Tefillah - 119 Inspiring Yourself Vs. Building Yourself

Yerushalayim – The City of Hisorerus\Inspiration For Holiness

ולירושלים עירך – We ask Hashem to restore Yerushalayim, “Your city.”

There are cities and forests. The city is a loud place. The forest is called yaar, from the word ar, “awake” – a place where we can awaken ourselves, because it is a quiet place. A city is called “kerach”, from the word “karuch”, to be “wrapped” up in surroundings. But the word city is also called ir, which comes from the word hisorereus – awakening, inspiration.

Yerushalayim is called the Ir HaKodesh (the holy city), thus, the hisorerus found in Yerushalayim is louder and more impressionable than any other kind of hisorerus. When Yerushalayim was in its full glory, a person who was in it would feel great hisorerus for kedushah (holiness). The hisorerus going on in most cities, the “noises” of most cities, are noises that are directed towards chasing physical pursuits or various physical needs of people. But the hisorerus of Yerushalayim would cause a person to naturally feel (to be precise, in his “Ruach” of the soul, which is the point in our soul that becomes inspired with emotion) a push to truly serve the Creator. When Yerushalayim was destroyed, the great hisorerus it contained was destroyed with it.

But Yerushalayim is not the ultimate goal. The Beis HaMikdash is the goal of Yerushalayim, for it contained the Shechinah. Someone in the Beis HaMikdash, especially the Kohanim who were in it all day, were able to palpably feel Hashem. Yerushalayim was a place where a person felt hisorerus - but in the Beis HaMikdash, it wasn’t just hisorerus. It was beyond hisorerus – it was where you could palpably feel Hashem, which is the goal.

Temporary Inspiration Vs. Permanence

There are two levels in our soul – the lower level can feel hisorerus, and the higher level is to go beyond the hisorerus – to have a permanent and lasting connection with Hashem (binyan).

Hisorerus is meant to wake a person up from his slumber. “Wake up, sleepy ones, from your slumber”. Even when a person wakes up from spiritual slumber, the hisorerus can still go away. We can all recognize that hisorerus comes and goes. From the physical world we can see that “waking up” only lasts temporarily - we wake up in the morning, then we go back to sleep at night. We keep falling asleep and getting up, then falling asleep again. In our soul as well, we act like this – we can all recognize how we keep falling sleep, getting up, then falling asleep it.

Anyone who doesn’t recognize this hasn’t even begun Avodas Hashem. But anyone who has a little feeling for holiness can recognize that even when he has hisorerus, even when he feels renewed, it comes and goes. Not only does our body keep falling asleep and getting up and falling asleep again, but so does our soul keep falling asleep and getting up and then falling asleep again.

“A constant fire burns on the Altar” – in our avodah, we need a constant fire, not inspiration that comes and goes. When we brought korbonos, it was inspiration, but then a person could still fall to sin again. So too, most people, even when they yearn for holiness, they don’t hold onto their inspiration. Most people only know of hisorerus.

The true way to live is that besides for hisorerus, we need binyan – to build ourselves in a permanent way.

(To understand this deeper, Yerushalayim without the Beis HaMikdash is like a guf without a neshamah. But the Beis HaMikdash without Yerushalayim is like ohr (light) without a kli (container); the Beis HaMikdash still needed Yerushalayim as a kli to hold its ohr. So too, hisorerus is a kli for our binyan. So we need both – we need hisorerus, which is the kli, the tool we can use to grow higher; and we need binyan, which is the actual ohr that goes into our kli.)

Everyone Needs Different Words of Inspiration

Bnei Torah in yeshivos are used to hearing “shmuessen” (inspirational mussar-lectures) on all kinds of topics, and this seems wonderful, but there are two sides to everything we come across. It brings hisorerus, and it is on a regular basis, usually once a week, so it seems like it is better than the regular hisorerus. But if a person bases his life on hisorerus - or if a person bases his life on various advice that he hears from others, even if he does this on a permanent basis for once a week - this is like Yerushalayim without the Beis HaMikdash. It is inspiration which doesn’t last.

The topics in which a person needs to improve in usually change every week, and not everyone gains in the same way from it. It provides some inspiration, and then it’s gone. This is the situation with most people.

Hisorerus is very important, and we cannot live without it. But we cannot build our avodah on hisorerus.

Even more so, words of hisorerus cannot apply equally to all people, because each person needs to hear something else right now. By a levayah (funeral), words of hisorerus are spoken; even if the words are spoken by a pure heart and from a good heart, this does not mean that the words are perfectly tailored to all those who hear the words. Reb Chatzkel Levenstein zt”l said it takes chochmah gedolah (great wisdom) to listen to hisorerus and gain from it.  This can be compared to the parah adumah (red heifer), which purified the impure and contaminated the pure – so too, words of hisorerus can help certain people, but the words aren’t always suited for other people who hear them.

We cannot base our life on words of hisorerus. Imagine if a person learns Maseches Yevamos one day and then Maseches Shabbos the next day, and the next day he learns Chullin. We all know this is foolish. You have to stick to one Masechta each day and continue in it.

So words of hisorerus are wonderful, but they can also make a person very mistaken.

The Three Points You Need In Order To Gain From Words of Inspiration

What is the real way to go about it? Reb Chatzkel said it takes great wisdom to gain from hisorerus.

Firstly, what a person needs to do, is to approach words of hisorerus with the understanding that it is hisorerus, and not necessarily to work on the topic at hand that was spoken about. The words are about a certain topic, and it is detrimental if you work on every topic you hear about. So what you should do is, be focused on listening to the point of truth that is contained in it, and don’t limit yourself to the actual topic being discussed. Just hear the truth that it is conveying, regardless of the actual topic that it is addressing.

Also, when you hear words of hisorerus, you don’t have to act upon it the next day. Just hear them so you can place them in your mind and remember them, where you will access them at a later time.

Another point you should know is that words of hisorerus need to become transformed into an avodah in your life, therefore, it is detrimental to work on every topic you hear about it, because this is reckless. A dvar Torah on the weekly Parsha doesn’t build you, because every week is on a different topic. You can’t follow the hisorerus you heard about that week, because this is not a proper way to build yourself. What you need to do is to hear the words and think to yourself if the words needs are meant for you to practice. You don’t have to act upon all words of hisorerus you hear; rather, keep them in your mind, where you can remember them at a later point.

Cycling Between Hisorerus and Binyan

When it comes to learning Torah, we all know that we need permanence. We need to have regular study sessions every day, not once in a while. We need to have set times every day when we learn Torah. But when it comes to improving Avodas Hashem, it doesn’t seem to us that there is no seder. We get inspired one week on the topic of Shmiras HaLashon and the next week we get inspired about tznius, etc. and these are all truthful points; and we need to indeed improve these areas; but, we must approach them with the understanding that it is hisorerus, not binyan. It cannot be binyan, because we cannot use words of hisorerus to build us, for the topics of hisorerus are different each week.

When it comes Yom Tov time, especially Yomim Noraim, there is more hisorerus. But often a person can get so much hisorerus that he isn’t able to build himself, because he becomes so overwhelmed with emotion.

A person has to be clear that there are two points in his soul – a power of hisorerus and a power of binyan.

A person gets up in the morning – he awakens. That is hisorerus. Then he goes about his day to his respective schedule. So hisorerus is only the beginning, a way to refresh us, but it is not the entire day. The entire day rather revolves around binyan, a permanent schedule. We can all understand this. So too, when it comes to our ruchniyus, we are supposed to spend our day mostly on binyan, not on hisorerus. The Vilna Gaon says that one may interrupt his learning to think about Yiras Shomayim if he feels that he needs to be inspired. This shows us that while there is definitely a place for hisorerus\inspiration in our life, it cannot be the basis of entire day. The basis of the day is binyan, and once in a while we need to awaken ourselves with hisorerus.

When hisorerus becomes the basis of a person’s Avodas Hashem, one’s Avodas Hashem will be based on excitement. This can help us when we are younger and we are idealistic and excited, but when we get older and we lose that excitement, we lost the hisorerus with it. A person who bases his life on hisorerus won’t be able to serve Hashem unless he feels inspired.[1]

The real way to live is through binyan. Although we have an element of earth which makes us sleep-like and we need hisorerus, that’s only in the beginning of our Avodas Hashem, similar to how we awaken in the morning. In order to actually serve Hashem, we need to know how we exert ourselves and build ourselves in a way that is permanent. There is a complete Shulchan Aruch that tells us how to work hard and build ourselves.

When we ask Hashem to rebuild Yerushalayim, the simple meaning of this is that Hashem rebuild the place that is Yerushalayim. But there is also Yerushalayim in time and soul. The Yerushalayim in our soul is to have permanent inspiration in our soul for holiness, the kind of inspiration that builds us, as opposed to inspiration that comes and goes. Incorporating both hisorerus and binyan together is the true kind of life.

Therefore, we need both of these aspects. We need to learn mussar passionately in a way that inspires us, as Reb Yisrael Salanter wrote. At the same time, we need to learn the sugyos of Avodas Hashem. Just as you learn the laws of Netilas Yadayim and the laws of Pesach, and you seek to clarify these laws, so must you clarify matters of Avodas Hashem. Generally we refer to this as “Mussar”, but it’s really to go back and forth between hisorerus and binyan. This gives you a mehalech (path) in your avodah. In Kelm they would make sure if they were keeping to their kaballos, to check themselves if they were keeping to their inspiration they felt in Elul.

So we need to inspire ourselves with emotion, which is what learning Mussar is meant for, but we also need calmness. Learning Mussar each dayis the time when you use your emotional inspiration. When you learn Gemara, though, you need to be calm, so you can calmly clarify what you learn and thus be able to build yourself.

When we have both hisorerus and binyan together in our life properly, then we have hisorerus for the times we need it, while we make sure that the basis of our life revolves around binyan.

In Conclusion

May we merit the actual rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash, in the simple sense – and may we also merit the building of the Beis HaMikdash in our own soul, by combining both hisorerus and binyan together in our life.[2]