Tefillah - 115 True Spiritual Growth

“Truly” Having Bitachon

In the blessing of על הצדיקים we ask Hashem to give reward to those who “truly” trust in Hashem’s Name – הבוטחים בשמך באמת.

“Sfas emes” (“Lips of truth”) – the mouth can speak truth. The heart can also speak truth - “Dover emes b’levovo”, “He who speaks truth in his heart”. A third instance of truth is when a person truly serves Hashem – “And purify our hearts to serve you in truth.” When our heart becomes purified, we are able to seek truth.

Through this we are able to “truly” have bitachon in Hashem – הבוטחים בשמך באמת.

Inward Into Our Psyche

Whenever we perform an action, our middos (character traits) are behind them. When we don’t work on ourselves, our bad middos take control of us.

In our bad middos, there are two layers, as we will explain. [1. Evil motivations, which result in selfish and hurtful behavior to others; 2. And the ego itself, which results in self-absorption].

1) Selfish Motives. When a person acts cruel, or when someone learns Torah in order to fight with others, etc. he is acting out of some evil motivation. The evil emotion has overtaken him.[1]

2) Ego. Another aspect in the bad middos is the ego behind all of them – the fact that a person is self-absorbed. Examples of this include running after honor or desires. Here, the person is not using the bad middah because he enjoys it, and he is rather having a bad middah because he is simply self-absorbed and he wants to serve his interests.

There are also additional factors in our middos:

3) Habit. There is also a more inner aspect behind our actions: because we are used to them – hergel. When we become used to acting a certain way, this forms negative behavior patterns and activates our bad middos.

4) ‘Derech Eretz’\ Basic Decency\ Animal Soul. If we analyze yet deeper, there are good middos that are behind our actions; these are referring to derech eretz (good manners) which comes from our nefesh habehaimis (animal soul),and they do not come from the holier good middos that we can develop. These are good middos that Chazal say we could have learned from animals. They are the middos of our nefesh habehaimis.

For example, there are basic kinds of modesty, enthusiasm, or consideration for others, which all people can have, even non-Jews – basic derech eretz. These are not the truly good middos of a Jew’s soul.[2]

5) Spiritual Self-Improvement. Finally, the more inner reason behind our acts we can reveal is the yearning for elevation. This is when a person seeks to grow in his life – he seeks to become more spiritual and to improve his spiritual situation: his ‘ruchniyus’.

Seeking Spirituality Vs. Seeking Truth

[Seeking ruchniyus\spiritual growth is not the same thing as seeking emes\truth].

It can happen that a person might seek spirituality, but he hasn’t yet developed even a basic kind of derech eretz that even non-Jews have. He seeks to grow higher in his ruchniyus, but he hasn’t even yet worked to reveal even the basic good middos that come from our nefesh hebahaimis.

What will happen? People will disdain him and say, “Woe is to the person who learns Torah.”[3]

Even more so, when a person yearns for spiritual growth – Torah, tefillah, purity, and all other spiritual areas – he must have a yearning for emes, truth. If not, then he is missing a motivation for truth, and all his Torah, mitzvos, and spiritual attainments will be lacking emes. He will never get to emes.

There are some people who are born with some natural good middos, and we can call this a degree of emes, because such people are considerate to other people. This is a small revelation of emes, but it stems from the nefesh hebahaimis; this kind of person is born with an inner sense of recognizing that it is rude to be dishonest or hurt people.

This is only emes that can be found on this physical world we live on – for even people that are very connected to this world can have this basic kind of derech eretz for people; therefore, it’s not total emes. Even non-Jews can possess it. It is a degree of emes, but is not yet total emes, so it’s not enough for us.

When a person seeks ruchniyus (spiritual growth), he still might not even have the little emes that we can see even non-Jews have. He can still be missing the elementary level of emes, of simple good middos that come from our nefesh habehaimis – because he has never even worked on these basic areas of refinement. Such a person, even when he seeks ruchniyus and tries to grow, will never get to the truth of spirituality. He will never get to Hashem’s “seal of truth”.

Some people are born with an inner sense of searching for truth, and some are not. But all people need it eventually. If not, entering spiritual improvement will be shaky and a person will not grow, even though he seeks spirituality.

Anyone with eyes can see that many people begin to seek ruchniyus not because they want emes, but because they simply want ruchniyus.

We will explain. There are people who want to seek truth, therefore, they seek ruchniyus. But there are people who seek ruchniyus simply because they want “ruchniyus” – it’s not always coming from a search for truth! (Even worse are those who seek ruchniyus solely for reward, or to gain honor from it, and for no other reason).

One of the Sages said, “I have seen those who ascend but they are few.” Many people who enter spiritual work are not searching for truth.

Some people seek truth because they despise the nonsense of this world; that is one reason why they seek spirituality. Others seek spirituality because they seek truth, because they see how false this world is; these are two root reasons of why a person seeks truth.

Spirituality and Truth Together

However, if someone just wants truth and he doesn’t seek spiritual growth, he might still be very attached to this world, because he remains complacent with himself as long as he knows that he is living his life truthfully, and he doesn’t seek to grow beyond that.

Thus, seeking emes isn’t everything; there must be a yearning to grow as well in our ruchniyus and to always grow higher. If someone seeks spirituality, he might become spiritual, but he is not truthful.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are many people who try to improve in their ruchniyus, but they end up becoming broken and depressed, and they don’t see results. If they analyze themselves deeply, they will discover that it was because their whole root was mistaken: they never entered ruchniyus in order to search for truth. They wanted to be uplifted - but they didn’t seek truth. So we must seek ruchniyus, but at the same time we need to seek emes.

And the converse is also true: just having emes alone isn’t enough, because then a person won’t want to improve ruchniyus. He’ll “do what he has to do” and remain complacent as long as he acts decent and keeps all of Halacha, but he’ll never seek growth beyond that.

So to seek ruchniyus alone lacks emes, but that doesn’t mean one should only seek emes and not try to grow more in his ruchniyus. We need both – we need to seek spiritual growth and we also need to seek emes and build ourselves truthfully.

Refining The Truth

Even more so, we must understand that there are levels to truth: there is emes (basic truth)and there is emes l’amitah (complete truth). A dayan (judge) needs to have ‘emes l’amitah’ in order to judge.

A person without seeking emes will not get to the goal of life, even if other people view him as someone who knows a lot of Torah and does a lot of chessed, and even if it appears that he reached high levels; he might be one of those who are apt to fall from their entire level in one moment, those who become disloyal to Hashem and go off the derech at the end of their life.

So we can’t just remain with just emes, because then we will never grow. These are people who are too confident in themselves and are set in their ways – they have the mentality that as long as they have a way of Avodas Hashem in life which they were brought up that was truthful, they need not do more than this. Although they have emes in their life - because they always make sure to do the right thing - a person who remains with this perspective will never seek to grow beyond the bare minimum of Halacha and basic decency. There is a lot more room to grow.

The real search for emes is to combine both our search for emes as well as a desire to grow more and more in ruchniyus. On one hand, we must be happy with the emes we have reached, but at the same time we must demand more emes from ourselves, and this is the depth of the concept that “Torah scholars who have no menuchah (serenity)”. There are always more levels to emes. When you reach a higher level of emes, the previous level becomes sheker (falsity).

So we must seek ruchniyus and to build ourselves properly, but we must also seek emes as we are involved with growing in ruchniyus.

For example, when you learn a sugya of Gemara and you analyze the words of the Rishonim, and you feel like you understand the words, you can be happy that you understand it, but at the same time you must seek a more truthful understanding of the words. If you keep doing this, you will keep refining the truth.

This is the depth of the trait of humility, the trait which Moshe perfected, and that was why Torah is called Toras Emes, and it is also called Toras Moshe.

So one’s will for constant growth must not come from just seeking more ruchniyus, nor should it be from just seeking emes; it must come from a combination of both of these factors. Ruchniyus alone without emes means that a person is far from the goal of life, and emes without ruchniyus means a person will never grow higher beyond the basics. We must want to enter more and more truth. The more truth we get to, the more truthful our bond with Hashem will be.

These words are mainly geared toward those who seek ruchniyus but they find that they are not really seeing changes. It is because they aren’t trying to seek emes, and they surely don’t arrive at emes l’amitah. It is wonderful to amass knowledge about ruchniyus, but, emes must be the basis.

This is not another detail in our avodah – it is the basis of all our avodah.

Emes and Lishmah

An even more subtle point is as follows.

A Torah scholar needs to pray that he merit the level of lishmah and that his words of Torah should be emes.[4] When a person does mitzvos solely because he wants reward, not only is he missing lishmah – he is missing emes.

Emes means that all you want is the emes, and nothing else. Shelo lishmah is to “use” Torah or anything spiritual in order to achieve a greater means.  Lishmah means emes – Torah for the sake of Torah, to reveal Hashem through it, which is no personal reason of my own. It is to want the Torah itself.

If someone has purified his point of emes and wants to really know what it is, besides for avoiding sheker, we need to realize, that emes is about one thing alone and nothing else. No agendas. For example, giving tzedakah. Just give it and don’t expect reward.

It’s a very subtle point in our soul.

Emes, is when a person only seeks one thing and nothing else. Otherwise, a person is living through the prism of medameh – an imagined reality.

The Vilna Gaon said that when you learn don’t think about anything else other than the page in front of you. The depth of this is because that defines emes. The more a person connects to emes, the more he connects to the present moment of the here and now.

It sounds like emes and lishmah are two separate matters. But lishmah is really the power of emes, to be connected to the present and for no other motive.

Giving tzedakah with emes is to give to the collector simply that he should have, and not because of anything in return. It is to learn Torah for the sake of Torah, no other motive.

Of course, there is always some element of shelo lishmah, because every act we do is a mixture of lishmah and shelo lishmah. But if shelo lishmah is the entire motive in how we act, there is no emes at all in such an act.

In Conclusion

With regards to our current discussion – to truly have Bitachon - it is to have bitachon for the sake of bitachon, and not to use bitachon in order to get something from Hashem through it. It is to come to the recognition that even if you won’t get anything from Hashem, you should still have bitachon.

We are saying this with regards to bitachon, but it really applies to all areas: that we always need to seek emes, in whatever it is. Then we can connect to Hashem, Who has the seal of truth.