Fixing Your Fire [Honor] - 009 Inertia

Earth-of-Wind-of-Fire: The Heaviness of The Movements of Honor

Let’s continue, with siyata d’shmaya, to learn about the trait of honor, which stems from the element of fire. We are now up to discussing wind-of-fire.

The trait of honor stems from the element of fire, and wind-of-fire refers to the “movements” of honor. “Earth”-of-wind-of-fire specifically refers to the “heaviness” of those movements.

We discussed the very opposite angle of this concept when we learned about wind-of-earth-of-fire [see Chapter 3]. Now we will see the opposite side of the coin of whatever we discussed about wind-of-earth-of-fire. Let’s first mention what we learned about with wind-of-earth-of-fire, in order to understand our current topic, earth-of-wind-of-fire.

Reviewing Some Key Points About Honor

We explained about two kinds of honor –“higher honor” and “lower honor.” Honor is a force that stems from a higher dimension, which can be felt on our own lower dimension that we stand on. When honor is holy, a person feels the higher source of the honor even within the lower dimension. Honor becomes evil when it descends from the higher realms and into the lower realms, where it translates into a self-focused kind of honor. When a person descends into that kind of honor, he is using honor for evil (refer to Chapter 6).

The evil side to honor can also be understood as this the “heaviness” of honor, which pulls a person down to a level that was beneath his current level.

As people get older, honor becomes a stronger force in their lives. During youth, the element of water\desire is stronger in a person, as opposed to fire\honor, and that is why younger people struggle more with physical desires and lusts, as opposed to the spiritual desire known of pursuing honor.  The element of fire becomes more manifest in a person slowly as he gets older and he matures, and that is why aging people will experience more anger, conceit, and honor – traits that all stem from the element of fire (see Chapter 5).

The Relationship Between Heaviness and Honor

Now we will explain an additional point, relevant to our current topic: besides for the aforementioned difference between old and young people, there is another difference: young people are also lighter and looser in their movements, whereas the older a person gets, the heavier his body feels upon him. His movements become heavy and slowed, and this also makes honor a more dominant force in their lives, because kavod\honor descends upon k’veidus\heaviness.

In slightly different terms, when people get older, they are more drawn towards honor because they feel heavier, thus they become more of a “container” to hold honor. The heaviness acts as a “container” for the honor, and that is why honor will be a more dominant force in old age, where there is more “heaviness”.

Now let’s understand the following. This idea – that honor becomes dominant when there is more “heaviness” - is more clearly seen when a person gets older, as we have just explained. It can also be seen in one who is physically heavy. Because he is heavy, there is also more room for honor to take hold on him. His movements become heavier, and so he is more likely to become dominated by honor. For the same reason, honor can also become dominant in one who has a very lazy nature, because laziness is also linked with “heaviness.”[1]

In all of these scenarios, the common denominator is that there is more room for honor to take hold of the person and to become more of a dominant force in his life.

Rectifying Heaviness-Related Honor: Becoming Light

In order to rectify this, one will need to develop the power that opposes heaviness, which is contained in the words of Chazal in the Mishnah in Avos: “Be light like an eagle.”[2]

Man is comprised of a spiritual soul and a physical body. The soul is called “daughter of Heaven”, it is spiritual; therefore, it is also of a light nature, and it is not weighed down by any materialism of its own, so it has no “heaviness”. In contrast, the body is of a heavy nature; it was taken from earth, a heavy substance. The more spiritual that a person is (or becomes), the lighter and looser he will be; in contrast, the more gruff that a person is, the “heavier” he will be.

“Be light as an eagle”, on a superficial level, means for a person to awaken his physical movement and to thereby awaken the will, to perform quickly, energetically. But the deeper understanding of this concept is to make his very orientation (the level he is at right now) to become lighter. It doesn’t just mean to move lightly in the physical sense. Rather, it means that the “lighter” a person’s level becomes, in turn, the lighter his movements will be.

Thus, the depth of one’s avodah, in overcoming the dominance of the trait of honor, is to become “lighter” (kal).

Heaviness of the Body

“Heaviness” is influenced by a number of factors.

The first factor we need to consider is how the physical body contributes to feeling heavy. Every person has been given a different body from Hashem, and some have been born heavier and skinnier than others, but each person must try as much as he can to make sure that he isn’t physically heavy.

A person has the free choice to decide if he will become a heavier kind of person or a lighter kind of person, by watching what he eats. Part of one’s avodah is to use the natural means which Hashem has placed on this world [maintaining a light diet] to make our physical bodies lighter.

When we say that a person needs to become a lighter kind of person, we do not mean for a person to be “in shape”, as our world of superficiality stresses for its own sake. Rather, we mean that one must become physically lighter because it is a part of his avodah to become a “lighter” kind of person [who isn’t weighed down by heaviness, who will be able to move enthusiastically in serving the Creator].

Heaviness In The Soul

Even more so, however, is that there is “heaviness” in the movements of the soul.

For example, some people speak slowly or think slowly. Although this has its gains to it –  Chazal say “the words of the wise are heard slowly”, and a person who thinks slowly can think calmly and with yishuv hadaas (a settled, composed mind) – these abilities are only commendable when they are balanced. If a person can only move slowly and never quickly, if a person can only talk slowly and never quickly, and if a person can only think slowly and never quickly, this is a problem. It can cause a deep kind of “sleepiness” to come upon a person’s soul.

(In certain situations, slow acting\talking\thinking has its benefits. Here we are speaking about the downside to the slowness, which causes a person to be ‘asleep’ inside himself).

But besides for this problem of becoming sleeplike, it also causes “heaviness” to come upon the person, and he will have a very “heavy” orientation.

Talking Slowly

We should understand that in certain people, slow talking is a symptom of this “heaviness” that has descended upon them.

Of course, if a person is talking slowly when he is speaking a foreign language, because he is not familiar with it, this is understandable and it does not mean that he has a problem. But if a person is talking slowly in his own language, why is he talking slowly? There can be different reasons:

1)    He might have a slow thinking process, and therefore he talks slowly as a result.

2)    With others, they talk slowly because they find the act of talking to be straining for them - like the opinion in the Gemara that “the moving of the lips is an action”[3].

In any case, however, the common denominator is that when a person gets used to talking slowly, he will also move slowly, in all of his movements, as a result.

Slow Thinking

There are also people who think slowly, and there can be a few reasons for this.

1) Sometimes this is because the person’s thinking process is very constricted, and as a result, the person thinks slowly. For example, when learning Gemara, a person like this may have a tough time grasping the flow of thought in the Gemara and he may forget the structure, so he will have to review the structure several times, until he finally gets it. He simply has a slow thinking process.

2) In others, slow thinking is stemming from a learned behavior, as a result of getting used to thinking slowly. It is like a “slumber” of the brain, which the person has trained to get used to thinking slowly.

As mentioned earlier, slow thinking has its advantages. Often a person who thinks slowly has more organized thinking patterns, and his thoughts are more on-the-mark. But, this is not always the case, and the person may just be a slow thinker whose thoughts are anyhow off-mark, who has a sleepy kind of thinking process, so he gains nothing from this slow thinking process.

Let’s consider the person who does gain from his slow thinking: He has a very organized way of thinking, which takes him time but which offers clear results. However, even if his thinking does bring him to a clearer understanding of a matter, the problem is that he will take too much time on any step he needs to think about. It will him take too long to think about something.

He may take 4 or 5 times longer than most people when he thinks about something, but when he does arrive at the understanding, his understanding is clear. While there is certainly an advantage of clear thinking here, the problem is that it causes a great amount of “heaviness” to come upon his soul.

As an example, there are often people who cannot grapple with a new reality, or with a new way of understanding something, or with a new perspective on life. It might take a person 30 days to even absorb the new reality or the new perspective at hand. This is a result of getting used to slow thinking.

In contrast, there is a totally different way of how a person can live life [which one should ideally achieve]: to move and think quickly.

The Detriment of Quick, Superficial Thinking

There are two kinds of people who already are able to act quickly and think quickly.

1) Some people are simply born with a nature to move and think quickly.

2) Others, though, are able to move and think quickly because they have a very superficial orientation to begin with. They use their minds only very lightly, without thinking too much into anything, and therefore, they are able to absorb things very quickly; but as a result, they do not use their minds that much, so they do not know how to work their minds through a matter.

If they are asked if they understand what they have just absorbed, we can tell from their response that they do not understand at all. It is as if a bunch of pictures have quickly passed through their thoughts, which they have absorbed in their minds but without understanding any of these thoughts. They do not really perceive the reality of the thoughts that have passed through their mind, and therefore they aren’t able to think things through and to digest what they have thought about. They haven’t understood their own thoughts – rather, they have just gathered together bits of knowledge that they don’t actually understand anything about.

To give an example, there are some people who can be tested on many pages of Gemara that they have learned, which is wonderful, but while this certainly is advantageous, the drawback of it is that they can only remember the details superficially, without understanding all of the knowledge that they have gathered.

A person may be tested once a month on 20, 30, or 70 pages of Gemara and he may remember many details he has learned, he might gather much knowledge together, but how much of this does he understand? He has seen all of this information from “outside” of it, without actually immersing himself in it, and that is why he was able to gather together so much bits of information. His memory of it is impressive, but it is superficial.

There are many people who have a good memory, but they have a slow thinking process. It is rare to find people of this type who have a clear, deep understanding of what they have learned.

That is why many people are capable of reviewing pages and pages of Gemara, 30 or 40 or 80 pages of Gemara or so, and to be tested on it, reviewing for only 2 hours before the test, and while they are able to quickly absorb all of the details they have learned, their understanding is superficial, because they have gotten their minds used to “quickly absorbing” information [which means that they have not actually exerted their minds in understanding what they are learning].

The Balance Between Quick Movement\Thinking and Slow Movement\Thinking

The truth is that to a certain extent, one must able to reach a point in which he can quickly absorb information. Life, on our inside, is really a quickly moving force, with light, loose movement (see Chapter 3).

A person needs a balance of both slow and quick movement in his life. On one hand, one must be able to move patiently and slowly. He needs to progress step after step, which is a methodical process and which takes time. But along with this, a person also needs to be able to move and think quickly, to be able to quickly absorb.

A person needs to the balance between these two extremes, and the balance will be different with each person, depending on his personal level. If a person stays too long on the extreme of heaviness of the soul – where he can only move and think very slowly – his inertia will dominate him and he will be asleep and lethargic inside himself [this kind of person has an avodah to learn how to move quickly and think quickly].

But if a person goes in the other extreme, and he can only move and think quickly – he will only be able to think in a superficial manner, and he never really uses his mind to think things through. Such people have the opposite avodah: they must learn how to think slowly and methodically, to talk slowly and calmly, and to perform slowly and with composure.

So one has to know himself well, of which the above categories he fits into, or else he will be trying to “improve” himself with any of the above methods of avodah when he will only be harming himself. As the Rambam says, a person must go in the opposite extreme of the behavior that he is trying to improve, until he reaches the “middle point” in between the two extremes.

In summary, there can be a problem of slowness in action, speech, and thought. One needs to be able to act slowly and calmly, yet he must also be able to act quickly at times. One needs to be able to speak slowly, and at other times, he must know how to speak quickly. One needs to be able to think slowly, and at other times, he must be able to think quickly.

Fixing Heavy\Slow Action - By Getting Used To Doing Things Quickly

Understandably, if a person is drawn towards slowness in his actions, speech, or thoughts, he needs to learn how to quicken the pace of his actions, speech, and thoughts. If he is a person who only performs quickly, speaks quickly, and thinks quickly, he must train himself to start doing things slowly, to speak slowly, and to think slowly. But, generally speaking, in the beginning stage of one’s improvement, a person needs to be able to do things quickly - even without yishuv hadaas (a settled, composed mind)!

I must emphasize that this is only true in the beginning stage of one’s self-improvement, and it is not meant to stay as a long-term practice.

Who Should Work On This Idea, and Who Shouldn’t

Why, indeed, should a person first learn how to do things quickly, without being composed? Won’t this make him frazzled? Isn’t this far from our purpose of self-perfection?

The answer to this is because at first, a person needs to get rid of the “heaviness” of the soul which causes him to move and think slowly. For this reason, he needs to come out of the “heaviness” of this inertia, by getting used to doing things quickly and thinking quickly. After that stage, a person can then work on the concept of yishuv hadaas (settled mind), where he does things slowly and calmly and where he thinks in a composed state of mind.

Any person who feels the soul’s “heaviness” in his movements needs to first get used to moving quickly. There are no exact rules of how much to do this and which areas one needs to practice it in; there are many areas in which one can try working on this, and examples can include walking fast, quickly moving the hands, etc. The point is to get used to performing quick movements.

Understandably, it is best to work on this idea when it comes to running to do a mitzvah, but this should also be done sensibly, and not impulsively. After one has learned how to do things quickly, he can then work on doing things slowly and calmly.

Again, we should emphasize that there are some people who should not work on this idea – those who are already used to doing things quickly. Such people need to go in the opposite direction and learn how to do things slowly. Here we are discussing the avodah for a person who is drawn towards heaviness of the soul, who tends to do things slowly. Such a person, whom we are discussing, has an avodah to learn how to do things quickly.

Therefore, the avodah being outlined here is not for every person to work on. It is only applicable to those who feel a “heaviness” in their souls which makes them have inertia and slow movement.

In Summary

Thus, in summary, the first stage in rectifying “heaviness” of the soul, which causes a person to always act slowly, is to get used to doing things quickly, without yishuv hadaas (composure). One should be sensible with this idea and not act dangerously.

After one works on that stage, one should advance to the next stage: to try to act quickly while being able to maintain yishuv hadaas. The goal is to reach this point, where one can act quickly without losing his yishuv hadaas.

Of course, sometimes a person will have no choice but to act slowly, and sometimes a person needs to act quickly. Not all times are the same. But as a general rule, the goal should be to be able to act quickly and with yishuv hadaas.

If one reaches that point, he is mastering a truthful way of living. Without reaching this point, if a person moves too slowly, he will be wasting away his time and life, and if a person moves too quickly, he will not be composed as he acts. Therefore, the correct balance in life is to make use of these two contradictory forces – to be able to act quickly, and to be able to maintain yishuv hadaas at the same time.

Certainly, this point cannot be reached in the same way be each person, because each person has a different nature. But the common denominator between all people is that they will all need to somewhat reach this balance, of being able to act quickly while staying composed at the same time.

The Problem of Slow Talking

Now we will discuss the problem of “slowness” in the realm of speech, and what a person should do about it.

It is clear that not everyone speaks in the same speed. Some people will keep repeating the same idea over and over again, with each word that they say. Surely this is the case when a person keeps repeating what he said several times in the conversation. This is also a form of “heaviness”, and it is manifesting in his speech.

(On a deeper level, the ability to repeat the same words over and over again is used in prayer, when a person attains a high level of d’veykus in Hashem, and he does not want to part from the words he is saying. This is a higher level of this power, and here we are speaking about the lower, impaired use of this power, in which a person has a problem of simply repeating the same words, again, and again.)

Sometimes the person will not repeat the same exact words he has just used, and instead he will repeat the idea of what he is saying, in many different angles. He will keep repeating the idea, describing it from all of the directions – from above, below, behind, in front, south, north, east and west. In certain instances, this is sometimes necessary, for example, if a person is trying to convey a very subtle point which needs to be explained from several angles. Here we are discussing the usual scenario, where repeatedly conveying the same words or point is unnecessary.

Fixing Heavy\Slow Talking – By Getting Used To Reciting Tehillim Quickly

Chazal taught, “One should teach his students in a brief [concise] manner”. Therefore, one should train himself to talk quickly, at times. For example, one can try reciting Tehillim very quickly.

This might seem like a superficial act of rattling off the words with no concentration, which seems pointless; there is certainly some argument to this, and there can be more opposition as well to this idea. In spite of those arguments, however, one still needs to know how to talk quickly at times.

Some people do not need to work on this idea at all, because they are anyways used to davening very quickly. But this kind of quick talking is done without any thought at all. What we want to acquire here, in contrast, is an ability to talk quickly while being able to maintain awareness in our thoughts of what we are saying.

Quickly Reciting Shemoneh Esrei Vs. Quickly Reciting Tehillim

There are people who daven slowly even though they are not concentrating on the words, and this clearly shows us that davening slowly is not necessarily concentration. This is the problem of “heaviness” we are describing. They move slowly and they talk slowly anyhow, so when they are davening Shemoneh Esrei, they are also saying the words slowly – but not because they are greatly concentrating on the words.

The idea we want to convey here is that at certain times, a person needs to be able to talk quickly. Let’s clarify what is meant by this, though.

To talk quickly, with no self-awareness at all, is an easy feat to do. It is very easy for a person to quickly rattle off the words of Shemoneh Esrei from beginning until end when he isn’t aware at all that he is saying anything.

In the case of saying Tehillim quickly, however, a person does have some awareness of the words he is saying. He may not be familiar with the words he is saying and therefore it is hard for him to say these words quickly. For this reason, he does have some awareness when he says the words quickly. Even if he doesn’t understand every word he is saying, and he doesn’t have enough time to concentrate on everything he is saying, he still has some level of awareness to his act, as he recites the words.

Most people find davening Shemoneh Esrei quickly to be easier then reciting Tehillim quickly – first of all, because they are more familiar with the words of Shemoneh Esrei than Tehillim, so they are used to these words; and also, because they do not focus their minds much on the words of Shemoneh Esrei, and therefore they find it easier to quickly recite it.

Therefore, if one has a problem of talking too slowly, davening Shemoneh Esrei quickly won’t be enough to improve this, because it will not help him increase awareness in his speech. If a person is davening too slowly, he should try davening more enthusiastically, and if he is davening too quickly, he should try davening slowly and with concentration, and mainly with awareness, of what he is saying.

It is not that important to acquire an ability of quick talking. Unlike the realm of action, which is detrimental when a person cannot perform quickly, the realm of speech doesn’t require fast-paced movement. The only problem is if a person is talking too slowly, and we explained that a person should fix this by learning how to recite Tehillim quickly, which will give him an idea of talking quickly when he has to. But there is not that much of a need to develop an ability to talk quickly. There is certainly a place for it, but it is not that relevant, so it is not an area that is in that much need of fixing.

Fixing Heavy\Slow Thinking

The problem of slow thinking requires much effort to fix.

We should know that most people are able to think much quicker than the current pace they are at. There are two factors here to consider: first of all, there is the amount of thoughts that pass through one’s mind. When one has too many thoughts in his brain at once, this is a problem, but we are not dealing with this here. Here we are speaking about a different problem: the speed of the thoughts passing through the brain.

Most people are not thinking as quickly as they really can. Here is an example. There is a brother and sister who grew up in the same home, both receiving a solid Torah education. The boy learned in cheder, and the girl learned in a Beis Yaakov. The boy is now in seventh grade, and his sister is in sixth grade. But for some reason, the boy can think much faster than his sister can, even though they are around the same age (although each child is different, let’s consider that they are both capable of the same mental capacity). What is the reason for this?

The boy has been taught to recite tons of Mishnayos by heart, so his mind has been trained to think much quicker than his sister can. His younger sister, though, was taught to say each word slowly, with concentration, then to review it many times; pictures are drawn for her to help her understand, and it is explained to her, or it is written to her, etc. Her mind has been trained to think only very, very slowly.

At the age they are both at, their mental pace should be at about the same level, but the sister can’t think nearly as fast as her brother can, because she has been taught in a way that slows down her thinking process.

Let’s understand that a person has the free will to choose to think at a quick pace - much quicker than the pace he is at right now.

This is a subtle point to understand, because if a person can only think quickly and never slowly, he will never develop a complete understanding of whatever he is thinking about; he will overlook details, and his mind has been trained to think only superficially.

Steps 1-2: First Think Slowly, Then Quickly Think About It

Therefore, practically speaking, it is recommended that a person should first think about something well, and after he has taken apart the matter with his thoughts, he should then quickly review what he has just thought about, in order to acquire this power of quick thought.

I will emphasize that if a person switches the order - if he begins with quick thinking and then tries to think slowly about what he has just thought about - he will train his mind to think only superficially. His understanding of a matter will lack orderly thought, it will be off-mark, and it will be incomplete. Even worse, he might even skip details. As an example, there are people who will say four words and then they skip the word that should have followed.

(On a deeper level, there is an inner power in the soul of “skipping”, where a person is able to skip words, in order to use lesser words to convey what he is saying; the gain of this is that the person doesn’t have to talk as much in order to relay what he is saying. However, it is insensible to try to access this level, because often skipping words in a sentence will make the sentence sound completely different from what the person is trying to say, and it won’t be understandable to the person hearing it. For example, there are some sefarim which write brief rulings, and each of these rulings can be explained in four different ways by those who study it. When a person gets used to reading line after line, word after word, he might get into the habit of skipping words, and he will not have a complete understanding of the matter.)

In any case, a person needs to reach the point in which he can think quickly. First a person should think carefully and slowly about something, making sure he understands it, and only after that should he make a quick mental review in his thoughts of what he has just learned.

Quick Review Vs. Quick Understanding

Quick review is not as detrimental to the mind, in comparison to “quick understanding” of a matter, which causes the thinking process to become superficial. This is because a person has already learned and thought well about the matter, by the time he is quickly reviewing it. The only thinking he has left to do now is to review the matter, and although reviewing will usually not be an in-depth understanding of the matter, he has still used his mind and thought well about the matter by now. Therefore, quickly reviewing it will not be that detrimental to his mind, even though he is not trying to understand it further right now.

For example, a person can learn a sugya of Gemara in-depth, and then he organizes all its details in his mind (and perhaps he write it also), and then he reviews it quickly. Or, a person can review the discussion of the Gemara quickly, after he has learned it and thought about it. This helps a person develop the ability of quick thinking.

Step 3: Quick Understanding

After a person has mastered this ability (we stress “after”, and not “before”), the next step for him is, at times, he should try to understand a matter quickly.

This is a very subtle point, because if this is not done correctly, a person will fall into the mistake of superficial thinking which we discussed above.

Step 4: Go Back To Understanding It Slowly

After a person has worked on the stage of trying to quickly understand, and he is aware of what he has just quickly understood, the next step is to review what he has just thought about it and to slowly try to understand it.

After getting used to this, he will slowly realize what he hasn’t understood yet and which details he hasn’t yet paid attention to.

The Goal – Seeing What You Didn’t Understand & Realizing The Detriment of Quick Thinking

This is a very inner kind of self-work, when you learn about which details your mind has overlooked, and it shows you what you haven’t yet paid attention to as a result of quick thinking. You begin to see how detrimental quick thinking is.

Some people, after getting used to this, will discover that they overlooked certain words in front of them, and others will discover that although they were aware of the words written in front of them, they didn’t think it through enough. Others will have thought it through, but they will discover that they don’t understand the matter yet, at all. Whatever the outcome, the point is that every person needs to see for himself what he loses as a result of quick thinking.

The common denominator between all people (understandably, not everyone will be interested in working on this anyhow) is that all people need to discover how quick their minds think, and that it is way more than the speed that it should be at. This is true at whatever level a person is at, even though every person has a different speed of thinking. In most people, the speed of the thinking is way faster than the pace it should really be at.

But, as we said, this is a point which not all people will be interested in working on. (We have a Kolel here in which a large part of the style of learning is specifically built on this argument [the need to undo this habit of quick superficial thinking, and to instead learn how to quicken the pace of the mind in order to arrive at quicker understanding]. However, although it is an argument, the majority of the world will not relate to the point we are raising here.)

In any case, the point is for a person to arrive at a point in which he can quickly think of a matter [as well as quickly understand it; based on the outline of the steps above - first think into something well, then quickly review what you have concluded, and then you should try at times to quickly understand what you learn].

The Final Stage: Quick Will\Motivation For Holiness

When a person gets used to the ideas of quick action, quick speech, and quick thinking – as elaborated upon here – he will become a “lighter” kind of person, leaving “heaviness” behind.

Even more so, he will then be able to reach a level in which he is always awakening his will (ratzon), for the word “ratzon” is from the word “ratz”, to “run”.

When a person is “running” too quickly (either in his actions, words, or thoughts), he will skip and overlook important details, and the results will be detrimental. (It can be compared to a miscarriage.) But if a person correctly awakens his ratzon (will), he awakens the soul’s element of wind, the root of ratzon; then the “movement” of his soul will greatly accelerate.

When the level of the ratzon is strong, it influences the thoughts, speech and actions of a person, resulting in quick thinking, quicker words, and quickly acting. A person will then be able to fulfill the words of the Mishnah, “Be light like an eagle, and swift like a deer - to do the will of your Father in Heaven.”

How indeed can a person reach the point where his swift to do the will of Hashem? The Mishnah elsewhere says, “Nullify your will before His will”, and then it will be revealed to you that “Our will is to do Your will”. A person can reach this level of nullifying his will for Hashem’s will even without removing himself from the evil inclination and the subservience of the nations, which prevent us from doing Hashem’s will.

A person can reach the point where he is quickly moving because he has revealed his power of ratzon. There are some people who are in any case very inspired, and their will is very active, but they have an imbalance in their actions, and they will want to quickly do something without first seeing if it is proper to do according to halachah or not; if it is proper behavior or not; if it might cause damage to others or not, and etc. They just throw themselves into their inspiration and quickly act, before asking anyone else if what they are doing is proper or not. This is being impulsive and it is an improper use of the power of ratzon\will.

But if a person follows the order of steps laid out here, first beginning with quickening the pace of his actions, words, and thoughts – the ratzon\will can be then be awakened properly after all this, and its quick pace will properly motivate the rest of the forces in the soul. A person will then be able to move quickly and properly to do the will of Hashem, because he has a strong will that can quickly motivate him, for holy purposes.

This is the final and complete level, and we have taken a look at this final step so that we can know the eventual goal which we should strive for as an ideal.

Rectifying “Heaviness” of the Soul – Becoming A “Light” Person

When one lives the kind of life outlined here in this chapter, he greatly lessens detrimental kind of “heaviness” in his soul that is rooted in [impaired] earth-of-wind-of-fire, for he will become a person who can act lightly and quickly [which is the antithesis to being slowed down by all of the inertia that is created by the inner “heaviness” in the soul].

In Summary

The words here are about a broad topic, and we have tried to briefly explain it and cover it on a general level, of how it applies to all the major areas of life [will, thought, speech, and action].

In summary, all people need to work on this point of trying to act at a little bit of a faster pace than the pace they are at now. It has been explained here how to slowly reach this point, in steps, but the goal is to reach an ability of being able to act quickly – but to able to maintain one’s yishuv hadaas (composure) as well, to hold onto an inner connection to himself, while acting.

The goal here is not so that we should be to do many things quickly (which clearly has detrimental results). The goal of acting quickly, speaking quickly, thinking quickly, and being quickly motivated is to be able to maintain composure even while acting quickly.

In Conclusion

As mentioned earlier, our avodah contains contradictory aspects [quickness and deliberateness\composure] which we need to balance. On one hand, a person needs to able to maintain his inner connection to himself as he acts (yishuv hadaas\settled mind\composure), but at the same time, one also needs to develop a strong will that can quickly motivate him, and to be able to think quickly, speak quickly, and act quickly.

And as we explained, there are times when one needs to act and think quickly, and there are times when we will should act and think slowly, depending on what the situation requires of you at the moment - so that one can direct all of his movements according to Hashem’s will at the particular moment.