Fixing Your Water - 006 Desire for Movement

Wind-of-Earth-of-Water: To Desire Movement

We have begun to discuss, with Hashem’s help, about our desires, which stem from our soul’s element of water.

We have begun to explain the “earth” aspect of water, which subdivides into four divisions: earth, water, wind, and fire. We have so far discussed desires which stem from earth-of-earth-of-water (in the first two chapters and desires which stem from water-of-earth-of-water (in the previous threechapters); now we will discuss desires which stem from wind-of-earth-of-water.

Water is the root of desires, and wind is the root of movement. When people have pleasure in a feeling of movement, such pleasure stems from the ‘wind’ aspect that is within earth-of-water.

This further subdivides into four categories – desires stemming from ‘earth’ in wind-of-earth-of-water, desires from ‘water’ in wind-of-earth-of-water, desires from ‘wind’ in wind-of-earth-of-water, and desires from ‘fire’ in wind-of-earth-of-water. All of them, though, are essentially about deriving enjoyment from movement.

Desires That Stem From Earth-of-Wind-of-Earth-of-Water

When a person enjoys a sense of stability in his life, he is really enjoying a kind of ‘movement’: he is enjoying a stable kind of movement. Earth is the root of stability; if a person is enjoying (water) a stabilized structure (earth) in his life, he is really deriving enjoyment from having stable movement in his life. Thus, the pleasure that he has from such ‘movement’ stems from his ‘earth’ aspect within wind-of-earth-of-water.

To illustrate, such a person doesn’t have an easy time with a year in which there is another month added on to the Jewish calendar; he is used to having six months in his winter, and the added month offsets his schedule, and now he has a hard time continuing and progressing forward. This is a person who enjoys only movements that are stable, so he only “moves” when he has a more stabilized sense of movement in his life.

Desires That Stem From Water-of-Earth-of-Wind-of-Water

Desires that stem from water within wind-of-earth-of-water are when a person enjoys being in a body of water so that he can waddle around in it and play in it. The person enjoys the actual water, so the desire is coming from water, but to be more specific, he enjoys to move around in the water. Thus, this kind of desire stems from the “water” within that wind-of-earth-of-water.

Desires That Stem From Wind-of-Wind-of-Earth-of-Water

Desires that stem from the ‘wind’ aspect within wind-of-earth-of-water are when a person enjoys movement, but to be more specific, it is when people enjoy engaging in many different kinds of movement.

Desires That Stem From Fire-of-Wind-of-Earth-of-Water

When a person enjoys extreme kinds of movement, these desires stem from the ‘fire’ aspect within wind-of-earth-of-water. The nature of fire is to be jumpy; fire represents the idea of extremity.

Movement Is The Root of Pleasure

Let us examine what the deep root of pleasure is. What is pleasure all about?

When we have pleasure, we are really enjoying a certain kind of movement. Taanug, pleasure, is related to the word tenuah, which means movement. The greatest taanug is experienced by a true Torah scholar, who is always moving towards Hashem. So pleasure comes from enjoying a certain ‘movement’.

Taanug, or oneg, is when a person moves toward something that is worthy to pursue. When a person moves away from the right kind of pleasure, such pleasure is called nega, the opposite of the word oneg. Oneg\pleasure is thus based on tenuah\movement.

Using this concept, we can now see how to gain control of our desires to engage in movement: the more we become aware of our movements, the more we gain oneg, because we will be gaining pleasure from our movements. 

Becoming Aware of Our Root Movement: Breathing

We are always breathing in and out. Do we ever derive enjoyment from this?

Chazal say that for every breath, our soul should praise Hashem. If a person pays attention to the fact that he breathes in and out, he can derive great enjoyment from this, because he is aware of his constant movements. Hashem is breathing new life into us every time we breathe in. If we think of our breathing in these terms, we will derive tremendous pleasure from our breathing.

When people lack true pleasure, they search for it in other unsavory places. On Shabbos, we are supposed to have oneg Shabbos – a deep pleasure in the holiness of Shabbos. This is to access our pleasure in spirituality, and the main time to access is on Shabbos. The deep oneg we can have in Shabbos is what can supply us with true oneg. When people don’t have real Oneg Shabbos, they don’t know how to derive pleasure from proper movement, and they will seek all kinds of crazy, unhealthy pleasures during the six days of the week.

The idea we see from this is that when we have real pleasure, we won’t seek it elsewhere. Therefore, if we learn how to enjoy our breathing – which is the root of all our movements – we will have access the pleasure that comes from the main movement in our life, and then we won’t need to seek pleasure in various other movements.

This is a subtle concept. Most people do not enjoy the fact that they breathe in and out. If people would feel the enjoyment in breathing in and out – not to just to know about it intellectually, but to actually feel enjoyment in it – they would have the root of all pleasure.

Most of the movements going on in the world do not supply us with pleasure. How many people are constantly searching for new places to find pleasure! They keep moving from place to place in the hope of finding pleasure. But if only they would have the pleasure in the root of all “movement”, they wouldn’t need to search for pleasure in any of the “movements” going on in this world.

Practically speaking, to work on this, the first step is to reflect intellectually about the concept of your breathing process, and then, try to feel pleasure in it as you breathe in and out. When you derive pleasure in the root of all your movements – the fact that you breathe in and out – you won’t need to get pleasure in any other extra kinds of movements.

This is the root of the solution; there are also “branches” of the solution which we will soon mention, but the main part of the solution is to use this root of the solution. Without using this concept, which is the root of the solution to these desires, a person will lack pleasure in movement, and he will search for all kinds of unhealthy pleasure.

This is the general outline of the solution we will use to solve desires for movement. Now we will examine how this can apply specifically to each of the four kinds of desires we mentioned.

Solving The Problem Of Being Tied Down To Fixed Schedules

If a person has desires for a ‘stable’ movement in life [and thus he feels that he can only function when he has organization in his life, as opposed to when he goes through changes in his schedule], we have explained that this issue comes from the ‘earth’ aspect within wind-of-earth-of-water. It can be solved as follows.

These desires need to be examined: Does the person wants a stable schedule in his life because he really wants stability in his life, or because he’s just acting lazy and therefore cannot deal with new movements to his schedule…?

Solving The Desire To Swim In Water

If a person mainly desires the movement of swimming in water (which comes from water-of-wind-of-earth-of-water), or if he desires to do all kinds of moves in the water (which comes from wind-of-wind-of-earth-of-water), he should also try to discern why he does this.

If a person goes swimming for health reasons – to keep his body fit – this is fine. Our body cannot survive on spirituality alone; we have a body, and it has physical needs, which need to be taken care of. However, there are a large percentage of people who like to swim and they are unaware of why they like to go swimming. They do not realize that it can be coming from a lack of sensing proper movement in their life. Such people need to get used to feeling more movement in their life, because they are lacking it, so they use the pool as a [subconscious] way to fill their need for movement.

The person here has to curb the desire for movement as he is in the water, similar to what we mentioned earlier (in Chapter Three). The basic outline of this solution was that you should restrain some of your movements in the water, which trains you to be in control of your desire for movement in the water. We cannot give exact instructions here on how to do this, but this is the general idea: within your movements, give some minimal restraint to the movements.

But even more so, if you have used the root of the solution – which is to derive pleasure from your breathing – you will find that your desire for movements in the water has become greatly weakened; it will be more controlled and restrained.

Solving The Desire For Extreme Movement

When a person has a strong amount of fire in his soul, he seeks extreme kinds of movement and action. In our generation especially, which lacks vitality from holiness, people are seeking all kinds of extreme movements, through all kinds of extreme activities.

The inner reason for this is because fire creates heat and dryness; when the fire in a person’s soul gets too dominant, the person ‘dries up’ inside, and since he feels that his life is ‘dry’ – in other words, boring - he will seek extreme kinds of fun.

The solution to this is that the more a person derives vitality from his main movement – as we explained, to enjoy the feeling of his breathing process, which is our root movement – the more he will find that his desire for extreme movement will become weakened.

Going Deeper: Deriving Pleasure From Our Feelings

Until now, we gave solutions that can be applied to any person on any level. Now we will explain a deeper solution to desires for movement, which will not only apply to all people, only to those who have already reached some inner purity in themselves.

We have a power to derive a sense of movement from our inner feelings and thoughts. The more a person enjoys the depth of his developed feelings and thoughts, the more vitality he will feel from his feelings and thoughts. This is the inner source of vitality that a person can tap into. He will be able to derive vitality from his own inner world, so he won’t need other kinds of movement to give himself vitality.[1]

Most people do not identify with their inner world of the soul, and are instead living life through the prism of their body; as a result, they are getting their vitality from extreme occasions, such as weddings and other events. This kind of vitality is superficial, and it does not come from the soul; it is really coming from the body.

But a person can derive vitality, on a constant basis, from his own soul – and it can come from any of the soul’s deep feelings, such as ahavah (love for Hashem) and yirah (fear of Hashem).

A Deeper Solution: Deriving True Pleasure From Our Torah Learning

Even more so, a person can derive his main source of movement by learning Torah [which is the power of holy thought]. This is not just by sitting and learning Torah; it is praiseworthy for a person to sit and learn, but just to learn Torah superficially won’t fill the need for movement.

There are “70 faces” to interpret the Written Torah, and there are 50 “Gates of understanding” to the Oral Torah. The number 70 corresponds to the letter ayin  (ע)in Hebrew, and 50 corresponds to the letter nun (נ)  which spells the word na (נע) to “move.” Therefore, when we are learning Torah, we are really “moving”, and this can give us our truest source for an enjoyable sense of movement in our life. [Soon, we will explain how we can attain this understanding].

But these days, people often do not see how the words they are learning form a certain path. People might learn the Gemara in-depth and analyze the logic of the words, but they are often unaware of the general picture that the words are leading to. People often enjoy the logic in it and they enjoy it if they can remember the material well; if they reach a higher level, they enjoy chiddushim in it, and if they reach an even higher level, they enjoy the truth understanding of the material. Yet, even if a person enjoys his learning in these ways, he doesn’t necessarily reach the true enjoyment of learning.

It is written, “If not for Your Torah my delight, I would go insane from all my suffering.” The Torah is truly delightful to a person when he feels like his Torah learning is supplying him with a sense of movement; when he deeply connects to his learning, and thus he sees where the words of the Gemara are leadings towards (the “mehalech”\”general path” of the words).This is how the Torah becomes a Toras Chaim, a “Torah of life” to a person – the Torah becomes “alive” to a person when he feels like the words of the Torah are moving him.

The Deepest Source of Vitality: Closeness With Hashem

If a person reaches an even higher spiritual level than this, he gains vitality from his very closeness with Hashem.[2] A person can reach a level in which he is drawn after Hashem like a magnet, as the Mesillas Yesharim describes – which is the deepest kind of “movement” possible - and this can supply a person with the deepest kind of vitality.

Summary of the Deeper Solution

Thus, in order to gain enjoyment from our true source of movement, we need to derive vitality from our own deep emotions and thoughts.

Our deep emotions are not to be confused with “excitement” (hislahatus), rather, they are accessed when we develop the depth of our emotions. Most people only know of extreme emotions, because their emotional world is undeveloped.[3]

An even deeper kind of enjoyment can be derived from our Torah learning (our power of holy thought, which is even higher than our deep emotions) when we learn with the awareness that Torah gives us movement.

A Searching Generation

But most people do not have this awareness, as we said. Most of the generation today lacks a properly developed emotional world, as well as this awareness in their Torah learning, but even worse than this is that most are far removed from closeness to Hashem.

But if people would know how to derive vitality from their inner world – which includes properly developed emotions, learning Torah with proper awareness of what it does for our vitality, and enjoyment in seeking a relationship with Hashem – no one would have to look for pleasure in any other ‘movements’. Being that our generation is mostly lacking any of these three factors (the depth of feelings\the depth of Torah thought\and closeness with Hashem), people end up seeking pleasure from all kinds of unhealthy sources that are entirely focused on physical gratification.

The Deepest Sense of Movement

The deepest kind of movement can be derived from our search to become closer and closer to Hashem. This is an endless search, for Hashem is called the Infinite (Ein Sof). Our soul really wants an endless kind of pleasure, and this can be satisfied when we endlessly search to get closer to Hashem.

If a person merits to connect himself with Hashem, he touches upon the endless kind of pleasure, and he will gain pleasure from this deepest kind of movement. This is the source of our real pleasure, and the more we connect with it, the more our desires for physicality will weaken.

Of course, our desires for physicality will not disappear totally even at this level, as we mentioned [because we still have a physical body], but they will still become greatly restrained.

In Summary

To summarize, we need to uncover our pleasure in our root movement, which is in our inner world [enjoying our breathing; on a deeper level, enjoyment from our deep feelings and thoughts in Torah; on yet a deeper level, enjoyment in our relationship with Hashem, which is endless].

Along with this, we also need to practice a bit of restraint on our movements as we are enjoying the movement, depending on which of the four elements the desire for movement is coming from, as we explained in previous chapters.

We must point out that if we just practice restraint on our movements and we don’t learn how to derive pleasure from our inner source of movements, then we are missing the main part of the solution.