbed in himself – his life doesn’t go beyond himself, his wife, and his children. He is not concerned about even one more person besides for his direct family members. Such a person, when he needs help with something, will try to be take care of everything himself, so that he shouldn’t have to become involved with others. He tries to live a life totally independent of others.

Here we come to a very deep point. There is a very thin line between having proper boundaries, of knowing when to have healthy disconnection from the rest of the world, with becoming disconnected from reality. We are not even referring to the damage that comes upon a person as a result from being disconnected from reality, such as carelessness about his physical health and his finances. Our aim here is that a person must be in touch with reality, and he must also know how to be disconnected from reality, in a balance. He must “advance and retreat” from these two modes: between connection with the world and disconnection from the world.

On one hand, if a person cannot have any disconnection from the world, he will become too materialistic and he will not be able to reveal his neshamah. On the other hand, if he is always disconnected from his surroundings, at a certain point he will become delusional and forget about his physicality. He will simply get used to never seeing or hearing anyone else, never analyzing the world around him, which will cause him to become out of touch with reality. There is a very subtle balance in the soul which he must learn. On one hand, he needs to absorb the reality around him, and at the same time, he must not feel connected to it at all. This is a very subtle kind of inner work.

Usually, when a person absorbs the reality around him and he is very in touch with it, he becomes connected to it. If he knows what’s happening in the world of politics, he is drawn towards it. If he knows what’s going on in the market, he is drawn towards investing his money in the right places, and so forth. On the other extreme, if a person never knows about anything happening in the world, he will become completely disconnected, and he will not even feel his own physical reality. And it is impossible to clearly define what the balance should be.

Rav Yitzchok Hutner [zt”l] would read the news, in order to know what was happening in the world. Once he was away from the country for a few days, and when he returned, he asked for all the newspapers of the previous week. When asked what the point of reading old news was, he said “I don’t care except about what’s happening right now. But I want to know what people in the past were experiencing.” This was the way of thinking of one of the leaders of the Jewish people.

But we need to know that this was only a mode of conduct for a leader of the generation, who had the task of absorbing well the reality around them, so that they could lead the generation. A leader of the generation needs to know what’s going on in the world, and indeed, he must take this to an extreme, in order for him to properly guide the generation. But this kind of worldliness is only to be practiced by a leader, who needs to guide the generation. As for anyone else, who is not in a position of leading others, he only has to know a lot less about the world.

One needs to have a subtle balance in his soul, of how much he needs to know about the world without becoming connected to it. One can pray for assistance from Heaven when it comes to this. Thus, it is a very subtle point to absorb reality as it is, without becoming connected to what takes place within it.