Fixing Your Middos - 001 Fundamentals of Middos Improvement | Part 1

דע את מידותיך הדרכה מעשית – הקדמה 01 – יסוד הדברים 1

1) Learning How To Think When It Comes To Matters of “Avodah”

The first point we need to know [before we embark on this series of improving our middos] is to realize the fundamental way of thinking that is behind all of these methods we are presenting here.

When we learn Gemara, we are usually used to the way we were learning when we were younger. This is called our “girsa d’yankusa” ­– the way we learned as children.Those who have been learning Gemara since their youth have slowly learned more and more over the years, until they have arrived at a certain way of thinking. Comprehension in our Torah learning comes to you only after many years of learning. It happens slowly and in steps. This is how anyone grows in Torah learning.

When we learn sugyos of Gemara, when we learn the words of Abaye and Rava, it’s straightforward; the words are built upon one another. But when it comes to learning about matters of “avodah” (“serving G-d”, via spiritual self-improvement) all we know about it is certain general terms (‘kelalim’). This is our “girsa d’yankusa” when it comes to avodah.

Compare this to a person who’s not immersed in Torah, who can certainly know a little Torah, but his knowledge of Torah is very general - because he’s not ‘there’ [he’s not “into it”].

When it comes to avodah, people usually know only the kelalim, the general terms of avodah. This doesn’t mean that those kelalim\general terms are not true, but they are not more than a general understanding of the concepts.

In order to absorb anything when it comes to matters of avodah, one has to acquire a way to think. It takes a lot of time to acquire a way of thinking, just as we know from learning Gemara. It takes time to become aware of the sugya and its details. So too, when it comes to matters of avodah, it takes a long time to acquire the way to think about these matters.

Just as we learned Gemara in 5^th grade, and then in 6^th and 7^th grade – and each grade was another step in the process – so, too, when it comes to learning about our avodah, it takes time to learn how to think of these matters. Even if a person didn’t remember the Gemara he learned in 5^th grade, he retains the way to think and is still in touch with it. When it comes to avodah, we need to train our souls to acquire a certain way of thinking about these matters. It is slowly acquired.

1a) Focus On Thinking About These Things, Not On “Doing” These Things.

Therefore, the purpose of these shiurim is not so that you will attempt to “work” on all of these matters and try to carry them out practically as soon as you hear about them.

1b) Get Used To Listening To Hundreds of These Shiurim.

In addition, even the parts you don’t understand or the parts that are not of interest to you, are still necessary for you to hear about, because as we said, the point is not for you to try to first practice them; the point of all these shiurim is so that you will learn how to think. In hearing these shiurim, you are slowly hearing about a way to think, when it comes to concepts of inner avodah.

After you start learning how to think from these shiurim, you will need to get used to listening to several hundreds of shiurim, just so that you can get used to learning how to think when it comes to these subjects. We all know that in order to understand Gemara, it takes hundreds of shiurim of listening to get you used to learning how to think. When you get used to hearing hundreds of shiurim, you slowly acquire the ability of how to think when you learn Gemara.

This is the first step you need, and it is a purpose unto itself.

After a person feels that the ability to think has become opened in himself, he can then proceed to the next stages we will describe. But when you are first hearing these shiurim – whether it is about the middah of sadness, laziness, desires, or idle speech – it doesn’t matter which topic it is – the initial reaction will be about “what to do”, but this is not the goal in the beginning stage. This is because you don’t relate to it if you aren’t ‘there’. The beginning stage is to learn how to think about these matters.

1c) It Takes Time.

It takes a lot of time in order to develop the power to think in an inner way.  How much time it takes depends on each personal soul; each person has a different situation. But the point is to get used to listening so that you can slowly acquire the ability to think about sugyos of avodah.

After listening to about 20 shiurim or so, you can ask yourself if you’re beginning to feel a change in how you think. This is not about memorizing the details of these shiurim; it is about the ability to open your mind.

Why We Must Learn ‘How To Think’

To illustrate, let’s say a child hears a sevara (logic) of lomdus (abstract thought about the Gemara, which requires in-depth analysis), in which two possible options of thinking are presented. He asks, “What is the difference between the two options?!” When he gets older he begins to see, that there is a difference.

Thus, in the beginning stage, as we are getting used to listening to these shiurim, and we are acquiring the way to think about these matters, the point is not to fully understand. The point is to get used to learning how to think, which, in turn, will refine your understanding along the way.

There are very subtle points presented in these shiurim, which will seem at first to be of no practical relevance to you when you hear them. But the point is not to see how it is of practical relevance right now in your life, because as we said, the very first point of listening to these shiurim is to learn how to think when it comes to these topics.

At a later point, you will be able to understand how everything said here is of relevance. You will have acquired a way to think by then, which will enable you to become interested and to explore all of the matters in-depth, and then you will be able to feel the matters in your soul.

So the first step here is to acquire the way to think. Just as “lomdus”[2] in Gemara is acquired through learning the sefarim of Reb Shimon Shkop and Reb Chaim Brisker, so does learning about avodah require a person to develop a way of thinking.

In these shiurim, we are not implying that this is the only way of thinking when it comes to avodah. There are many methods in avodah, as is the way of Torah, which are all true. There are many true ways, and each person needs to choose the way that is for him, with Hashem’s help.

In Summary

So the first step is to get used to hearing these matters, in order to learn how to think. This helps you absorb the general method of avodah here. Even if you work to implement these shiurim week by week and there is no planned seder to your avodah, it is still of gain to you, and certainly if you give seder to these matters.

2) Training Ourselves To Become Clear.

The second point we need to understand about these shiurim is that at first, the things we hear about in these shiurim will not be perfectly understandable and clear to us.

When we learn a sugya of Gemara, we don’t know about it, and we need to know what we are clear in and what we aren’t clear in. When it comes to discussing avodah, these matters are not clear to us, because we are only aware of general terms that we have heard about; that is the first problem – girsa d’yankusa. But we have another disadvantage: we are missing familiarity of what it means to live in a “clear world.”

This stems from the fact that because we are used to general terms of avodah, we think we know these matters. We think we know what chessed is, what zerizus (zeal) is, etc. A child says that zerizus is to do things quickly, and an adult often has the same understanding as the child. The knowledge of it is in very ‘general’ terms. We open a Mesillas Yesharim and we learn about zerizus, and it seems that we know what it is, and that we are just not acting enough upon that knowledge.

But the truth is that we don’t even know what it is unless we have learned about it in-depth. We are not clear about it. It seems to us that we are clear about it, but we are not.

Sometimes we see a noted speaker who comes to deliver a shiur. If he is giving a shiur on the Gemara, only adults can understand, not children. But when a speaker comes to give a shiur to children and he talks about self-improvement and middos, we can see adults listening in too - and their understanding of the shiur is often on the same level of understanding as the children. This is because when it comes to matters of avodah, an adult’s understanding is often not that different than a child’s understanding. This all results from not living in a “clear world.”[3]

Therefore, the second purpose of listening to these shiurim is to get used to living in a “clear world”. When you learn Gemara, you need to give seder(order) and birur (clarity) to the many shitos (opinions\views) of what you are learning about; in cheshbon (review of the body of the material) and in sevara (logic). So too, in learning about avodah, you need to get used to giving seder and birur to these matters, and that is how you learn these matters in-depth. (You need to give seder just through your using your seichel (intellect) alone,at first.)

Summary of the First Two Steps.

So the first part of this is to acquire a way to think, and the second part of this is to give seder (orderliness) and behirus (clarity) to these matters. The first part is to hear more and more shiurim, so that you can simply absorb. The second part is more difficult: it takes real learning.

The first part slowly develops your mind, with the more you hear and absorb. But the second part requires you to actually learn about these matters. It is much deeper than the first part. We need both of these steps together when we begin these shiurim.

Of course, you won’t be able to understand everything, just as you can’t understand an entire sugya in all its details. But you need to get to the roots of these matters as much as you can.

We need both of these steps together, when we begin these shiurim. Every person therefore will need to see which step he is personally holding by: “Am I at the first step, or at the second?”

At the first step, one is listening to these shiurim so that he can absorb, and the intention is not to try to understand these matters fully; and he surely can’t attempt at trying to work on these matters. It can happen that a person gets confused as he is in the first step. One who passes the first stage, though, and feels that he has acquired a way to think, can now proceed to learn about these matters in-depth, in all the details, sugya after sugya, with clarity.

In the second step, one still cannot arrive at the practical conclusions yet on how he should act. It is simply unrealistic to try to work on all of these matters at once, even if you were to understand all of them in all their details.

3. Understanding Matters of “Avodah” Requires A Fusion of “Intellect” and “Heart”.

The third part we will need is deeper. There is a big difference between learning Gemara and learning about avodah. The two steps we mentioned thus far are similar both when it comes to learning Gemara as well as when it comes to learning about avodah. But the third part which we will need is unique to avodah. 

When learning Gemara, your understanding is based on seichel (intellect). It can be either human logic, or it can be the higher logic that comes from the neshamah for those who merit it[4], but either way, it is the mode of the seichel\intellect. But learning about avodah requires a fusion [of both “intellect” and “heart”].

If someone just learns the kelalim (general rules) of avodah and he does not learn its peratim (details), he might be able to understand them in his heart as well as in his intellect, but he will only know the kelalim. But the inner kind of avodah is for one to know the kelalim and peratim of avodah, and it combines intellect with heart. It is not intellect alone, and it not emotions alone. It is a fusion of intellect and heart.

Most people do not know what this is. People usually think that being ‘strong in intellect’ means to be strong in learning Gemara, and that being ‘strong in heart’ means to be strong about davening…

I won’t get into whether this mentality is correct or not, but it is true that there are people who only excel at learning and not with davening, and vice versa. Most people identify learning and prayer as being two different times – “the time for Torah is one thing, and the time to pray is another thing”; the time to pray is usually seen as the time of the day in which pours out his heart’s emotions to Hashem). So the intellect and the feelings in the heart are usually seen by a person as separate functions of the psyche, and as a result of thinking this way, a person does not know how to fuse intellect and feeling together.

Inner avodah, though,requires one to fuse the modes of intellect and heart together. It is to understand things with a palpable awareness. This is a deep concept: it is to have awareness towards a concept, which can be palpably felt.

Herein lays the reason why it is difficult for one to enter the depth of avodah. Most people recognize a concept either on an intellectual level or on an emotional level, whereas palpable awareness to a concept is rare.

The concepts we are discussing here are subtle. If someone has an intellect capable of plumbing to the deepest subtleties, he can keep listening to one subtle point after another. But intellectual comprehension alone doesn’t mean that a person is experiencing what he knows. When one makes sure to approach avodah with a feeling of awareness towards what he is learning, the person can feel the subtleties, the intellect sharpens the feelings, the feelings in turn sharpen the intellect, and the cycle repeats. This is the kind of ability we need in order to learn about improving in avodah.

When it comes to learning a sugya of Gemara, all we need is intellect to refine our subtle understandings we come across. But when it comes to sugyos of avodah, we need a fusion of intellectual sharpness as well emotional sharpness, which feed on each other.

3a) ‘Avodah’ Requires ‘Adinus’ (Refining Our Understanding) and ‘Dakus’ (Noticing Subtlety)

In Gemara, one has to work on comprehending it according to his level of intellect. In avodah, one needs “adinus” (refinement of understanding) in order to comprehend the ‘dakus’ (subtleties) of these matters.[5]

The baalei avodah (those Gedolim who taught about avodah) essentially used these abilities of ‘adinus’ and ‘dakus’ in order to approach matters of avodah. There is adinus within adinus (refinement within refinement) and dakus within dakus (subtlety within subtlety).

It’s possible that a person reading the words of the baalei avodah doesn’t see the adinus and dakus in their words, but that’s only a superficial understanding. So we need to approach these matters with thought, but a more subtle kind of thought than how we learn Gemara: being aware of a concept intellectually, as well as being able to feel the concept. This ability will show you the dakus of every sugya in avodah.

Thus, it is difficult the first time we learn sugyos of avodah. Most people remain with the first step, learning how think of these matters; the second step, thinking into the details of each of these sugyos, is far from most people. And surely most people don’t reach the third step, of being aware to these concepts with both intellect and feeling and developing the ability of adinus.

Therefore, it is very far from we are actually holding. However, just as we learn Gemara as much as we can try to understand, so too when it comes to avodah, we must try as hard as we can. Obviously, if a person never decides to enter it, it never starts, because he remains where he is.

But if he enters it and progresses stage after stage, he begins to learn about these matters and think about them although he’s not ‘there’ yet; ‘sof maaseh b’machshavah techilah’, as we explained.

This approach helps a person penetrate into avodah and experience the “clear world”. He becomes clear in a way of thinking, in the rules and details of each sugya of avodah, and he becomes consciously aware of the ideas he is learning about. To a certain extent, this clarity will become sharpened more and more.

Therefore, one must be aware of the following facts throughout this series. There are two parts when it comes to learning about matters of avodah: the knowledge about the rules (kelalim) and the knowledge about the details (peratim).

If one is only interested in knowing the general rules of avodah, then obviously, he doesn’t get to the details. The inner perspective is to understand is that all of the details of avodah are contained within the rules of avodah. Therefore, one has to amass knowledge of the rules and details, all of them. The secret of inner avodah is to arrive at more and more ‘adinus’.

3b) Finding Your Weakest Trait.

Even more so, each of our souls contains the four elements (earth, water, wind and fire), and each of us has a particular middah (trait) that dominates, which is causing all the problems. First one has to learn about the elements, and then identify which middos come from which elements.

We all have four elements, for good and bad. We have all good and bad middos in ourselves. Reb Yeruchem said that we are all like a full zoo, full of many wild animals. But we each have one particular bad middah\element which is the main source of the problems.

If one doesn’t work on getting to the dakus of these matters, he won’t know his worst middah, and then he won’t know what to work on. But even if he does know his worst middah, the middah itself consists of many different factors – he will work on one part when he should be working on a different point of the middah. Not only won’t he fix it, but he will damage himself, because he is mixing up different sugyos.

Therefore, the depth of avodah is not possible unless a person is aware of the different parts of the middah. One must know which element the middah is rooted in, which bad middah it is, and which part of the bad middah needs to be fixed.

It’s easy for a person to label his worst middah with terms like “I’m lazy”, “I get angry”, “I’m a glutton”, “I chat too much”, “I am haughty”, etc. but these are all general terms which do not explore the root of the bad middah at hand. They are all true descriptions, but they are each complex, consisting of several factors.

One has to be aware of each part of the bad middah. It’s possible that a person is working hard for many years at trying to uproot a bad middah, but he is working on the wrong point. After a person is clear what he has to rectify, comes the step of how to go about rectifying.

3c) Balancing Your Elements.

Another fact we bear in mind is that our middos are not just ‘bad middos’. We are made of the four elements, and each of the four elements needs to be balanced with each other. Each soul needs a balance of the elements.

Besides for our worst middah, we also need to have balance in our souls. The elements, when unbalanced, are a separate cause for detriment in the soul. A bad middah can cause an imbalance, which is obvious, but even a good middah can cause detriment to the soul, when it is unbalanced with the other elements. Too much of one good middah can make a person unbalanced.

If one has the general picture of the information (tzurasa d’shmaatsa) and he is missing knowledge of the kelalim, how can he hope to work on the bad middah he needs to work on, and all its parts…?

Most people are unclear about their souls, and therefore, there is a degree of internal suffering experienced by most people. Some people are very emotional and they suffer more, some suffer from imagination, and some are suffering from their own conceit. But we all suffer in our souls, and the only question is, how much. We also have suffering from external situations, such as our health, livelihood, and issues with children. And we all have internal suffering. The amount differs with each person. One who never clarified his four elements will never know what his worst middah is, and he will be unbalanced as well in his soul.

Here we come to the core reason of why people suffer in their souls. There is no other way for us to improve (unless one learns Torah with mesirus nefesh and he learns Torah lishmah, which gives a person siyata d’shmaya to find the truth without having to understand himself) - unless we work to understand the elements of the soul. Without being clear about the elements of the soul, a person doesn’t know how to trace which middah stems from which element, and he won’t be able to fix his bad middah. He won’t fix the bad middah in all its parts, and he won’t know how to balance his soul’s elements.

Improving Our Middos: Our Lifelong Challenge

People ask: “Why does this require so much difficult inner work? It is time-consuming, and it is draining to work on acquiring so much knowledge about the soul.” It’s certainly true. It takes a lot of time and energy and hard work.

But if a person really wants to fix his worst middah – as theVilna Gaon says, that the main reason why we are here on this world is to fix our [personal] worst middah – then he understands that one needs to balance his soul, and this requires clarity about the soul; to know all the parts of each bad middah.

Summary of the Three Steps Needed In Learning This Series About Middos Improvement.

1) The first step one needs is to simply acquire the knowledge about the soul (we are not referring yet to practical change), [as we are presenting in these shiurim].

2) The second step is to get used to learn to recognize the parts of the soul. It is possible that a person has knowledge about the soul, but this is not enough. When learning Gemara, one has to know what it says in the Gemara. But when learning about avodah, one has to first learn about the matters with his intellect, and then he needs to see how these matters exist in his own personal life. This is the idea of “conscious awareness” that we described before.

Most of the time when a person learns a mussar sefer, he is learning knowledge and gathering facts, and at best he makes a personal cheshbon hanefesh (self-accounting), but he doesn’t get to the depth of the matters he is learning about. Therefore, he is not that affected by what he learns. By contrast, the inner method of avodah is to become clear about the matters and then see how they manifest in one’s own life, and to be aware of them and feel them.

So the first step is to get used to acquiring a way of thinking. The second step is to gain clarity of these matters, sugya after sugya, each to his own; if one tries to grab too much, he won’t gain anything. Even if a person understands 5%, 10% or 15% of these matters, it is worthwhile. The point is to get used to learning about matters with clarity.

3) The third step is to see how these matters manifest in oneself. This is not referring to seeing our qualities or shortcomings. It is to simply become aware of how these matters manifest in your life. We also are not yet dealing with how to practically work on changing at this point. We are talking about the prerequisite of change: to recognize the soul, its parts, to be aware of them, and to feel what we are aware of.

In Conclusion.

So we are not yet dealing with how to practically act upon these matters. We are explaining (1) How to acquire a way of thinking, (2) To be clear about these matters, and (3) to become both intellectually and emotionally self-aware of these matters in one’s own life.

After doing this for several years, can one then become eligible to actually implement these matters in his life [and begin the rectification process of his middos].

This doesn’t mean that a person cannot act upon these matters at all in the beginning stage. There are certainly resolutions one can make as he hears these shiurim which will help him change, and this is wonderful. But it is just that the main focus should be on the three steps we have laid out here.

To emphasize again, it takes several years to work on these steps! If someone is impatient, he must know that it takes a long time to work on these steps (even before a person actually changes his middos), and for this reason, we have an entire lifetime of inner work!

***

Questions and Answers with the Rav

Q1: Is this true only with regards to learning the Rav’s sefarim [and shiurim]?

A: In order for a person to succeed at understanding anything, he needs to amass a general picture of the information of the subject. First, one needs to learn the information simply without trying to analyze it, and after going through all of the information on a superficial level, he should then try to understand what he has learned. Chazal say that there must first be “ligmar” (learning) and then “lisbar” (analysis).

For example, right now in the Kolel we are learning Sefer Nefesh HaChaim, Shaar Daled. It would be a good idea to go through the entire sefer during the upcoming Bein HaZemanim and just see all of the words, without trying to understand them yet. The point is to first acquire a “tzurasa d’shmaatsa” (body of knowledge), a general understanding of the information. Just read through the sefer quickly, from the beginning of the section until the end of the section.

You can do the same with sefer Mesillas Yesharim. First go through the entire sefer from beginning to end and read through it quickly, so that you can at least get a general picture of it. After that, you can delve more in-depth into the sefer and try to understand each thing you have learned about.

Q2: How much should one try to understand material when he’s first reading it?

A: The first time you read about something, your understanding towards it cannot go further than a child’s understanding. “Tzurasa d’shmaatsa” doesn’t mean that you are trying to delve into the words in-depth.

Q3: How does it work that each person has one particular negative character trait that stems from a dominance in one of the four elements?

A: Each person has one element that is his strongest, an element that is second-to-strongest, and element that is third-to-strongest, and fourth-to-strongest. It is different with each person’s soul makeup. The worst character trait of a person is found in his strongest and most dominant element. By some people, their best character trait and their worst character trait is found in one element. With others, their best character trait is located in one element and their worst character trait is located in a different element – that would mean that their souls are more complicating to understand.

Q4: Does one need to be on a high spiritual level in order to determine what his most dominant element is?

A: One cannot identify what his most dominant element is if he hasn’t studied the four elements of the soul. As we have said here, the very first step is to amass the information about the four elements of the soul, and after that one can attempt to identify which element is most dominant in his own soul. There are a few people who have penetrating insight into themselves and they are able to begin at the second stage, but most people are going to have to go through the first stage.

Q5: Why is it that there are almost no sefarim that mention the four elements of the soul?

A: We must know something very fundamental about mussar sefarim. There are all different types of sefarim written by our previous Gedolim. Sefer Orchos Tzaddikim talks about the middos, but there is no order of what to work on first. Each middah is explained about in a separate chapter, but there is no order. It is unclear why this sefer was written this way, but there is no orderly path of what to work on first when you learn that sefer. The Vilna Gaon said that all the mussar sefarim are good, but Mesillas Yesharim is the best sefer, because it is arranged in an orderly fashion. However, we emphasized here in this shiur that even sefer Mesillas Yesharim can be problematic to learn, because it is a ladder of ten steps based on the Ten Expressions, and we will not be able to navigate through these steps without knowledge about our four elements of the soul.

The truth is that there is no one seder (order) to follow when it comes to avodah. We are not either implying that one must work on himself on the order of these shiurim which explain to us about the four elements of the soul. We are coming to explain here what we have to work with as we work on ourselves, and it is this area which we seek to clarify and understand. There is no one set seder (order) to follow in avodah; it’s an entirely different matter to discuss. What we are emphasizing here is that if a person never becomes clear about his own soul, he will never be able to be clear about what the seder of his avodah should be.

Q6: Is it worthy for a person to work on the middos based on the system of the four elements?

A: Not only is it worthy, it is absolutely necessary.

Q7: Why isn’t this spoken about in our sefarim?

A: The sefarim speak about the middos, but most of the sefarim do not discuss our avodah in a step-by-step manner, so there is no sefer that tells us what the seder (order) of one’s avodah should be. The Torah was not written in chronological order either. There is an argument amongst the Sages if the Mishnayos have a specific order to them. In most places, the words of our Rabbis that discuss avodah are not arranged in a step-by-step manner; thus there is no seder to their words.

For example, open up the Alter of Kelm’s sefer, Chochmah U’Mussar. Do you see any seder to the words there? It is a collection of all hundreds of his talks and there is no way to know which area to work on first. Some of the talks have seder to them and you can see how one talks leads into the next talk, but most of this sefer is not arranged in an orderly and step-by-step manner.

Take a look at Rav Dessler’s five-volume set of Michtav M’Eliyahu. Is there an order of what to work on first in that sefer? There is no order there to follow.

Chovos HaLevovos is the one sefer that is arranged with some order. He writes in the introduction that he has specifically arranged the chapters according to the specific order that it’s in, but this doesn’t apply to all of the chapters of the sefer; there are some chapters which are meant to be learned consecutively, but a large part of the sefer has no specific order to it. Additionally, the ladder of steps presented in Chovos HaLevovos is not necessarily the order that everyone must follow in their avodah.

What about sefer Shaarei Teshuvah? Is there a seder to his words? Are his words arranged in a step-by-step manner? Does one have to work on himself starting with the matters discussed in Shaar Aleph (Gate I) and ending with Shaar Daled (Gate IV)…?

Even the Talmud Bavli was not arranged in an orderly fashion. The Rambam came and attempted to give order of what to learn to learn first in the Gemara. The Tur and the Shulchan Aruch followed suit and also gave order to the halachos found in the Gemara. But the Gemara itself has no order to it. Both Agadta and Halacha parts of Gemara are not arranged in any specific order. The Rambam and others who came after him were the only ones to give any kind of order to the Gemara, but when it comes to our avodah, there is no sefer that has arranged what the order of our avodah should be.

Q8: Does that mean that there is no sefer which discusses any topic completely and perfectly?

A: There is no sefer which we can tell anyone to learn that will provide him with the answers he is looking for. Because nothing is arranged in a completely step-by-step manner, there is no sefer that can completely calm you.

Let me ask you a question. Let’s say you are trying to learn the halachos of borer (the laws of mixing on Shabbos). If not for the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, would you know where to look in the Gemara in order to learn these halachos? Would you just look at the Ein Mishpat’s commentary? If we have no Rambam and no Shulchan Aruch on it, where will you find these halachos? If a person wants to learn the halachos of netilas yadayim or tefillin, where in the Gemara is it discussed? The halachos are spread out all over the place. Some areas in the Gemara are more concentrated and you can find all of the halachos there, but other halachos of the Gemara are spread out in ten different places in the Gemara.

Just as we can understand that was no seder given to the Gemara before the Rambam came along and gave seder to it, so can we understand that there is no seder given of our avodah. The Rambam only arranged the halachos of the Gemara in an orderly fashion; he didn’t do this was the Agadta parts, which explain to us about matters of avodah. Therefore, we are left without a seder in our avodah.

Q9: How can a person have a seder to his avodah?

A: A person needs to become clear about what the four elements of the soul are, within his own soul. Then he should slowly begin to study the words of Chazal that discuss matters of avodah, and gradually he will be able to amass all of the words together and see what the order should be. This is a very difficult task to do, of course. It is the depth of exile.

Q10: If it is so important to know about the four elements of the soul, why doesn’t sefer Mesillas Yesharim talk about it and emphasize it?

A: Sefer Mesillas Yesharim is a path that is based upon working our ways upwards, from the bottom up. The author of Mesillas Yesharim is not writing a sefer that describes anyone’s personal avodah on this world. Rather, the author of Mesillas Yesharim has presented a general path of growth that applies to us in a more general sense. The four elements of the soul are a personal and private matter with each person, because the order of the four elements is arranged differently in each person’s soul.

Mesillas Yesharim is the sefer written for the collective of Klal Yisrael and it is our general path of growth, but there is a private map of our growth which is not explained in sefer Mesillas Yesharim. There is no sefer that can guide a person in his personal makeup of his soul. Thus we have no sefer that tells us what the seder in our avodah should be.

Why is this so? It is because each person needs to begin at a different point. So there is no sefer that can tell each person what he should work on first and what he should work on next. We can give order to the four elements themselves, but there is no sefer that will tell us what the seder of our personal avodah should be. It is simply impossible for such a sefer to exist.

Q11: The Mesillas Yesharim states where we all need to begin: “Torah leads to zerizus, etc.?” [so obviously that is where we all need to start from]?

A: Let’s ask a simple question. If someone’s strongest element is earth, does that mean that learning Torah will lead him to have more zehirus (alacrity) and then to have more zerizus (zeal), in the same way for a person whose most dominant element is water or wing or fire? Surely the Torah has the power to bring a person to the level of zehirus and then zerizus, but does that mean each person will be acting the same with regards to this? The fact that Torah brings a person to zehirus is not going to have the same exact effect on all people equally, because since the soul makeup is different with each person, the seder of each person’s avodah is not the same.

Surely the stage of learning Torah must come first in the avodah of all people, but how a person succeeds in this stage, is different with each person, depending on which element is most dominant in his soul.

Q12: The Rav has said that a person might be making a mistake if he’s working on a certain negative trait he wants to fix, when he lacks knowledge about the elements of his soul. But didn’t the yeshivos always have a Mashgiach who would give mussar Vaadim (discourses on self-improvement), which focused on one middah at a time?

A: You are asking a very good question. Certainly it would be the best thing if each boy in yeshivah and each man in the Kolel had a private vaad with his Mashgiach. Now, if there are 200 boys in a yeshivah, the Mashgiach would be able to give a private discourse to most of the boys of the yeshivah at least twice a year. But a day or two of the year wouldn’t be nearly enough for a person to really work on himself. The Chazon Ish that it used to be that there was one Mashgiach for 100 boys in the yeshivah, and today there is one Mashgiach for 1000 boys in the yeshivah, and that there should really be 100 Mashgichim to oversee each boy personally! If there were 100 Mashgichim available in each yeshivah for each of the boys, then he would be able to get a vaad with a Mashgiach once a day for every day of the year. But Hashem made the world in a way that this does not happen.

Q13: So is the Rav saying that it’s pointless to give mussar vaadim?

A: This is the reality of things. It doesn’t result in that much improvement. The question is, however: is giving a private mussar vaad to each person better than nothing? Or perhaps it would be better to give one vaad to a bunch of people and they will work on themselves together?

This issue was brought before the Gedolim. In Kelm they would join a vaad together and work on themselves together, and not one-one-one with a teacher. However, a person must consider the following. If he doesn’t know his own soul, he will not know how to imply all that he learns about. If he joins a mussar vaad, he will be a like a sheep following the herd.

Surely we need to work on ourselves together and strengthen each other in self-improvement, but a person needs to first know his own soul, what he can work on and what he can’t work on. Ten boys in yeshivah and ten Kolel men cannot all work to improve on the same character trait all on an equal level. Each person reacts differently to the subject material being taught. Each person has his own background and personality – you can’t expect all the people in a mussar vaad to all work on the same trait equally. It’s not like a sukkah where a bunch of people can sit underneath one sukkah and fulfill the mitzvah. Each soul is very different and built very differently.

If you have a suggestion of how mussar vaadim can be made more practical to accommodate each person’s particular personality, to the contrary; go ahead with it.

Q14: If a person has a certain negative character trait that he has a hard time fixing, does that mean that this situation is being sent to him from Heaven as his tikkun (rectification) on this world?

A:Not only is his difficulty with his character being “sent to him from Heaven”, but he was born that way to begin with, to complete his life’s mission.

Q15: After a person gets to understand his soul, will he require help in improving himself?

A: Most people cannot deal with their problems by themselves and they need someone else to help them. There are a few rare individuals who are both with sharp self-awareness and they can work on themselves without confiding in another person. There are also some people who were born with a natural power to act lishmah (for the sake of Hashem) and they are capable of great mesirus nefesh (altruism), which enables them to penetrate deeply into their souls, without the assistance of others. But most people are not capable of acting lishmah and with mesirus nefesh and they do not have that much self-awareness; therefore, most people require help from others in order to understand themselves.

Q16: Is there any sefer one can learn which teaches him about how to use his soul’s abilities?

A: Part of this study can be attained through the sefarim that explain the [four] elements of the soul.[6] But as for knowing one’s personal soul, one will never know it through any sefer that is found in the world. One has to pray to Hashem to reach self-understanding. Either he can pray to Hashem that he merit to understand himself from within himself, as the Gemara says that the “two kidneys of man are his advisors”, where one can learn Torah from within himself; or one can pray to Hashem that he merit to be guided by someone  who will help him understand his soul.

If one prays for this, truthfully and earnestly, and he cries to Hashem from the depths of his heart, Hashem will surely guide him to success. How? That is up to Hashem. But if someone is truly searching for this and he is sincerely trying very hard, Hashem will guide him and he will attain what he desires.