Bilvavi Part 4 - Chapter 16 Ratzon is Unlimited

Nothing Stands In The Way of Your True, G-dly Will

We have already mentioned the famous statement of our Sages, “Nothing strands in the way of the will.” This is only referring, however, to our innermost will; things can definitely can get in the way of our external retzonos, but not our innermost ratzon.

Chazal state that “a king can break fences, and no one can protest.” When a person reaches his innermost, truest desire of his soul – he has reached the King of the world in doing so, and nothing can get in the way of the King of the world. Hashem can do whatever He wants.

A human being is limited, and there are things that hold a person back. But when one succeeds in reaching his innermost point – the G-dliness that is deep within his heart – he reveals his true ratzon, and nothing will get in the way of that ratzon. It is G-dly in its nature, and thus it is unstoppable, because nothing can get in Hashem’s way.

A person’s avodah is thus to reveal this innermost ratzon. After that, the rest will happen by itself.

It is written, “To man belongs the arrangements of his heart, and from Hashem is the answer.” When a person first “arranges” his heart - in other words, when he reaches his G-dly point within himself, it will then happen that “from Hashem is the answer.” This does not simply mean that from now on, Hashem does the rest; the depth of this matter is rather that when a person manages to reveal his G-dly point, he attains a response from Hashem, because he has essentially revealed Hashem within himself by reaching the G-dliness found deep in his soul.

How We Can Reach Our Innermost Will

How can a person awaken himself to reach his essence – his innermost ratzon?

Chazal state that talmidei chachamim[1] have no menuchah[2] on this world or on the next. They never have menuchah because they are always moving from one attainment to the next. This shows us what’s going on deep in our soul; let us explain.

Why don’t talmidei chachamim have menuchah? It is because the soul is rooted in            G-dliness, in the Endlessness of Hashem; thus it is always yearning to integrate with its source, Hashem. Until the soul becomes integrated with Hashem, it can’t have menuchah. Hashem is infinite, so there is no end to how close we can come to Him – and since the soul is constantly moving to become closer to Him, it never has menuchah, because it is an endless pursuit.

In order for a person to awaken his innermost ratzon, he needs to reveal the soul’s source from which it was fashioned out of. When the soul becomes aware of its essence – that it is rooted in G-dliness, in the Infinite – it is then that the true desire of the soul is awakened, and it will yearn to return to its Source. Such a ratzon, when it gets revealed, is unlimited. It is a ratzon which can break all barriers.

As long as a person’s aspirations are limited, his ratzon is human in its nature, and things can hold it back from happening. After all, humans are limited creatures. But when the ratzon of a person becomes unlimited, it is a ratzon rooted in the Infinite that lays inherent in the soul. Nothing can stop this ratzon. One’s avodah is thus to get his ratzon to become unlimited.

When a person only has a superficial perspective, such a concept seems impossible: “How can there be a ratzon which is unstoppable? I know from myself that it’s just not possible.”

Chazal[3] state that it is possible for one to think that he can become as holy as Hashem, but in the end this is not possible. This shows us that there is a place in our soul which aspires for the unlimited. The fact that we are human makes us limited in the human sense, but the soul inside us is able to have unlimited aspirations.

The Root Behind The Mistake: The “Separated” Mentality

The reason why people feel limited in their aspirations stems from an incorrect mentality.

We can give a moshol[4] that helps us understand why. A person is given 20 kilo to carry. He thinks to himself: “How on earth can I carry 20 kilo? My hands weigh a lot less than 20 kilo; these light little hands can’t carry so much.”

What is his mistake? He’s right that his hands weigh very little, but he’s wrong in that he can’t carry the 20 kilo, because he’s forgetting that his hands are attached to his body and that he can carry much more. He’s looking at his hands like a separate entity, apart from the rest of his body.

This moshol is very clear in its lesson, but it still a deep lesson nonetheless.

If we just look at ourselves from a perspective that we are humans, then we will not be able to do anything. In reality, we can’t even open our mouth without receiving a life-sustaining energy from Hashem. If a person looks at himself as apart from Hashem, chas v’shalom, then he thinks of himself in terms of how strong he is, and that he is bound to inevitable laws of nature; he might admit he needs some siyata d’shmaya but he still views his existence as separate from Hashem.

People limit their aspirations because they really view themselves as “separate” from the Creator. In reality, we can’t be sustained for one second without receiving a life-giving energy from Hashem.

If a person would realize that he has G-dliness inherent within him, he would also conclude that he contains the unlimited in himself. His hands are really like a long hand of Hashem.

Our mission is first to realize where we are drawing our energy from. If a person thinks that he’s getting the energy from himself – in other words, he views himself as separate from Hashem, on his own – from where will he be sustained from?! How can he do anything?

When a person understands this inner point, that a Jew has a power that lies deep within him, a “messenger of Hashem” in himself – it is then that he will be able to understand how “nothing stands in the way of the will.”

In order for a person to reveal his ratzon, he must first identify from where he is getting his energy from.

When we just look at the plain reality we see, we are limited by the fact that we are human. But if we gain the perspective from the emunah in our soul, we can see how nothing is limited – everything is miraculous. The G-dliness in a person is what allows any person to do any action, and that is the inner force that’s making everything happen. We don’t do a thing on our own.

Example - Our Speech

How can we awaken ourselves to help feel this concept more? We can give a few examples.

Let’s say a person is reading aloud a possuk in a Chumash. He can think to himself: “From where do I get the energy to move my lips? A small child cannot talk, but I can. How did it happen that I am able to talk?”

The possuk says that when Hashem breathed into Adam a “nefesh chayah”, a “living spirit”, which Targum interprets to mean “ruach memalelah”, a “talking spirit.” In other words, the Torah is telling us that when I’m talking (not just when Adam Harishon spoke!), it’s only due to the G-dliness inside me that keeps being renewed.[5] The reason why I am able to talk this moment is because Hashem breathed into man a nefesh chayah – a ruach memalelah. As I speak this very instant, Hashem is moving my lips!

In other words, a person can take his simple words which he utilizes every day and stop for a second, and think: What is causing my lips to move? Is it me – or Hashem?

At Har Sinai, there was a “great voice” which some commentaries explain to mean that it did not stop, and that it continues until today. The first step in one’s avodah is to realize from where his talking – his speech is rooted in Hashem’s voice. Upon realizing this, one can reach a higher stage – to realize how the “great voice” does not ever stop. It is for one to realize that his voice, which is enabled through Hashem, is really unlimited. In this way, a person is able to connect to Hashem even as he’s talking, and he is connected to the great voice that begun at Har Sinai, which never stops.

Why don’t people ever think like this? It is because while people are aware that speech comes from Hashem, the natural inclination is that since he controls what comes out of his mouth, he thus feels that his speech isn’t being enabled by Hashem.

Speech is a G-dly power, and through recognizing this, one can transform his whole attitude toward his power to speak – not because he has reached a high level, but because he realizes simply that it is Hashem who is talking.

“A righteous person decrees, and Hashem fulfills.” The meaning of this is because the tzaddik realizes that it is Hashem who makes the decrees, and that is what allows the decree to become fulfilled.

In order for a person to realize that his speech is really coming from Hashem, he needs to have a palpable emunah of Hashem in his heart.

We Are Limited Yet Unlimited

We can give another example of the concept. When a person is moving his hand, it seems that this is because his brain has sent messages to his hand that it should move. But if you think about it, how much can a person really move his hand around? If a person keeps his body perfectly still, he will discover that his hand can barely reach anything. The hands alone are quite limited – that is, if we just look at its human layer.

Yet, since our body receives vitality from the life-giving G-dliness in it that sustains it every second, that makes our hands unlimited. Nothing is really limiting our hands, because it is receiving energy every second from Hashem.

Basya, the daughter of Pharoah, stretched out her hand as far as she could to rescue Moshe in the basket, and then a miracle happened and her hand stretched out for much longer. How did this happen exactly? Simply speaking, it was a miracle. But the depth behind this matter is that because she believed that her hands are being enabled by Hashem, nothing limits Hashem, and thus her hand was able to go beyond its human limits.

By the war with Amalek in Refidim, “the hands of Moshe were heavy.” As long as they thought that their power was up to themselves, they found themselves to be limited. But when the Jewish people “dedicated their hearts toward their Father in Heaven”, suddenly the hands of Moshe were no longer heavy. They recognized that it is Hashem who is providing all energy, and nothing can stop Him.

A person finds himself limited in his resources when he feels that he is helpless and bound to the laws of human limits. When a person realizes that the source of his energy is really coming from Hashem – since we all have G-dliness within us – then the person will find that he is unlimited.

All of our inner work lies in this concept.

We find that because there is gravity, things are naturally pulled toward the earth. Gravity shows us that the natural inclination of people is to be drawn toward materialism, towards “the earth.” Our mission, however, is to fight against this pull and to return to recognizing our G-dliness, and that we don’t have to be bound to the laws of nature. When a person realizes there is a G-dliness in him behind everything, he will find that nothing is impossible, and that he can ascend towards Hashem, unlimited.

As a person decides that he will begin to serve Hashem better, he begins to have aspirations and goals that he would like to reach. But first he must think: Who is giving me the strength to get there? Is it coming from my own energy? “The thoughts in the heart of a man are many…” But if he understands that the only source which gives him any possibility of growth is Hashem, he will discover that he doesn’t have to limit himself in his aspirations; he can have unlimited aspirations.

A person has to always come to the simple realization that if I can’t feel that it is Hashem who is behind the scenes in everything, I can’t do a thing; and if I do realize that Hashem is behind it all, why should I then feel limited?

Know the Goal from the Start

A person needs to reflect into this a lot in order for this point to become more alive in his life. It should not be just some piece of knowledge. In this point lays our entire inner abilities that can help push us to truly serve Hashem.

When a person just runs into Avodas Hashem without ever wondering what’s enabling him to proceed, he resembles someone taking off on a trip without any gas in his tank. What will happen? He will get stuck in the middle, and there will be no “gas stations” around – and he’ll be stranded. And then has to walk back to where he started, because he has no other choice…

But if a person is level-headed, he goes into his trip with a plan from the start. He sees how far the trip will take and how much gas he needs.

When it comes to Avodas Hashem, the journey is unlimited, so maybe one will ask: If I don’t how long this is going to take, how am I supposed to plan anything out beforehand? How do you fill up on ‘gas’ when the journey is unlimited?

The truth is that it is a very long journey, and it takes up a whole lifetime! Every Jew comes from the Ein Sof – the endless light of Hashem, which has become downsized and contracted more and more until it became the level of a human. Our purpose is to return to that endlessness and become integrated with it. Thus, our avodah is really endless. If we limit our resources for the journey, then yes, we will be very limited throughout the journey.

A person must therefore think to himself: “To where exactly do I want to get to? To Hashem! And who is Hashem? He is infinite, and upon myself and each Jew it is said, “Talmidei chachomim have no menuchah, not on this world and not the next.” If so, how am I supposed to receive unlimited resources to get by this world, as well as in the next world? If I don’t take Hashem with me from the start, I won’t have that G-dly push, and I might as well give up already from the start.”

Before you begin the journey of Avodas Hashem, you have to know exactly to where you want to get to, and how much energy is needed for this. If you reflect into this, you will discover that you can only receive energy from Hashem for this.

The desire in a person to run into Avodas Hashem quickly, without any carefully planned thought, is advice from the yetzer hora. On Pesach, the people rushed out of Egypt hastily, and this was a holy kind of hastiness; but hastiness can also be used as a tactic of the yetzer hora to deter one from his goal.

Before anything, one has to have the basic understanding what his goal is that he is aspiring for. When we see that the journey is endless, that obligates us to realize that we need Hashem to give us the energy to get to where we have to get to.

Know this before you begin to enter Avodas Hashem. At first, this concept will start out “on” your heart, but as you continue, you are able to merit from Hashem that it should become “in” your heart as well – that the matter will internalize.

May Hashem help all of us realize that we become clear in our Avodas Hashem about Whom we are serving, and what the way is to get truly close to Him is. All of us should be zoche in this way to eternally connect with the living Almighty.