Fixing Your Earth - 019 Stability In Inspiration and Growth

4-C] Laziness Stemming From Lack of Direction (Wind-of-Fire-of-Earth)

Now we will conclude the discussion about laziness. We have explained earlier about laziness stemming from fire-of-earth; so far, we explained earth-of-fire-of-earth and water-of-fire-of-earth and given the solutions to them.

Now we will progress to discuss laziness stemming from wind-of-fire-of-earth, and its solution.

Fire in the soul is the source of why a person wishes to be uplifted, just as fire seeks to rise. Wind-of-fire is the “movement” of that fire, because wind is what fosters movement. It is when the “fire” of a person’s elation moves in all sorts of different directions; when a person wishes to feel uplifted, so he seeks new kinds of inspiration, in many different places, jumping from place to place, always in search of a new kind of elation.

In general, wind-of-fire is expressed when a person seeks many various different kinds of renewal. When it comes to the wish to feel uplifted and inspired, the person will want to feel inspiration in all kinds of new areas. Just as the wind moves in four different directions, so does wind in the soul move in all kinds of directions; when we are dealing with wind-of-fire, a person will seek to be uplifted and elated in many different ways.

What will happen if he doesn’t feel that uplifting feeling he is seeking all over the place? He will get lazy, because he feels uninspired. If that doesn’t happen, there is another possibility as well that can result: because he is always seeking new kinds of elation, he will move quickly from one place to another place in search of elation, and this will cause him to lacks stability in his soul. When a person lacks stability, this is a subtle kind of laziness (though it is not as obvious).

External and Internal Renewal

There are two kinds of renewal which we can receive: renewal from our external surroundings, and inner renewal that is contained inside our soul.

Renewal from our outside is what we know as enthusiasm (hislahatus). Someone dominated by wind-of-fire-of-earth will seek renewal all the time in many different kinds of places, and usually, he will seek external renewal – something new that comes from his surroundings, in order for him to feel inspired. He will keep switching his source of renewal, because he is always seeking a new kind of renewal.

To give some examples of this, there are some people who will keep switching their nusach of davening, or their manner of dress, or the shul that they daven in regularly.

These are all forms of one who is always seeking different kinds of external renewal. With external renewal, a person performs certain actions because he is trying to inspire himself.

Indeed, it can work, for we know that “The heart is pulled after the actions.”^[1] When a person does correct actions because he is trying to inspire himself and affect his heart, eventually, he will get affected, for the outer actions and have an effect on the heart. However, that is only true if the person does so with conscious awareness that he wants his heart to become affected by his actions. If not, then it just becomes mechanical actions, and the inspiration he feels will not last.

A different kind of problem is when a person is always seeking new kinds of inner renewal. Such a person wants to always feel his soul connecting to all different kinds of spiritual experiences, and he moves from one area to the next, always in search of another kind of inner renewal.

For example, this kind of person might decide that from now on, he will get up at midnight every night and say Tikkun Chatzos; he will try this for a few days, then at a later period, he decides that he will immerse a certain amount of times in the mikveh.

Or, one day he decides that he will say the entire sefer Tehillim  every day, and sometime later, he decides that he wants to learn straight for many hours on end without stopping; at a later period, he wishes to acquire for himself friends who are more spiritual and spend time with them, either to eat his meals together with them or to sing Zemiros with them for hours on end.

There are many other examples as well that each person can add on, which illustrate the concept: that the person is seeking new kinds of renewal in all kinds of ways, constantly in search of a new source of elation.

So far, we have explained what external renewal and inner renewal are, and both of these are unbalanced. But there is also a third scenario, in which a person can use the outer renewal to stir an inner renewal. This is the proper way to use our power of renewal; soon, we will explain it.

Deriving Vitality From Your Learning Experiences

There are two ways of how people can go about seeking renewal.

One kind of person keeps switching around his inspiration, because he keeps searching for new kinds of vitality. He is grabbing onto spirituality as if he will die the next day, desperate for more and more spiritual elation, so he is grabbing onto whatever he can, and that is why he is jumpy in his spirituality.

This is a superficial way to receive renewal. There are definitely some gains from acting in this way, but the inner way of avodah is not like that.

The inner way of avodah is that when you seek a new kind of vitality, you should try to connect your soul to what you are experiencing. In this way, it does not just remain as an external kind of elation, for you are using the external elation to stir an inner kind of renewal in the soul. This is a subtle kind of ability, and a person needs to know how to do it properly.

To give an example of the concept, when a person was a child and he grew up in a certain community, he didn’t understand certain minhagim (customs) of other Jewish communities or groupings, and the ways other types of Jews act seem strange and foreign to him. When he gets older, he might wish to research those minhagim he doesn’t understand and try to delve into the sources; he begins to understand those other minhagim and he is fascinated by them, leaving behind his superficial understanding as he discovers how others act and think. 

If he knows how to use his wind-of-fire properly, he can uncover a depth to his emotions with the more he learns about those minhagim that he never understood until now, and in this way, he will receive inner renewal all the time from what he learns about and experiences, because his soul is connecting to what he is seeing.

However, even if one knows how to use his wind-of-fire properly, he still needs a lot of wisdom as well as siyata d’shamaya (Heavenly help) in order to know how to research other minhagim.

Most people get their inspiration from the way they grew up, remaining at that level, and they never get opened up, because most people do not know how to properly seek inspiration from new sources. People usually have a hard time understanding other ways of life of other Jews, because most people remain satisfied with whatever vitality they received from their upbringing. As a result, most people do not seek new sources of vitality in the soul.

A person with a very stubborn nature will be able to explore and understand other customs or ways of thinking, because his stubbornness will drive him to understand. But most people do not possess a strong amount of stubbornness, so they will not be interested in deriving elation from learning about other minhagim. For this reason, most people feel that they do not experience that much excitement in their life.

Wind-of-fire, when it is used properly, is the key to having real and constant excitement in your life. Again, we must emphasize that using outer forms of excitement is only minimally helpful. The point of these experiences is to gain inner vitality from the different sources you come across.

How To Get Inner Excitement

If one looks deeply into himself, he will see that there are many parts of himself he doesn’t understand, for the soul is very complicating. He can make this reflection all the time and derive new vitality from within himself, all the time.

Of course, if one just looks at himself and says “This is how I am, this is how I grew up, etc.” and he doesn’t seek to open himself up, then he will not derive vitality from knowing about his soul.

One should look at himself deeply and truthfully, and realize that his soul is vastly deep, and from just being aware of this, he can understand that he doesn’t know the depth of his soul, and this can actually give him new vitality, when he realizes that he contains inside himself a tremendously deep and vast existence: his soul.

When a person gets used to reflecting about this, his soul has become more opened, and the person will feel like he has discovered a great treasure inside himself. Some people, though, when they reflect about how their soul is so vast and complicating, lose their stability when they discover this; it is dangerous for them to make this introspection.

If someone’s stability is based on superficial sources of vitality, he will lose his stability if something in his external world goes wrong, such as if he doesn’t have certain Shabbos foods he was used to, or if he didn’t have his Pesach seder perfectly as he is used to; it greatly disturbs his peace of mind. (This either comes from being dominated by the element of earth and therefore they thrive on orderliness, or it comes from tremendous katnus\immaturity).

Two Ways Of Receiving Inspiration

Earlier, we described another way how to receive vitality when one feels uninspired: through earth-of-fire-of-earth, which is to derive vitality from orderliness. One needs to be stubborn in order to persist with this. Here in this chapter, we have described another way to receive vitality: through wind-of-fire-of-earth, which is to gain vitality from all kinds of spiritual experiences you come across - to awaken the soul to connect to each thing.

However, whenever you encounter any new kind of spiritual experience, you should of course first think to yourself if it is proper for you to become connected to it or not.

In Conclusion

Just as a child and adult wear different clothing, so can the soul experience different colors of vitality. One who lives like this lives a whole different life.

Most people remember their life based on their school grades. An inner life is to remember how you lived life based on the current level of your soul.

We have explained wind-of-fire-of-earth, as well as the two extremes of how it is used.

4-D] Fire-of-Fire-of-Earth: Those That Have Unrealistic Aspirations

Now we will explain what fire-of-fire-of-earth is. What is fire-of-fire?

Generally speaking, there are two ways of how people proceed in life and succeed: either through using the element of earth in the soul, or through using the element of fire in the soul.  Earth is the idea of stability. A person can understand well that if he wants to succeed in life, he must become properly built, stage after stage, just like a house is built sensibly, from the bottom floor upwards.  Another kind of person mainly uses his fire. Before we speak about how a person uses his fire, though, we will digress for a moment and discuss why water and wind are usually not the elements that successful people use in their life.

If a person is dominated by water, what will happen? The nature of water is that it flows, and it keeps flowing in the direction it is flowing towards, with no natural means to stop itself. A person dominated by his element of water is someone who takes life as it comes, “flowing” along with whatever direction that his life is taking him in (if he is more spiritual, perhaps it’s because he believes that he will be led in his life according to whatever Hashem decides…)

Someone dominated by the element of wind is someone who always moves in different directions, just like wind is defined as movement. Such a person moves all over the place, with no stability in his life, so he will not be able to that successful.

People dominated by either water or wind in their souls are those who don’t really do that much with their life; they never grow or improve. A water-person just follows the flow of life, never seeking to do anything with himself. A wind-person is too jumpy to ever concentrate on any one area and build it. Both of these people, therefore, will not grow that much in their life.

A fire-based person is someone who always wishes to ascend to a higher level than before [whether for material matters or for spiritual matters], and the nature of fire is that it destroys what is in its path and then rises higher. So too, a fire-based person will nullify his previous level and dismiss it, because now he wishes to attain a higher level. When he wants to succeed, he is not satisfied with his current level, which “destroys” his previous level so that he can now aim for something higher.

Wind and water, though, cannot cause any motivation for ascension. Only through earth and fire can a person ascend. Earth (stable growth) is the element that builds a person upward, step by step, and fire is the element that helps a person ascend. Of course, there are aspects of fire and earth as well within the elements of water and wind, but it won’t be enough to cause a motivation in a person to ascend. Only a firm basis of either earth or fire helps a person ascend in life.

Through using the element of fire, a person can change his current perspective very easily in favor of a new perspective of understanding, and that is how he ascends higher.

A person who works mainly through earth only follows his current level – he cannot change his current perspective. A person who works mainly through fire can easily change his perspective, because he “destroys” his current level and rises to the next level.

One who has a harder time building himself stage after stage has a hard time using his earth, and therefore, he is drawn towards working instead with his fire.

What happens when a person has a strong amount of “fire” in his “fire”, though? Such a person’s fire will be out of control, because he is always searching to ascend higher, with nothing to stabilize the fiery ambitions.

Most people, even those who have dominant fire in their souls, while they always wish to ascend higher, are very still aware of their limits. They know that they are here on the earth and that Heaven is far away, but they still wish to persevere, with aspirations to ascend to the Heavenly levels.

But when someone possesses a strong amount of fire in his fire, he will aim for “Heaven”, or the highest levels, and he wishes to be there right now. He wants to get to the highest levels in Heaven, very rapidly, unaware of his earthly limitations. This is what happens with people who have a strong amount of fire-of-fire. Their aspirations are too high and unrealistic, and these are usually very delusional people.

Interestingly, sometimes we can see that even very delusional people are successful in the world, and this is because This World that we live in is called olam hatemuros, “a world of exchanges”, in which success is not always dependent on being sensible and logical. However, even if that is the case, this kind of person is constantly experiencing fiery thoughts in his mind, with no inner order to them.

How Fire-of-Fire Can Be Holy

If someone knows how to use his fire-of-fire for holiness, that means that he knows how to balance his fire-of-fire using the element of earth. Otherwise, the person is in danger, both physically and spiritually, because he lives in delusions. If one has a strong amount of fire in his soul and a strong amount of earth as well that can counter the fire, these are the kinds of people who truly ascend spiritually. They build themselves through earth, stage after stage, but they also have a fire that always pushes them upward.

Most people do not experience a constant ascension, because most people just have one part of their life in which they want to keep succeeding in, but with regards to general growth in all areas of life, they do not know of what it means to constantly ascend to higher levels.

When a person has a lot of fire-of-fire and he doesn’t know how to stabilize himself properly, he will want to get to the highest levels, to the Heavens, immediately. The dor haflagah (generation of the Tower of Bavel) wanted to build a tower to get to Heaven - but a person with a lot of fire-of-fire will want to get to Heaven right away, this minute! And to the highest level possible! He thinks he is unstoppable, which was the problem that the Snake had; the Snake is called the one who wished to “break the fences of the world”.^[2] (For every evil power that exists, there is a way to use it for holiness; Moshiach will know how to use this power for holiness).

Thus, in order to use fire-of-fire, a person needs a very strong amount of earth to balance himself out. Earth can balance the fire from getting out of control, as well as to help a person build himself properly in a step-by-step manner.

Again, to emphasize, this last concept we are describing is only experienced by rare individuals, who know how to use their earth to balance their inner fire-of-fire. These are people who resemble the third Beis HaMikdash, which will be a building that comes down in a fire from Heaven – in other words, their earth and their fire are properly combined. They are very close to the level of Ruach HaKodesh.

Since it only applies to individuals, we have only mentioned these words for the sake of completing the discussion about the topic of laziness; most people do not relate to these words.

Conclusion To “Laziness”

All of what we have explained with regards to fixing laziness needs to become expressed in one’s actions, feelings, and thought. The chapters here have covered the general picture of the trait of laziness and how it is fixed.