Hisboddedus Practice - 015 Power of Loving Hashem

The Next Step: Beyond What We “Get” From Hashem

In the previous chapter, with Hashem’s help, we discussed hisbodedus with Hashem – first to thank Hashem, and then how to ask Hashem for things. Now we will progress to the next step of hisbodedus. This will be about revealing a love for the Creator.

The essence of hisbodedus is not just about thanking Him and praying to Him; that is just the beginning. When we recognize that Hashem gives us things and we want to give back to Him, this can only come from love to Hashem.

Hashem gives us our needs and therefore we thank Him, but the essence of hisbodedus is that we reveal a love for Him; He loves us, and that is why we must thank Him and why we need to receive from Him. The giving and taking is the external aspect of our relationship with Hashem, but the inner aspect of the relationship with Hashem, which is the essence of the relationship, is to love Hashem.

We will now discuss this inner layer of how we can reveal love for Hashem.

Examining The Source of Our Self-Love

It’s impossible for anyone to live without love in his life. There are different kinds of love that exist. People get love from others, and if a person sees that others don’t love him, he might get his love from his own self-esteem. In any case, there is no person who can survive without love. Either he knows that there are others who love him, or he knows how to draw self-love from within himself; but we all need some source of love in our life.

Hashem created all of us with a nature to love ourselves. Just like we love ourselves, so do we want others to love us. This is not another kind of love that we seek. Rather, we want others to love us as a part of our own self-love. We won’t be able to love ourselves if we feel that others are not loving us.

The love that a person has for himself – such as the fact that one thinks and worries for himself – is entirely shelo lishmah (ulterior motives). Just as a person wants his physical needs to be nourished, so does a person love himself for his own purposes. It has some lishmah (pure motives) in it also, but it is mostly shelo lishmah. A person wants others to love him as an extension of that shelo lishmah aspect in his self-love.

The self-love is the root of all our loves that we experience. If we use it for love of the Creator, then just as we love ourselves and wish for others to love us, so will we want Hashem to love us. In this way, we can form a bond with Hashem out of love – that just as others should love me, so do I want Hashem to love me. But this is all a love that comes from the shelo lishmah in the soul. It is the kind of love in which just as we want others to love us, so do we want Hashem to love us.

So first we need to realize that we love ourselves, and then we can expand that love to include Hashem in it. If one doesn’t first come to terms with the concept of self-love, he won’t be able to get to the next stage, which is to expand that self-love.

Defining The Very Essence of Love

Most people feel that they love themselves – after all, all day we are taking care of our needs, both physical and spiritual. However, this doesn’t show that there is real self-love. Taking care of our needs is only some result of self-love; it is not the essence of the self-love. Self-love itself is an inner power which results in taking care of our needs and is a power unto itself, and it is not the same thing as the act of taking care of our needs.

To illustrate, we worry for our small children all day, and we show love towards them as well by caressing them, hugging them and kissing them. We worry for their needs, and we express love to them. When they get older, we still take care of their needs, but we put less focus on expressing love to them. It becomes hidden. It’s not that we stop loving them, but, it becomes very hidden. The results of our love still remain, so we still take care of their needs, but the essence of the love itself sort of goes into hiding. [So it is clear that self-love and taking care of needs are two separate matters.]

If we reflect a little, we can see that the parent-child relationship is similar to how we relate to our own self. We have a certain love for ourselves, and we also want to take care of our needs. Most people only know of the second factor: we take care of our needs, but our actual self-love often remains hidden. We often treat ourselves like how we treat our older children: we are concerned for our needs, but we don’t access the love itself.

We express love to our small children, and when they get older, we stop expressing love to them. What happens as a result? We treat others not out of love, but from worry for their needs. When people try to take care of others’ needs but they don’t see this as an expression of their love for others, the love is missing from all of these acts of giving. It is missing the root of the love, and it is only the external shell of love. So we need to learn how to reveal an actual love for others along with looking to fulfilling their needs.

There is actually very little real love in the world. Most acts of giving for others are not coming from an extension of one’s own self-love to others, but from worrying for others. So, what happens? Although the act of giving for others and worrying for them looks like an expression of love, it is still coming mainly from worry for others, not from love to them. The acts of giving and care for others is often there, but the love behind it isn’t. For this reason, the quality of love that is found on this world is very minimal.

Expanding Our Love Towards Hashem

This is all an introductory point to what we are discussing in this current stage of hisbodedus: to reveal a bond of love for Hashem. If one doesn’t access his self-love and only knows of taking care of his needs, the most he will be able to accomplish in his bond with Hashem is to thank Him and to daven to Him, because he is concerned with getting his needs. He will thank Hashem so he can get things from Him and then daven to Him for his needs; that part he will identify with, because he is already involved with taking care of his needs. But he won’t be able to develop a love for Hashem.

This is in fact why most people do not develop a love for Hashem since they haven’t even learned yet to love their own self properly. If one does not have proper self-love yet, he surely will not be able to expand his self-love to include Hashem in it. One might understand the concept of love unto itself as something that we express to children, but as for love towards one’s own self, a person has a harder time relating to this idea.

To give a more subtle definition, self-love consists of two parts. The love itself is the inner layer of the self-love, and the concern for our needs is the external layer of the love, which is the result of the love. Our actual self-love is the lishmah (non-ego)aspect, while the concern for our needs is our shelo lishmah (self-serving) aspect.

If one is able to produce a love for himself that has nothing to do with self-concern, this is a love that is lishmah. If one takes care of his needs because he loves himself, there is both lishmah and shelo lishmah involved. There is also a third possibility: one who doesn’t know how to love himself, and he also takes care of his needs – but not because he loves himself. Rather, this kind of person takes care of his needs simply because he is worried for his needs, and not as a result of his self-love. This is a case of total shelo lishmah.

The essence of one’s self-love itself is lishmah, while love to fulfill our needs is coming from the shelo lishmah in the soul. One who loves himself purely because he loves himself - is one who loves himself lishmah. When one loves himself in the sense that he is concerned for his needs, this is a love that is shelo lishmah.

The deep perspective to have is that when one loves himself purely for the sake of loving himself, this is a pure kind of love, and it is lishmah. If one loves himself solely because he takes care of his needs, this is the ego. The ego in us really takes the power of our pure self- love and makes a person become self-absorbed, when he could have extended his self-love to others.

The popular way of thinking by most people when they hear the word “love” is to equate it as “to take care of needs [whether it is my needs, or another’s needs]”, but this is really a misconception. Love is really an inner power that has a use unto itself; it is a separate factor than taking care of my needs or another’s needs. Just like zeal, sadness, and happiness are all powers in our soul, so is a love a power in our soul, and it has a use unto itself, unrelated to taking care of one’s needs. When one realizes this deep understanding about love, he becomes opened to a pure kind of love which will be the key to developing a bond of love to Hashem through hisbodedus.

Identifying This In Yourself

Based upon this, in order to proceed with hisbodedus, one must identify these two parts of himself: the essence of love for ourselves, and what results from that self-love. There is a part in us which has a love for ourselves, simply because we have a love for ourselves; and there is a part in us which worries for our needs. The worry for our needs is the result of our self-love, and it is the external layer of our love, but it is not the love itself, as we explained.

When we thank Hashem for what He gave us in the past and we daven to Hashem for our future needs, we are really using the external layer of our love, which is to be concerned for our needs. But in order to develop a love for Hashem, we need to use the inner layer of love, the essence of our love – the very love itself that one has for himself. It is that place in ourselves which we need to use in order to turn to express our love for Him. It is a deep place in our soul, and it is clean from self-interests.

Examine yourself deeply and identify the two parts in yourself. First identify the part of yourself which is concerned for your needs, and use that part in yourself to thank Hashem and daven to Him for your needs; and identify in yourself a deeper part of yourself, a part which loves yourself simply because you love for yourself, and now use that power in yourself to turn to Hashem with that love.

We can see that most people who do hisbodedus are mainly busy with self-accounting[1], thanking Hashem[2], and davening to Hashem[3]. This is all because most people have not developed the proper self-love for themselves which was described here, and therefore, they only know how to worry for themselves and take care of their needs. Their level of hisbodedus cannot go further than self-accounting and thanking Hashem for the past and davening to Hashem for what they still need.

But if one develops a proper self-love for himself, by revealing actual love for himself, he will open a new treasure in his hisbodedus. He will be able to reveal a true and pure love himself that is non-ego oriented, and from that deep place in himself, he can turn to Hashem amidst that pure love.

Reaching Your Pure Self-Love:  Acquiring The Power of “Someiach B’chelko” (Inner Happiness)

Now that we have explained the concept, we will progress and explain how one can indeed reveal his true self-love, and how to take that pure self-love and use it to turn to Hashem in hisbodedus. We will now explain the first part of this: how one can develop a simple and pure love for himself that is solely about love, unrelated to any ego-oriented concerns.

Usually, when one feels a love for himself, he will also find that he worries for his needs, for the things he wants.

Chazal say that one should be “someiach b’chelko”, “happy with our lot”. This describes an inner ability we have to simply be happy with ourselves, and not let our happiness be dependent on things that we seek and wish for.

As long as one hasn’t yet reached his someiach b’chelko, as soon as he thinks about his situation and his needs, he will immediately seek to fulfill those needs, but he skips over the love for himself. But if one has reached his someiach b’chelko, since he is happy with whatever he has until now, he will find that the immediate impulse to seek the things he wants is really an impulse that can be calmed and stilled. Although he will still want things, he won’t feel an immediate need to quickly get what he wants, because his self-love will be awakened, and the love he has for himself will give him a deep feeling of satisfaction.

In fact, the pure kind of self-love is an even deeper kind of power than someiach b’chelko. He loves himself not because he is someiach b’chelko; [rather, his someiach b’chelko that he has reached will awaken his self-love, and his self-love will calm him and help him let go of pursuing whatever he wants.]

Without someiach b’chelko, the things he wants will awaken concern to get what he wants. His self-love remains out of access, and instead his self-love gets used solely to take care of his needs. When one has reached someiach b’chelko, he is happy with what he has, and his soul is calmed because it doesn’t want more things. When one has that inner calm, he is able to awaken his pure self-love, and that will satisfy his needs; he will discover that he can let go of what he wants, because he has an inner satisfaction with himself.

The Way To Reach “Someiach B’chelko” Is Through Emunah

Someiach b’chelko is developed when we acquire emunah (faith in Hashem). The clearer our emunah is, the greater will be our quality of someiach b’chelko.

Emunah tells us that whatever we have now is what we are supposed to have, and what we don’t yet have is what we don’t need to have. We can absorb emunah by reflecting on how Hashem is in charge of everything and runs every last detail in Creation. This can give us someiach b’chelko in what we have. In addition, it can even give us happiness even in what we don’t have, because we realize that we don’t need the things we don’t have.

Absorbing this, more and more, gives our soul the ability to reflect on our situations and realize that we do not have to get the things we think we are lacking since we are happy with ourselves since we are content with whatever we have until now. We can get used to the concept that just because we want things, that doesn’t mean we are missing anything. The more we implant emunah in ourselves, the more we can silence our will for wanting things, and in its place, we acquire deep simcha, happiness. It is the deep power of simchah in the soul that is called someiach b’chelko.

When emunah is internalized in you, it gives you the power to be someiach b’chelko. As a result, whenever you think of your situation, you will immediately feel content towards yourself. Your soul will get used to the idea of accepting yourself for who you are, and that you don’t need to use your will for the things you want in order to give yourself something. This will calm your soul, and when the soul is calmed, you will begin to feel your true self-love.

Without developing emunah, a person cannot be someiach b’chelko, and then the more a person wants things, the more he experiences worry for his needs, which has nothing to do with real self-love. But when one internalizes emunah – that whatever you have is what you need, and whatever you don’t yet have is what you don’t need – this gives you someiach b’chelko. Slowly but surely you will gain the ability to accept yourself for who you are, and you will find inner happiness at this.

The obstacle which prevents us from accessing our true self-love is when we want things, and therefore we are uneasy and anxious until we get those things we want. When our will to get what we want is calmed, it opens up new inner wellsprings inside ourselves: the feeling of what it really means to love yourself. It is a pure kind of love for yourself that is clean from any ego-oriented concerns; it will be an experience of just a love for yourself in its pure state.

Unconditional Love Towards Hashem: Just Like You Love Yourself For No Reason

When one hasn’t yet uncovered his true self-love, he won’t be able to get further in his hisbodedus than thanking Hashem and davening to Hashem for his needs, as we already explained. In addition, even if he tries to awaken a love for Hashem, it won’t work, because he only relates to Hashem as the One who worries for him and gives him his needs, and he doesn’t know how to relate to Hashem beyond that level. His entire relationship with Hashem is self-concerned.

But if one has uncovered his real self-love, he can face Hashem from that part in himselfsince he relates to Hashem not out of anything he will get, but simply because he loves Hashem. This is called the unconditional love that one can have in his relationship with Hashem. Just as you can love yourself for no reason, you love Hashem for no reason; you can love Hashem not because he gives you your needs and takes care of you, but simply because you can just love Hashem.

Expressing Your Love To Hashem

When you reach that state in hisbodedus, now you can go further with this: Think loving thoughts towards Hashem and express your love to Him. You can use pesukim or statements of Chazal which express love for Hashem, or you can use your own language.

Here are some examples of some pesukim you can use which describe love of Hashem, which are contained in Tehillim:

1) נפשי בלילה אויתיך  My soul desires You at night.

2) נכספה וגם כלתה נפשי  My soul yearns.

There are many other verses in Tehillim as well which you can use that express love for Hashem, and there are many other statements of Chazal, as well your own expressions, which you can say to Hashem and express love to Him. You can do it mentally or verbally, and it’s better if you do both. From your own true self-love, you can turn to Hashem from that place in yourself and think thoughts of pure love to Hashem, and then verbalize them. Your enthusiasm will increase as you say the words, but it will not just be superficial. It will be a reflection of the deep love you have reached towards your own self which you are using to love Hashem with.

This is the true and inner essence of hisdodedus, and it is the very essence of man: to bond with Hashem.

Summary Of The Avodah Until This Point

Thus, we have seen thus far that hisbodedus is firstly to gain inner peace with yourself, and after that, to turn to Hashem (and only to Hashem) from that calm state of inner peace you have gained.

Finally, one has to then concentrate solely on his bond with Hashem.

To summarize:

1. the first part of hisbodedus is inner peace with yourself,
2. the second part of hisbodedus is to bond with Hashem from your inner peace,
3. and the final part of is to simply bond with Hashem.

One who hasn’t yet acquired unconditional love for Hashem is missing a major part of hisbodedus. He is only found externally with Hashem, but he is missing the inner bond with Hashem in his soul – he won’t get to the desired goal of hisbodedus. Only from unconditional love – first towards the self, and then to expand it towards Hashem – can one reach the goal of hisbodedus. 

May Hashem help us that all of us reach a gmar chasima tova (to be sealed for a good year) – and the true “good” is to reach the total bond with Hashem, which we can reach in the innermost depths of our soul.

***

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH THE RAV

Q1: Rav Dessler (in Michtav M’Eliyahu: Kuntres HaChessed) writes that self-love is evil, because it is the power of taking, while the Rav seems to be disagreeing with Rav Dessler’s approach, because the Rav is saying that even self-love is pure.

A: Rav Dessler is talking about the result of self-love; when the result is evil, it is the power of taking, and when it is positive, it is the power of giving. But they are both the results of self-love. Here in this class we were addressing the essence of self-love [which is not evil]. That is why we emphasized here in this class that there is the essence of self-love, and there is the result of self-love. The result of our self-love can either be good (giving) or evil (taking), but that is a separate factor than self-love itself. Here in this class we explained the essence of self-love, and we did not discuss its results of either giving or taking.

To illustrate the difference, when two friends meet, if they hug or kiss, we can say that this describes the essence of their love. If they give each other presents afterwards, this is the results of their love, but it is not the love itself.

Q2: When one is trying to uncover his pure kind of self-love, how can he avoid worrying about his needs?

A: It was addressed in this class that we need to develop the power of someiach b’chelko, and this requires us to greatly internalize emunah. When one hasn’t reached someiach b’chelko, it will usually be very difficult for him to feel a real self-love for himself.

There are some people who are born with a natural self-love and a love for Hashem, but most people are not gifted with this, and for this reason, most people need to work on their emunah in order to reach someiach b’chelko, and from that, one can get to real self-love.

However, as soon as one starts thinking about himself, his will gets awakened, and he wants things. His heart feels anxious, and even if he tries to tell himself verbally that he is happy with himself and that he is letting go of what he wants, his heart is not at peace with his mouth is saying. Of course, verbalization can affect the heart, but it will be mostly useless if one’s heart is full of many desires that it wants (which is the case with most people).

Therefore, the more advised approach is to change our heart’s perspective [which is the method being used here], and then what we tell our heart with our mouth will be more effective on our heart to help it let go of the things we want that are making us anxious.

Q3: Does the concept of someiach b’chelko (being happy with our lot) apply as well to our ruchniyus\spirituality, such as being happy with our middos, or is it only with our physical areas?

A: That’s a classical question which is discussed. When it comes to our physical areas, we need to be totally someiach b’chelko, and when it comes to our ruchniyus, we have a two-sided avodah. We need to be happy with even our current level of ruchniyus that we have, as the Vilna Gaon says; at the same time, we also need to aspire to reach more and more levels in our ruchniyus. We need a certain amount of inner happiness towards ourselves so that we can “feel good about ourselves” somewhat, and at the same time, concerning our future, we need to aspire for more growth.

So yes, there is a degree of someiach b’chelko in our ruchniyus, and it is a very subtle avodah.

Q4: How can one access his self-love? It seems like there are too many steps to take in order to get there – internalizing emunah, then someach b’chelko…it takes a lot of time! How is it possible then to reach our self-love?

A: Every word you said is true. [It is indeed a long road to get there!].

Q5: Rav Dessler writes that giving to others awakens love for others, so it sounds like giving is not just a result of love, but that it is an actual cause of love.

A: Giving to others certainly causes love towards people, but it is only the external aspect of love, not the essence of love. If love is based on giving to others, then the love that results from it is love that is happenstance, for it happened to come from an act of giving. We discussed here about the essence of love itself, which is above happenstance love. Love that results from giving is happenstance love, because giving is act that might happen or might not happen. But the love that comes from our own essence is the kind of love in which we love ourselves for no reason, and when it comes to extending that love to others, we can be unconditionally bound with others, for we have a soul connection with others that is intrinsic, and it is not dependent on the act of giving to others. It is this kind of love that we spoke about here.

Q6: Is proper self-love an automatic result from someiach b’chelko?

A: When you feel your someiach b’chelko as you have inner calmness, you will feel the pure self-love.

There are people who reach inner calm through the methods that were described earlier to reach self-recognition (Chapters 1-10), and this is a long path. When one reaches the end of that path, he will also feel pure self-love as a result from the inner calm he acquires. But even if one doesn’t do all those things to reach inner calm, and he only uses his power of emunah and he becomes someiach b’chelko, as was described here in this class, he can reach self-love as well.

If one tries the second path (emunah\someiach b’chelko) to reach inner calm, which was addressed in this class, he will get to pure self-love, without having to do all of the methods of inner calm that was described earlier. If someone tries the first path, he will arrive at self-love even without acquiring deep emunah. However, he will be missing the quality of emunah. But in either method, one attains a deep inner calm which leads him to a pure self-love.

Q7: If I know that I’m not yet holding at the level of someiach b’chelko, can I talk it into myself “as if” I really am someiach b’chelko?

A: You can’t convince yourself that it’s “as if” you’re on that level if you are really not. But what I can tell you is that it can work temporarily than one can calm himself a bit, just like we find that a pain in the body can be relieved temporarily; it doesn’t take away the pain, but it relieves it temporarily. So if you are temporarily calm, you can feel someiach b’chelko and from there you can find your self-love. But you will only feel it temporarily, until the next time you feel a desire for something you want, and then once again you are taken out of your calmness. But you will at least experience some times that you feel calm with yourself and happy with yourself, so that you can at least have a temporary experience of true self-love.

Q8: Is there some feeling in the body that can one can feel (throughout the day, and not specifically during time of hisbodedus) in order to identify if he has truly reached “someiach b’chelko”?

A: I’m not sure if I have understood this entire question, but if I understood the question, the answer is that there are two separate factors: there is someach b’chelko itself, and there are other factors that come along with it. Sometimes during the day you can feel the pleasant feelings of someiach b’chelko that you previously reached during hisbodedus, even though you are not consciously aware that you are someiach b’chelko; and those pleasant feelings that come to you throughout the day can certainly awaken you to being more someiach b’chelko.

If I understood the question correctly, the answer here is only true if it is done with conscious awareness to awaken the someach b’chelko when you experience the pleasant offshoots of it throughout the day. If you don’t consciously awaken your someach b’chelko when you experience these feelings, you will become too caught up in the pleasant feeling of it, and the someach b’chelko part of it will end up being ignored, because you won’t be consciously aware of it.

Q9: Do we need to first love Hashem in order to be someach b’chelko?

A: We must first believe in Hashem, before we work on trying to love Hashem. A person can believe that all that Hashem does is good, and from that, a person is someach b’chelko.

There are people who are naturally happy with themselves, because they have a very pleasant nature that is drawn towards calmness and pleasantness; these are people who were born with a dominant element of water in their souls (which is the root of pleasure). There are only a few people who are like this, but they do exist. As for those of us who do not possess this nature, we need either the paths described in the earlier chapters, or we need to use our power of emunah in order to reach our someiach b’chelko.

1. Altogether, there are three ways to get to someiach b’chelko: People who are born with a pleasant nature, who are automatically someiach b’chelko [and therefore they do not have an avodah in reaching someiach b’chelko];
2. Using methods of inner calm [as described earlier in Chapters 1-10),
3. Developing the power of emunah, as was described in this class.