Duties of the Heart - 0001 Intro

The Introductory Point You Should Know Before Learning Chovos HaLevovos

It is said in the name of the Alter of Kelm that he said, “My Gan Eden is that I will sit on a chair and shtender with a sefer Chovos HaLevovos.”

If someone does not understanding the meaning of his statement, he will probably be thinking, “He probably didn’t know how to learn Gemara that well, so he preferred to learn mussar.” How many times can a person learn Chovos HaLevovos already?! 101 times? And then what…?

The truth is: if a person doesn’t know about internal matters, he has no idea what is contained in sefer Chovos HaLevovos. He views it as a “mussar sefer”, or “inspiration”, or “a sefer that can help you work a little on your middos” or “work a little on your emunah”.

But if someone’s eyes and heart are opened a little to spirituality, he will be able to understand that the matters contained in sefer Chovos HaLevovos can totally transform his reality in life. When a person’s view on reality is transformed, he looks at Torah in a whole different way; his chessed will be a whole different kind of chessed, his davening will be a whole different kind of davening, his whole life will look totally different! Someone who truly discovers the light of emunah is a whole different person. This is not about having more intellectual knowledge, nor is about working to fix a certain character trait. It is not about feeling more fulfilled in life. It is about revealing the reality of which we were all created for – to recognize the One who created this world.

As long as a person remains unaware of this, he can be very far from the truth about life, and he thinks that he is living a true kind of life, but he is really disconnected from the true reality. Baruch Hashem a person learns Torah and does mitzvos, and perhaps he even writes sefarim; he does chessed, and he’s confident that he will go to Gan Eden one day and that he’ll probably end up sitting in the front row with the Avos.

We must know what life really is. The true meaning of life can be very hidden even from a person who learns Torah and does all the mitzvos – a person might be totally unaware that he has never even begun to touch upon the true depth of Yiddishkeit (religious Judaism)! It’s terrifying if you think about it.

This is not inspiration. When people seek inspiration, they seek to improve Shemiras HaLashon and they increase their Chessed, and all this is wonderful, but we must know that there is a root behind all of this. The root is – to recognize Hashem, the One who created this world! To recognize and be aware of Hashem is something is that is usually very, very hidden from us. When Moshiach comes, he will reveal it fully to the world, but it will only be revealed to those who exerted themselves in this.

These words need a lot of reflection and effort to understand. We must realize the concept we are describing here – we must really understand it. If someone doesn’t understand the words of the Chovos HaLevovos, he is not just missing knowledge; he is not just missing the knowledge about a certain piece of the Rashba (although it is definitely true that understanding each word of the Rashba can also bring a person to Olam HaBa); he is missing his entire reality. We must exert ourselves to understand the words of sefer Chovos HaLevovos, we are not in touch with the true reality. Even if a person learns Torah and does all the mitzvos and does a lot of chessed, he is still disconnected from reality, if he does not try to understand the words of sefer Chovos HaLevovos.

We can go on and on about this point. We need siyata d’shamaya (Heavenly assistance) to be able to understand the main point of what our life is about [recognition of Hashem].