Purim - 001 Happiness In Spite of Tragedy

ספר בלבבי משכן אבנה – פורים עמ' א- כד

Purim – The Essence of Simchah and The Climax of The Entire Year

Chazal state, “When Adar enters, we increase happiness.”[1]

The truth is that during the entire year as well, we also need simchah (happiness); it is just that in Adar, we are supposed to increase the simchah.

The verse that teaches us that we are supposed to have simchah during the entire year is עבדו את ה' בשמחה, “Serve Hashem with joy”.[2] The entire avodah (inner task)of a person needs to be accompanied with simchah. By the tochachah (the Torah’s rebuke and list of warnings to the Jewish people), the Torah says that a lack of simchah in performing the mitzvos is a great sin and the cause for all curses[3]: “That which you did not serve Hashem with joy.” Thus, a lack of simchah is not just a side issue of life – if a person is missing simchah in his life, he is missing everything.

Compare this to a person who has a home with a full dining room set, but he is missing coat hangers. It’s certainly better if he would have a coat hanger rather than drape it over the chairs. It will cause his home to look a bit messy, but his house will still look functional. But if a person is missing simchah in his life, this is not like missing a coat hanger. Man cannot arrive at his purpose in life unless he is happy. If a person is missing simchah, he is missing everything. Without a simchah, a person cannot feel any sense of fulfillment.

From throughout the cycle of the year, we can see that simchah is the goal of it all. The year begins with Nissan, “the head of the months”, so the first festival of the year is Pesach. The last festival of the year is Purim, and the essence of Purim is all about simchah. So the festivals are all a lead to get to the final point, which is simchah. On most of the festivals, there is a mitzvah to have simchah, but on Purim, the simchah is what defines the entire festival.

How Can We Be Happy In The Times That We Live In?

In every generation, one always had to reflect on how to reach simchah. But in our generation, and especially in recent times, where enemies are attacking us in our own cities, and the blood of men, women, and children is spilling through the streets, it seems too difficult to have simchah. But it only “seems” – it doesn’t mean that we can’t.

In order to explain how it’s possible for us to have simchah the times that we live in, let’s first see the other way of looking at it, and then we will be able to understand.

The Mishnah says, “When Av enters, we lessen our joy.”[4] Whereas in Adar we increase joy, in Av we lessen our joy. On Tisha B’Av, we reach the climax of our sadness. If we reflect into this deeply, we will notice that there are two different extreme situations that build us - happiness, and sadness.

There are two different attitudes that people have towards life. There are people who view their life in terms of their lack of success, their various mistakes that they made in life, and etc. We know that Tisha B’Av came about through a certain mistake that Klal Yisrael had made. Other people view life in terms of circumstance. They think that everything that happens just “happens” to have transpired that way.

Let us see how Chazal viewed it.

The Gemara says that when the Spies returned from Eretz Yisrael and they delivered a grim report about the land, the people cried that night. Hashem said, “You have cried tears in vain; I will establish [this night] as a time of weeping for the generations.”[5] Elsewhere, the Gemara also says how there are certain times of the year or places in the world in which there is retribution, such as Tisha B’Av, and Shechem[6]. If so, Tisha B’Av was always a time of retribution, and if it had never been made into a time of retribution, the people would have never cried about the report. So the report of the Spies could only take place on Tisha B’Av, which is already built into Creation as a “day of retribution”; and that is why the destructions of both the first and second Beis HaMikdash took place on Tisha B’Av, as well as the Spanish Inquisition, and other times of suffering.

In contrast to Megillas Esther, which is a story of simchah that we read each year on Purim, we have a Megillas Eichah, which is the story of sadness. This is the cycle of the year – we go from sadness, to happiness, to sadness, and we repeat the cycle. And on a deeper level – this cycle is also the inner makeup of our soul.

How Happiness Is Needed In Order To Serve Hashem

The Rambam says, “All prophets were not able to prophesize anytime they wished. Rather, they would concentrate with their minds and sit joyously, with gladness of heart, and meditate; for prophecy could not settle upon him amidst sadness or laziness, and only amidst joy. Therefore, the sons of the prophets would bring before them musical instruments [i.e. the harp, lyre, flute, etc.] and then they would seek prophecy.”[7]

From this we can see that prophecy didn’t happen immediately. The Rambam also describes an entire course of preparation which the prophet needed to do beforehand, in order to rise from level to level, until he could be eligible to receive the prophecy.[8] And even if he met all of the requirements, he still could not receive prophecy any time he reached. The only exception to this was Moshe Rabbeinu, who was on altogether higher level than any of the other prophets, whom Hashem spoke directly to. The rest of the prophets had to prepare before receiving prophecy, and the prophecy didn’t always come to them.[9] That meant that even when they were eligible for prophecy – which means that they had reached the highest spiritual state possible, where they were totally disconnected from the world and completely attached to the spiritual – they still could not receive the prophecy, unless they were amidst a state of joy.

They reached this joy via the means of song (and even then, there was still not a guarantee that they would receive the prophecy). Song is a natural means through which one can free himself from all of his bothersome and distressing thoughts, and it can bring him to a higher plane. Understandably, not all song can accomplish this. It depends on several factors. Each person has different moods and tastes, so one song will not accomplish the same effect for everyone. It can also vary on the particular mood that a person is in right now; he might need a different song than before. We have many old songs from our history which have the power to bring us to a different world entirely – where we can disconnect from this world, to the point that we don’t even hear anyone talking to us.

When the prophet was in a state of sadness, he could not receive prophecy. Prophecy is a state in which the neshamah (the Divine soul) becomes attached in d’veykus to her Creator. The neshamah is bound to the body, so how can it cleave to the upper realms? If a person was in a state of simchah, his neshamah was then able to rise above the constraints of the body.

As is well-known, there are four elements in our inner makeup: fire, air, water, and earth. Our body is rooted in the element of earth, and it is naturally pulled downwards. Therefore, due to our physical body, we have a natural pull towards sadness, which comes from the element of earth. But our neshamah is rooted in our element of fire, which naturally rises higher and goes above the earth.

That is why if a person wants to reach d’veykus with Hashem, he first needs to be in a state of simchah, and he cannot be in a state of sadness, which crushes his spirit and pulls him downward.

If Prophecy Requires Joy, How Could Yirmiyahu Compose Sefer Eichah?

If we reflect, we can uncover a very strong question. Yirmiyahu HaNavi wrote sefer Eichah[10] [and elsewhere the Gemara says that all of the holy books of Tanach were written amidst prophecy]. If Yirmiyahu needed to be in a state of simchah in order to compose sefer Eichah from prophecy, how could he have any simchah while writing the saddest book of our history?

We can understand that when the Men of Great Assembly composed Megillas Esther, it was composed amidst simchah, for they were writing of a joyous event. But Megillas Eichah was written at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, not a time of redemption and salvation. Is it possible for Yirmiyahu to have any simchah at the time of the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash?!

Let us think about this. Besides for the actual destruction itself of the Beis HaMikdash, and besides for all of the spiritual greatness that we lost with it, at that time, there was Jewish blood being spilled like water, and we were led away in chains, exiled from our land, through our enemies. The sefer which is describing all of this, Eichah, is being written in a state of prophecy, and prophecy can only settle when there is simchah. We can see from this that it is possible to have simchah even in as we are being accompanied by the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash!

If we have a difficult time understanding how this could be, it must be because we don’t know what simchah is. We think that the harsh and painful reality which we see before us totally contradicts any possibility of simchah. It is upon us to understand, however, that if simchah is possible even as the Beis HaMikdash is being destroyed, it is surely possible in our own times to have simchah.

We are not denying the external aspect of all the tremendous tzaros (difficulties and suffering) that take place. We just need to have a true understanding of what simchah is.

Why Hashem Sends Suffering To The Jewish People

In whatever event we experience, we need to reflect on what kind of hanhagah (conduct) Hashem is running the world with. Sometimes it appears to us that Hashem is running the world with chessed  and rachamim (kindness and compassion), such as when the manna fell in the desert, as well as the many other miracles in the desert. Sometimes we are seeing din (judgment), such as what took place at the time of the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, when Hashem releases His charon af (wrath) at His children.

When Hashem is sending us the middas hadin – when He is meting out strict judgment with us – we need to understand: What does it mean that Hashem gets angry with us? What is Hashem’s “anger”? Superficially, we understand it as follows: Hashem is angry with the Jewish people and He punishes them, and therefore, it is very difficult to see His chessed during such a time. But if we look into the words of Chazal, we see an entirely different perspective towards suffering – as well as the situations of our own life.

There is a verse in Shir HaShirim: “O My dove, trapped at the sea as if in the clefts of a rock, the concealment of the terrace. Show Me your prayerful gaze, let Me hear your supplicating voice”[11]. The Midrash[12] states, “Teaches the school of Rabbi Yishmael: At the time that the Jewish people left Egypt, to what were they compared to? To a dove that ran away from an arrow, and hid in a crack of a rock, whereupon it found a serpent. It could not go further into the rock, because the serpent was there; it could not turn around, because the arrows were shooting outside. What did the dove do? It began to cry out and bang with its wings, so that its owner would hear and come rescue it.

“This is what the Jewish people were compared to, when they stood before the Red Sea. To go into the sea was something they could not do, for the sea had not yet been split for them. To turn around was also something they could not do, because Pharoah was behind them and getting closer. What did they do? They grew very afraid and they cried out to Hashem. Immediately,“Hashem rescued them, on that day.”

The Midrash continues: “Teaches Rav Yehudah in the name of Rav Chama: “This can be compared to a parable, of a king who had an only daughter, and he desired to hear of her whereabouts. What did he do? When she left the palace, he commanded his servants to disguise themselves as vandals, who suddenly fell upon her. She began to cry out, “Father! Father! Save me!” [The king rescued her, and later] he said to her: “Had I not done this, you would not have cried out to me to rescue you.”

Let us think into the words of the above Midrash. When the Jewish people were at the Red Sea, they felt like they were in a hopeless situation, with no way out. If they would go into the sea (before being commanded to), they would perish. They did not either want themselves to be captured by the Egyptians and go back to Egypt. They could not wage war with the Egyptians because they did not have the means to fight a war. It is not hard for us to imagine what each Jew was asking himself then in that situation. The question that each person faced was clear: “Why, oh why, did Hashem take us out of Egypt for? [So that we can all get killed??]”

Six days before, they had all left Egypt, and it was clear that Hashem was treating them with His middas hachessed (attribute of kindness)and now it looked like the opposite. It was utterly middas hadin (the attribute of judgment).They surely thought that Hashem took them out of Egypt in order to get killed, as they indeed thought before they made the golden calf, where they thought Moshe was dead.[13] Later when they were in the desert, they complained to Moshe that he had taken them out of Egypt in order to perish in the desert.[14] Perhaps there were a few people then who did self-introspection over their sins and they viewed the impending threat as a retribution for their sins.

But from the words of the Midrash, we see an altogether different perspective on why Hashem sends suffering to the Jewish people. The Midrash compares our situation to a king who had an only daughter, who seemed to have a silent, uncommunicative relationship towards her father, and her father longed just to hear her voice speaking to him. So he placed her in a predicament, in order to cause her to cry out to him for help. It seems that had she communicated with her father beforehand, the father wouldn’t have needed to do this in order to get her to talk to him.[15]

When the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt, they cried out to Hashem, and Hashem heard their groans and then had mercy on them and redeemed them. When they left Egypt, they must have felt so grateful to Hashem, singing the praises of Hashem. They also felt very serene, knowing that they were heading to receive the Torah and then to Eretz Yisrael. They must have become a little bit ‘silent’ towards Hashem, not bothering to communicate with Him, because they thought they didn’t have to. They became like the daughter of the king who was silent towards her father.

When Hashem saw that they are being silent towards Him, He hardened Pharoah’s heart so that Pharoah would chase after them, so that they would feel endangered and then cry out to Hashem to be saved. Hashem was sending a message to them: “If you wouldn’t have been so silent with me, I wouldn’t have had to send this upon you.”

The Father Longs For His Only Child: Strengthening Our Tefillah

Hashem calls the Jewish people as “My son, My firstborn, Yisrael.”[16]The Jewish people are not only called “child” and “firstborn” of Hashem, but they are considered to all be Hashem’s “only child.” By contrast, the gentile nations of the world are not even given the title of “adam” (man),[17] and surely they are not given the title of “children” to Hashem.

When a person has an only child, he surely longs to speak with him from time to time. If the child keeps his distance from his father and he is silent towards him, and he does not communicate with his father, even if he behaves nicely in the house and he doesn’t do anything rebellious, and he is even respectful towards his father, but he just has a relationship of silence and indifference towards his father – the father cannot handle living like this with his son. The son might always carry out the requests of his fathers, but in the end of the day, it is painful to the father if they just have a relationship towards each other that looks like a worker towards his boss, and not a relationship of love and friendliness.

The same is true with the relationship between Hashem and the Jewish people. It is not enough for Hashem that they are merely doing His mitzvos. “Hashem wants the heart.” Hashem wants a personal relationship with His children. When the Jewish people stop calling out to Him in prayer, Hashem sends tzaros (difficulties) to them, to get them to talk to Him. It is not because He wants to punish them. It is because He is waiting for His only child to have a simple feeling for Him, which a child should have to a father; and He does not like distance or silence from His children.

Maybe a person will ask: “What are we, off the derech or something? Hashem has to send us tzaros in order to get us to daven? Do we not daven? Aren’t we Torah observant Jews, who keep Torah and mitzvos, davening three times each day? What is all the ruckus about that Hashem wants to get us to daven to Him? Is three times a day not enough? Do we find a child who can do more than that??”

But it must be because something is missing from our davening. The Midrash is saying that Hashem longs to hear our voice, so something must be missing from our voice as we daven, that Hashem feels like He is not “hearing” us. So we need to reflect on what’s missing from our davening. When we understand that well, we will be able to understand, with siyata d’shmaya, of how we can reach true simchah.

Discovering Our Priorities

In order to understand it, however, we first need to understand something else, and then we will return to our question (of what is missing from our davening, that Hashem needs to send us suffering so that we daven better to Him), and from there we will also return to our original question (of how it was possible for Yirmiyahu to have simchah at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem).

Every person has many various retzonos (desires). Usually a person does not have the means to actualize all of his desires; he has certain desires which he focuses on fulfilling, and the other desires are pushed aside. It is recommended that a person should write down a list of all his desires. One should set aside some quiet time where he won’t be disturbed by anything, and sit with a pen and paper, and begin to write down “The things that I want”, in order of preference.

For example, if he wants very badly to purchase a new heater or air conditioner, and he doesn’t have the money to buy it now, and it’s the winter now, he should first write down that he wants the heater, and push off buying the fridge until the summer. Within this list of things that he wants, a person will also discovers that there are some of the desires subdivide into several other desires. For example, if a person needs to buy bread and he also needs a fridge, he won’t even think that he needs the fridge more than he needs the bread; it’s clear to him that bread is more of a priority, because it’s an issue of doing what’s more comfortable versus staying alive. People will decide between what kind of comfort they want, but when choosing between comfort and survival, there is no question that a person will choose survival. But if a person needs to decide between buying a car and a house, some people will have a hard time figuring this out, and others will be able to know right away how much they need the car versus how much they need the house.

When writing down this list of all the things you want, include every last thing you want, not just the ones you are financially capable of attaining. Make sure to write them down in order of preference.

Anyone who tries to write down this list will see that it is not easy. It is hard to know what you even want, and it is hard to know what you want the most, the second-to-most, and third-to-most; it is hard to prioritize. To give a simple example, how important does a person consider it to daven? Every person will say that he wants to daven and that he wants to make his davening better, but what does he do when his ratzon to daven better is clashing with a different ratzon he has? Which of these will take precedence?

For example, if a person needs to go to work in the morning, and therefore he chooses to daven in the morning without a minyan, because otherwise he will lose some money – although he considers it important to daven with a minyan, when push comes to shove, he chooses the money over davening with a minyan, and that shows what he really considers to be more important…..

“A Man According To His Praise”

It is written, “A man according to his praise.”[18] Rabbeinu Yonah explains, “A man’s qualities are according to what he praises. If he praises good deeds, and the wise, and the righteous, you can know that this is a good person, and that the root of righteousness is with him…and even if he has hidden sins, he is from those who love righteousness, and this is the root of his free choices, and he is of those who honor Hashem. And if someone praises evil acts or if he praises the wicked, he is considered to be completely wicked, and he profanes the service of Hashem.”[19]

In order to explain this, let us ask: What is the reward that a person receives in Gan Eden for keeping the mitzvos, such as shaking the four species on Sukkos, with all its nuances?

Understandably, we do not know what Gan Eden is like, and we do not know what the reward there is like. But let’s consider two different people who are doing the same exact mitzvah. They both come to the same shul and they both leave at the same time. They both davened seriously, and they both said every word of davening. Without knowing what Gan Eden or reward will look like, we can safely assume that they will both receive the same exact reward; why not? But when they both return to Heaven one day, one of them will see that the other received greater reward, and he will begin to cry out in protest: “I don’t understand! In the previous world, it was a world of falsity; where you can bargain and cheat on prices. I always thought that the afterlife is called “the world of truth”, though, where there is no cheating. What is going on over here?! Why does my friend get more reward than me? Why am I being cheated?”

But we know clearly that in the world of truth, everything is a done deal; there are no deceptions. There is a story told of one of the tzaddikim, that when he came to the world of truth, and he was received with great honor, just as he had been honored on This World, he said: “I always knew that everyone was mistaken about me in that world of falsity. I was confident that when I would come to the world of truth, they would quickly send me to Gehinnom. Now I see that even over here they are mistaken about me.”

Let’s return to analyzing the words of Rabbeinu Yonah, and to the scenario of two people who davened the same davening, with concentration and with saying every word. Shouldn’t they both get the same reward? Rabbeinu Yonah says that they don’t: “a man according to his praise.”

We can give an example of this. It is Hoshanah Rabbah, and everyone in shul is circling the bimah with their hoshanos. Suddenly a person’s cellphone goes off in his pocket. There is no halachah that says that it is forbidden to talk during hoshanos. So he quickly answers the cellphone and says, “I’m in middle of hoshanos. I’ll be done in 10 minutes. Bye.” There is another person there who also has a cellphone in his pocket, but it is turned off. He has the sense to believe that the world can continue to revolve without his cellphone being on. He knows that he is not the prime minister, or from national security, or an emergency surgeon, who needs to be reached at any moment. Maybe he is missing out on a good business deal or on some monetary profit, but he’s ready to take the loss.

Rabbeinu Yonah says that in Heaven, a person is rewarded based on how much priority he gave the mitzvos. It not based on another’s value and assessment of your mitzvah, but on how much you valued your mitzvah and how much priority you gave to it. A person buys an esrog, and he pays a substantial amount of money for it, thinking that he is buying an esrog mehudar – assuming that this person is not buying it to impress his friends, this person will be rewarded in Heaven depending on how much he really valued buying this esrog.

You can have a person who does many mitzvos; let’s say he gives a lot of tzedakah. But in his heart, he does not value the mitzvah that much. He does it only because that’s what is says to do in Shulchan Aruch, but deep down, he feels like he is losing some money; he’d rather have the money than the mitzvah. He feels like he is giving away his precious money and that he is losing money when he gives tzedakah. Compare him to a person who didn’t spend that much on an esrog, due to financial constraints; he buys the cheapest esrog on the market, but he is pained over the fact that he didn’t buy a more beautiful esrog.

Health and Money Are Tools, Not Goals

Let us return to the idea of making a list of wants and priorities. Is there anyone who can quickly discover what his number one desire is? Can anyone know what he is missing the most, without having to reflect deeply about this?

Before anything, a person first needs to reflect: “For what reason did I come down onto this world?” There is none one of us has never been here before, and none of us is here forever. Is there a purpose to our life on this world? The very first thing we need to think about is this.

Logic will tell you that everything else we have on this world, other than the purpose of our life, are all but tools that help us reach the purpose.

Let us give an example. A chosson and kallah are ready to leave the wedding hall and to come home happily. How do they get to their apartment? If they walk there by foot, it will take three hours to get home. They don’t even think of this option. The only option is to go by car. Do they think that the car is the goal of the evening, just because they cannot get home without it? It is true that they need the car, and that they can’t get home without it, but it is simple to anyone that the car is not the main highlight of their evening. It is very important, but it is not the purpose or the goal.

We have just differentiated between a tool that helps us get to our goal, with the goal itself. This difference is also true if the tool is a very important and necessary one that helps us get to the goal. It may be very important, but it is not the goal.

A simple and basic example of this idea, which we all recognize, is the need for money. On one hand, it is clear to us that money is not the purpose of life. On the other hand, without money, you can’t live. (How much money a person really needs, is a separate matter). A person needs money. But some people pursue money to the point that it has turned into their goal in life. The Rambam says that there is a kind of person who is never satisfied with even all the money in the world[20], for it is written, “He who loves money, will not be satisfied with money.”[21] In the end of the day, the financial situation of the world depends on these people who don’t stop pursuing money. If a well-to-do person loses all of his money, if he has a little bit of fear of Heaven, he will use his remaining money to build a shul with it. But there are very few people like this.

Another very good example is health. We surely feel pity towards an ill person, or a person who has become physically dependent on others, who is confined to a bed all day and he needs others to help him. We pity anyone who has to go to the hospital often. Without being healthy, it is very difficult to live and manage. Surely a person needs to invest time and money into his health. But the question is: what is his attitude towards it? Does he view it as a tool to get him to a greater goal, or does he view it as a goal unto itself?

Health and money are just tools and a means to help us reach a more inner point in life. There are some people have a lot of money and they also have good health, but they have nothing. A person can be very lonely on this world. He barely manages to get along with his wife; his children are dispersed throughout the world; he doesn’t have a job because he already received his pension. He has plenty of money and he is physically healthy, but he has no sense of inner fulfillment.

Caught Up

If we think into it, we can see that there is an error which exists by most people, which causes them to ignore their purpose in life, in favor of pursuing the various means which can help us, but which are overdone and overly pursued.

The Ramchal says that the yetzer hora gets people not to think about the purpose of life, just as Pharoah put the people to constant work so that they wouldn’t be able to think about the spiritual. It is not because people don’t know what the purpose of life is. If you ask anyone, they will answer you correctly. But if you ask a person what he is thinking about from the time he gets up in the morning until he goes to sleep, and you get him to think a little and to be straightforward with himself, he might discover that he is thinking mostly about various means to get to his goals, rather than being focused on the goal of life itself.

A person knows well that the purpose of life is not about livelihood, health, a house, and a car. But in the actual way he spends his life, that is all he thinks about. He feels that this is inevitable, and that he has no other choice to think otherwise. A person definitely needs to think about those things, but to get trapped from them? To the point that he forgets the purpose of life?

There is a well-known story that a person was once lying on a raft in a lake and he was fishing. There he met a person who was a well-to-do businessman, and they got into a conversation. The well-to-do businessman noticed that the fisherman was a very smart, learned, and wise person.

“It’s a shame that all of your talents are going to waste on being a fisherman”, the vacationing businessman said to the fisherman. “Go out into the world, go to work, and you’ll be a successful person. You will make money and perhaps become wealthy.”

The fisherman asked him, “And after I make all that money, what will I do with it?”

“You’ll be able to buy yourself a nice big house, and many other things. There’s no end to how much you can buy with money.”

“And what will I do after that?”

“You’ll be able to lie down and rest all day peacefully in your beautiful house.”

“I’d be bored if I do that. I can’t sit around in a house all day.”

“So you’ll go out to the lake and go fishing if you want.”

“If that’s what it all comes down to – so that I can go fishing peacefully – that’s something I’m already doing now!”

That is how the story goes. Of course, none of us would want to go fishing peacefully if we don’t yet have the house or the other things that we may want. But on the other hand, all that a person works hard for, from morning until night, is so that he can be serene at the end; the means which he uses to get there, though, rob him of any serenity. A person will never find serenity in his life when he is overly involved with the means and the tools that help him get to his goals.

There are some people, such as some taxi-drivers, who can work for 20 hours a day, spending the entire day in a car. He barely even recognizes his wife, and he doesn’t get nearly enough sleep to feel rested. The money that comes into his pocket quickly goes out the other pocket, the expenses in his life are quickly replaced with more expenses, and he never gets to see any blessing from all of his hard work. Does he at least get any honor from it? Is there anyone who truly honors him and values him for what he does? There will always be people who fight with him, who shame him, who chase him down, who unleash their fury on him, with no mercy. Can a person like this feel any inner satisfaction?

If a person is in a position of high power, perhaps he receives honor from his title, like if he is the prime minister, or if he is a millionaire. But is it worth it for himself to sell all of his serenity in life, in exchange for an honored title? If a person would put a halt to his life for a moment and reflect, and ask himself what is really important to him in life, logically speaking, he would discover that it’s better to just live in a simple home and eat bread every day and to just be content there, rather than pursue money and status so much. But the yetzer hora is so clever and tricky that it doesn’t even allow a person a moment to bring his life to a halt and think a little bit about what’s important.

Actions That Contradict Emunah

Thus, many people are living amidst a maelstrom of contradicting desires, and the innermost ratzon (will) of a person remains totally hidden. Even if a person does stop to think and he realizes what he needs to do, when it comes down to action, he is far from implementing any changes; his actions contradict that which he knows.

Let us think about our own situation. We are all maaminim (believers) who believe that Hashem gave the Torah, and that we have come down onto this world to serve Him. This is a fact we all know of, and we do not doubt it. We also know and believe that in exchange for all our avodah on this world, Chazal guarantee us that we will all receive reward. “Your Boss is trustworthy to pay you your wages. Know, that the reward of the righteous will be in the future.”[22]

Reward is not in This World, so is there no reason to think otherwise. Woe to a person who a person who thinks that our reward is what we see on This World! Life is full of suffering; some have more and some have less. Even if a person had a good life on this world and he didn’t suffer that much, his life is not that long; he doesn’t live more than 120 years. Can this be a person’s entire reward – living a good life on this world? Is this the reward that Hashem wants to bestow us with? Reward is an entirely in the Next World, and it is eternal.

The Mesillas Yesharim says that the true spiritual bliss which we were created for is in the Next World. If one believes in the eternal, he is able to believe in the concept of eternal reward, which will be above all human comprehension. The inner point for which we are living, which we came down to this world for, is to serve the Creator, and to receive reward.

If we ask any person if he is willing to clean a house for an hour and get paid a million dollars or work in computers for an hour and get paid ten dollars, anyone would pick the first option, even though it entails more hard work. As long as he knows he is getting paid a million dollars afterwards, he will gladly do it; and then he’ll be able to buy anything he wants. As long a person knows how to think, he is able to think of more ways of how to earn money. If he doesn’t think, he simply follows the crowd. But if he usually thinks, he will be able to think constantly of what he would like to have.

In the same way, if a person is deciding between reward on This World versus reward on the Next World, it would be illogical for him to choose reward on This World. Therefore, when we see a person who is not taking this logical approach, and he is unaware that it is better to work hard on this world and to receive eternal reward in the Next World, in such a case, we are forced to conclude with either one of two possibilities. Either the person does not believe in the eternal, or he is doubtful about it. But if a person believes that there is definitely eternal reward, and even so he chooses reward on This World rather than invest for the Next World, it must be that he has never thought about his priorities yet.

If such a person is sitting quietly at night, he might suddenly discover that he is his actions are contradicting his beliefs. For example, if he is presented with the opportunity to go to a shiur at night, he might begin to think how this will affect him at work the next day, and that he will get less sleep. He never even thinks that there is eternal reward in exchange for anything he is giving up.

We aren’t talking about a person who doesn’t believe in Hashem or in reward in the Next World. To abandon eternal reward, in exchange for a temporary profit on This World, is a result of a lack of reflecting. He is like a person who is too lazy to brush his teeth, even though he knows it is far worth it to give up on some laziness in order to avoid cavities and an expensive dental bill. Or he is like a smoker who knows that smoking is bad for his health and that is shortens his life, but the temporary pleasure is more important to him than avoiding the eternal loss which will come in the future. It all stems from a lack of willingness to reflect.

The Meaning of D’veykus (Attachment To Hashem)

Above we mentioned that the main reward is in the Next World. We can ask, however: Isn’t our d’veykus with Hashem our reward on this world?

There were tzaddikim who reached d’veykus even on This World. However, in order to reach d’veykus on This World, one has to be on a very, very high spiritual level. There is actually a way to get there, but it is only for rare individuals who are capable of it. With most people, d’veykus ends on an aspirational level, and not beyond that. But aspirations cannot be our reward.

The aspiration for d’veykus can certainly be a drive to reach the purpose of life, but it is not our reward. If d’veykus would be our reward, this would be very disappointing, because most people do not reach d’veykus on This World.

There are two parts to the pleasure in d’veykus. There is d’veykus of our neshamah (soul) and d’veykus of our guf (body).

In order to know what d’veykus of the neshamah is, one has to feel the neshamah, but which one of us feels the neshamah? In order to feel the neshamah, one needs to go above himself. The spiritual layer of a person contains five parts, as is well-known: the Nefesh, the Ruach, the Neshamah, the Chayah, and the Yechidah.[23] If someone is at the level of Nefesh, he cannot feel the Neshamah. Even someone at the level of Ruach cannot feel the Neshamah level. If someone is at the level of Neshamah, the Neshamah feels to him like his very havayah (sense of existence). If someone reaches his Chayah, he can look down at his Neshamah from above, and then he will see exactly where his Neshamah is.

Therefore, we mentioned that there are two kinds of d’veykus. There is a d’veykus which one can feel on this world, which is the d’veykus of the body. The d’veykus of the neshamah, however, cannot be felt; generally speaking. Most people cannot feel it because they haven’t reached their Chayah, so they can’t see where their Neshamah is.

There are a few lone individuals, the purest tzaddikim, who have purified their bodies and they live with their neshamah simply and on a daily basis. Those tzaddikim are living the purpose and goal of life even as they are here on This World, because they have already reached d’veykus on This World. But most people, almost everyone, have not reached d’veykus on This World.

D’veykus is a very esoteric and detached matter for most people. A person might imagine that if he thinks that there is a Creator and he believes that Hashem is found next to him, this must mean that he has reached d’veykus. He can know if he has reached it, by seeing how much bliss he feels in it. If he enjoys the knowledge that Hashem is next to him, is that pleasure the eternal reward of the Next World that he is waiting for? It is very disappointing, if that is what the reward feels like. Is this his entire reward?!

But the truth is that most people do not comprehend what d’veykus is. Any comprehension about d’veykus that we do have is only from our material perspective; the real d’veykus is a spiritual matter, and it is something else entirely than anything we can perceive. We can touch upon it a little through the power of love, which is a soul attachment to another, but even this is a low level of it.

If we want to try to understand what the eternal reward is like, we can understand it a little through the following: If a person has someone whom he loves very much, and he feels an intense, inner love for this person, the pleasure of this feeling can help a person begin to imagine the d’veykus in Hashem that is of the Next World. But one has to be aware that this is just an imagination, and it is not the real thing.

True attainment of d’veykus is of a much loftier nature than what we can comprehend, and almost no one reaches it on this world. The main place where it is reached is on the Next World. A person can definitely reach some level of it, but the question is how much a person is willing to try to get it. When it comes to making money, some people will work 20 hours a day. If someone is working for 20 hours a day trying to attain the spiritual, and he prolongs with this, he will get to d’veykus, but how many are there like this?

On the other hand, if a person is not on that level, that doesn’t mean he will be totally impoverished from it. We are describing here what simchah is. When a person lives correctly, he doesn’t know what it is like to feel impoverished. The only question is from where we are drawing forth our inner satisfaction in life.

The Complex Nature of Our Souls

Returning to the topic of retzonos (desires) which we are discussing, it must be clear to all of us that we are all searching for true reward, and not temporary and fleeting pleasure. If each person would examine his life and see if his actions are matching up to this point, he will discover that it is very hard to find someone who indeed lives focused around this point.

There is always a contradiction in our life between how we act with this above point. The only issue is how much of a degree of contradiction there is in our life, between the goal that we know we must strive for, with the way we are actually living.

This is not something one can know on a general level, because each person has a different situation than another. One must be realistic and not measure himself based on another’s situation. There is no logical reason to measure oneself compared to Avraham Avinu. A person with 10 children obviously needs to be busier with livelihood than a person with 2 children. The conditions of living also change in each generation. In our generation you can’t drink water from a well, you need to have sink in your house with running water, and pay the water bill. Our age is also a factor. Not everything you did 20 years ago can you do today.

There is also another factor to consider, which is complicated, and we cannot explain it here that much, but we will mention it briefly. We must know that this is not the first time that we are here. The Arizal wrote earlier than 500 years ago that there are no longer any new souls coming down onto the world.[24] Almost every person today has already been reincarnated in several lifetimes. A person only stops coming down after 3 times if he didn’t rectify anything in any of his lifetimes, and only then does he lose the merit of coming back down here to rectify. For anyone else, who has begun to rectify, his soul can come down in an endless amount of lifetimes, until Mashiach. This is explained clearly by the Arizal.[25] A person may be reincarnated as a non-living object, or as an animal (non-kosher or kosher), or as a gentile, or as a Jew[26]. He is not reincarnated as a Jew after being a gentile, unless he had previously been a Jew who has been reincarnated at some point in a gentile; or if his soul has been at Har Sinai, meaning that his root is of a Jewish soul but he had been born as a gentile on this world.

Therefore, each of us our souls is a complicated structure, containing our actual soul itself, along with many experiences from previous lifetimes. The soul of a person today has become extremely complex, and many inner contradictions have resulted from all of these factors. It is upon a person to clarify his soul, and to recognize and feel, what his true and innermost ratzon (will) is.

The Common Message of Suffering

Now we will return to discuss, with siyata d’shmaya, of what is missing from our davening. Then we will be able to understand why many people have a difficult time feeling true simchah; and what the way is to reach it.

With regards to tzaros that come upon people, we explained so far that if a person does not talk to Hashem often, Hashem longs for him. Like the king who missed his only daughter, who sent suffering upon her so that she will call out to him to be rescued, so does Hashem send tzaros upon a person when he doesn’t have that much of a relationship with Him, in order to cause the person to turn to Him and communicate with him. Then a person begins to become awakened, and to realize what his priorities need to be, and to start making changes. He begins to understand that there is no solution to his tzaros other than to turn to Hashem.

What we need to understand is that tzaros come upon us so that we can clarify what our true retzonos (desires) are; to know what our innermost desire is, and to daven to Hashem to merit actualizing this inner desire, and that our other desires shouldn’t prevent it.

Maybe someone will come and ask: “Why does Hashem bring suffering upon people who don’t keep Torah and mitzvos? It doesn’t cause them to turn to G-d. What is the point of all their suffering?” But the words of this derashah are not being written for the nonobservant; it is speaking only to those who can understand that all tzaros come from Hashem.

There can be so many different reasons that Hashem has. Hashem can do one thing with ten different intentions involved. One person is affected in a certain way, and another person became affected in a different way. These are deep matters, and that is why a nonobservant Jew cannot hear these words; he will need to hear something else.

Even if a chiloni (secular Jew) and dati (religious Jew) went through the same exact tzarah together, they do not grow from it in the same exact way, because they are coming from different backgrounds. They will both grow in different ways, and each of their reactions will also contain a certain drawback to it that the other one doesn’t have. Even amongst the religious, there are big differences, and very different reactions, to suffering. The Gadol HaDor’s reaction to suffering is obviously on a far deeper level than a simple Jew’s reaction to suffering. Of this it said, “One thing has G-d spoken, these two have I heard.”[27]

 The Midrash states that when Hashem gave the Torah, each of the animals stopped what they were doing; the different groups of angels stopped moving or singing, the oceans stirred, and no creation spoke. All of Creation was silent, in order to hear the voice of Hashem[28]. Hashem was speaking to Creation, and each creation was hearing the voice differently and with a different reaction of silence; each creation absorbed it on its own level. This derasha as well will not be received on the same level by all people; each person will absorb it differently, according to his own energies, beliefs, and thinking patterns. It is not that one person will understand it correctly and another will understand it incorrectly; rather, each person will understand it on his own level. (But if this derasha was being written for a secular audience, the words here would be different.)

In summary, whenever tzaros befall us, the purpose of the suffering is to clarify to oneself what his true desires are, what his innermost desire is, and to try to live by what he discovers.

Filling Our Lack Brings Happiness

With the help of Hashem, we have understood here that the main point to always know is: What is the main thing, and what is secondary; what is the purpose, and what are the means to get to the purpose; and that all tzaros are Hashem’s message to us that we need to be awakened.

Let us now return the original question we started out with: How could Yirmiyahu have any joy amidst the time of the destruction? There was surely sadness then, but it is clear that without simchah he wouldn’t have been able to compose Megillas Eichah either.

We see that when there are tzaros, people are awakened; people will usually cry during such a time. When there are no tzaros, usually people do not cry. During a time of tzarah, when we have tefillah gatherings, people come to these events, and more people are able to cry then. So although we daven three times a day, the question is if we are davening from the depths of our heart or not. The more that we have opened our hearts from davening, the more opened our hearts will be during a time of tzarah.

There are endless levels to how much more the heart can be opened. If we would be davening from the depths of our heart on a regular basis, there would be no need for any tzaros to come. And a person shouldn’t counter this by saying, “I can’t daven on the level of Moshe Rabbeinu every time I daven!” True, a person cannot daven like Moshe Rabbeinu, but that doesn’t exempt him from davening. Every person, on his own level that he is at, needs to open his heart. A person doesn’t give up at his job when he realizes that he won’t become that wealthy anyway; the fact that he won’t become wealthy doesn’t exempt him from earning a livelihood. So it is clear that it is upon us to daven and to reveal more depth from ourselves, each person on his own level.

We can notice that the level of simchah one attains is relative to the amount of lack that became filled. When a person has a more inner kind of desire, when he yearns for something strongly, there is a great happiness when he fulfills this desire.

Now let us think, together, about the following. If a person is stricken with an illness, such as cancer, on one hand he is bombarded. He still has work, he almost doesn’t have any time to learn Torah, or even to say some Tehillim and do chessed for others. If he recovers, he has a great simchah. What about a person whose financial problems are taken care of? He doesn’t have to go to work, and he can spend all of his time learning Torah, saying Tehillim, and doing chessed. Does he have a higher level of joy than the person who recovers from cancer, or is it a smaller level of joy? In most cases, a person who recovers from an illness has a greater simchah than a person who realizes he doesn’t have to work. Why?

As we spoke about earlier, health is not a purpose unto itself. When a person is into his health, he never clarified to himself in the first place what the purpose of staying healthy is. Rather, he viewed health as a purpose unto itself, and not as a means to a greater goal. When he becomes ill, and he davens for his recovery, he uncovers a much deeper desire for his health, than a person who desires to be able to learn Torah peacefully and to have other spiritual attainments.

When a person gives order to his inner desires and he becomes aware of what his true priorities are, this is a fundamental of fundamentals, and it is a deep avodah that takes place within himself.

Happiness In Spite of Tragedy

It is being described here of how a person can build for himself an approach of how to remain happy even in trying times, without ignoring the pain and sadness.

In the recent years, we have seen a certain lack of stability that is glaring, in all areas of life. There are many signs that the future is imminent, and we have no way of knowing what will happen in a year from now, of what will be. It is upon us to think: For what reason is Hashem doing all of this? Surely He is not doing it so that people can be full of anger, sadness, and complaint. Rather, He is doing it all to awaken us to have the inner recognition: if only we were to awaken ourselves, and if only each person was living a truthful life, in his mind and heart, Hashem would not have to send all of this noise to us.

When a person is not living a truthful life, and then he feels that he doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring – what life will look like, what his financial situation will look like, what his health will be like; and he begins to realize that there is no security to be gained from any politician, or army, or any one person – he then begins to realize, deep down, that everything is orchestrated from Above. Then his priorities begin to change. If a person comes to feel, as a result of all these tzaros, that he is beginning to search for HaKadosh Baruch Hu – this must cause him to feel true simchah at this!

If one were to hear, chas v’shalom, of a tragedy that just occurred – on one hand, his heart is shaking, people have just been killed, and it must feel saddening to him. Without a doubt, it is saddening; who can rejoice at a time like this? But the sadness must be accompanied with a deep point in the soul, where a person awakens himself: “This is a personal awakening to me. Hashem did this in order to communicate a message to me, because He wants to draw me closer to Him.”

As we have already explained, there are endless intentions for why Hashem does what He does; the only one of these intentions that a person must try to figure out is, “What is the reason that applies to me? It is upon me to believe, that Hashem made this tragedy occur because He wants me to [become awakened and thereby] come closer to Him!”

When this one point is burning in your heart and accompanying every situation you experience – this point of “I am searching for Hashem” – although you must certainly feel sad about the fact that people have been killed, there is also a simchah that accompanies this feeling. The simchah that can be felt in all of these situations is: “Because this has happened, I am now becoming closer and closer to Hashem!” The simchah that we can uncover in all of these tzaros is because these events cause us to sharpen our recognition of truth, and to then live by those perceptions.

The Awesome Merit of Being Killed “Al Kiddush Hashem”

Even more so, we need to realize that those who are killed in the terrorist attacks have died al kiddush Hashem (in sanctification of Hashem’s name), and therefore, they have earned reward which is immeasurable.

There are some people whose neshamos (souls) have simply gone to their destruction, simply; they did not keep Torah and mitzvos while they were alive. If anyone cares about these souls that have gone lost, he cries tears over the millions of our Jewish brethren who have been cut off from their Source. They have not only lost their physical lives, which lasts 70 years; anyone who has failed to utilize the 70 years of his life on this world has also lost his eternity.

But if a Jew dies al kiddush Hashem, his merit is so great that nobody else can stand near him in Heaven.[29] A Jew merits this if he was killed in a terrorist attack; even if he did not observe Torah and mitzvos, and his life has ended at the age of 40, he has lost 30 years on this world (because the average amount of years is 70), but in exchange for the 30 years that has been taken from him, he has gained eternity. If someone believes in the words of Chazal, who guarantee this, he can actually rejoice for the person who has been killed. But if a person is not a believer, he sees this as nothing but destruction and tragedy.

There is a story told of the Chofetz Chaim, in which his son-in-law, who was a very righteous man, suddenly was niftar. The young widow, who was the Chofetz Chaim’s daughter, took it very hard; she was inconsolable. The Chofetz Chaim said to her, “If I tell you that he is in Gan Eden right now, will you be comforted?” She said to him, “Yes. If he is in Gan Eden right now, it is better that he should be there.” That is the way the story goes. Perhaps we can ask: Why did this comfort her? Is she not left a lonely widow?

But we can only ask this question if we think that the 70 years we spend on this world is our actual lifetime. When those 70 years are then cut short, it seems to us as the most tragic thing possible, and people say, “Oy, vey.” Why “Oy vey”? If a person did not observe Torah and mitzvos and he lived 70 years and then he dies, this doesn’t bother anybody, even though this person has just lost his entire eternity! But when a Jew at the prime of his life is killed in an attack, everybody is groaning over the tragedy, feeling that this is the worst thing possible - when our attitude should really be the exact opposite!

Our Perspective Is Limited

The Chofetz Chaim, in the end of his life, davened to Hashem that he should merit to die al kiddush Hashem (in sanctification of Hashem’s name). What does it mean to merit dying al kiddush Hashem? Does it mean that he should merit having the Zaka members gather all of his person’s body parts into a bag? The Chofetz Chaim believed that there is eternal reward. He knew that being killed al kiddush Hashem will mean that he will receive far more eternal reward, and that his level would be far more elevated. This doesn’t mean that should a person should enter Gaza tomorrow and ‘merit’ to die in an explosion there. Without a doubt, one should never wish for this. But if it does happen to a person, do we look at this as the middas hadin (attribute of judgment) or the middas harachamim (attribute of mercy)?

Those who were killed [in terrorist attacks] have not lost out on a thing. In their deaths, they have merited that which they wouldn’t have merited, had they lived. The rest of the generation, who remain here on this world, are able to become awakened from these events. So what is anyone losing out on? It is only difficult for those who look at This World as our absolute place of existence; that perspective makes it seem as if the person’s lifetime has been cut short, that his life is truly over, and that this poor soul could have lived so much longer.

But think about the following. There were many tzaddikim who did not even reach the age of 40. The Arizal and the Ramchal are just to name a few. If a person already rectified everything that he was supposed to rectify on this world, why should he stay here any longer? It’s much better to be in Gan Eden, than to be here.

Maybe a person will ask: “Why did a nonobservant Jew ‘merit’ to die al kiddush Hashem, whereas others who keep Torah and mitzvos do not ‘merit’ to die al kiddush Hashem?” There are many ways to explain this. Maybe the person had zechus avos (merits of his ancestors); maybe he once did a great mitzvah in secret. But there is no question to begin with. After all, is this the only thing we don’t understand? Do we understand why a certain person was born with a certain disability? If a person was born to a wealthy father, and then his father died, and then he inherited all of his father’s wealth – do we understand why he deserves all of this money that he didn’t have to work hard for? There are so many questions. All of life is filled with questions, like the amount of seeds in a pomegranate.

The answer to all of these questions lies in a well-known parable which the Chofetz Chaim would explain:

Once a Jew came to sit in a shul and he saw that the gabbai was giving out all of the aliyos. He gave one aliyah to a person on one side of the shul, and a different aliyah to a person at the other side of the shul. The visitor was perplexed, and he wondered the gabbai was skipping over people as he gave out the aliyos; why didn’t the gabbai just go in order? He went over to the gabbai on Motzei Shabbos and asked for an explanation. The gabbai explained to him that there was a certain system, and that he wasn’t skipping over anyone. Each person was getting what he deserved.

That is the moshol (parable). The nimshal (lesson) is that when a person is living on this world for 70 years, he is full of questions. If he would live for another 340 years, he would begin to understand a little more, and his questions would no longer be questions. If he would live for 6000 years straight, then he would see the whole picture, and everything would be clear. We are living on this world for a very short amount of time. The questions that we have don’t seem to have any answers, but that is only because we don’t know much to begin with. It is not because there are no answers to our questions.

There is a famous story told of the Ramban[30], who had a student who was deathly ill. The Ramban asked of his student to appear to him in a dream after ascending to Heaven, and to tell him the answers to certain questions that he had on Hashem’s ways.

The student came to his teacher in a dream and said, “I do not have the answers to your questions. But I can tell you that in Heaven, these questions are not questions.”

If this story is true, we can learn from it that even the Ramban, who was a giant amongst the Rishonim, did not merit to understand Hashem’s ways; therefore, what should we say? Even more so, the sage Rabbi Meir said that the ways of Hashem were not even revealed to Moshe Rabbeinu.[31]

Our perspective on things is so limited, that we don’t even know what’s considered a valid question or not. When a person internalizes this, he will begin to see how every curse is really a blessing in disguise.

What is there to be so sad about today? For the chilonim (the secular and anti-religious in Israel) who are killed [in the terrorist attacks], who might not have ever returned to teshuvah had they continued to live, who probably would have gone to Gehinnom if they would have remained alive and died a natural death after 70 years? Now that they have been killed, they have merited to go to the Next World, to eternity. So Hashem has done a kindness with them in taking them away before their destined time had come. It is like how Hashem took away Chanoch before his destined time had come, because Hashem wanted him to die a tzaddik rather than remain alive and become wicked with the rest of the generation[32].

So why is everyone crying and depressed [over these tragedies]? It can only be because people are living with a materialistic perspective of This World. But if a person has eternity in front of his eyes, if Hashem would promise a person that he will live eternally in the Next World – in exchange for a few years of his life that are cut short – would he not want this? If a person really believes in the eternal, he wouldn’t be able to refuse such an offer. Nadav and Avihu died out of a great desire to experience more closeness to Hashem.[33]

There is a verse, ובחרת בחיים, “And you shall choose life.”[34] The Torah is not saying to choose a life of This World, but a life of eternity, in the Next World. If a person eats pork or eats on Yom Kippur, he is not choosing “life” – he is choosing to live a life in which he is destroying himself. To “choose life” means to utilize the 70 years that we are alive, and to merit eternity with them.

Death - the true meaning of death - is when a person ends his 70 years of living and he never merited eternity with them. There is no greater “death” than this.

Investing In Order To Get To The Purpose of Life

A person might still claim that all of this is unclear to him, and that it’s not settling on his heart. But reflect upon the following. We are talking here about someone who believes that Hashem gave us the Torah at Sinai and that it was passed down to us through the Sages, and that all of their words of Torah are true. We do not find in their words any doubt about the eternal award in Olam HaBa. The Sages describe it as something that is definite. If so, why doesn’t this concept settle on one’s heart?

It doesn’t settle upon a person’s heart when his heart is blocked! A person needs to penetrate the blockage through attaining inner purity.

(As we have already mentioned, the words of this derasha are only for maaminim, believers. If someone is not a believer, he needs to hear something else.)

For a person who is a maamin\believer, he needs to realize that This World is not the entire picture, and that the Next World is not an imaginary realm which has no bearings on us now. That is a totally mistaken perspective! If a person views this lifetime (an average of 70 years) as one long journey with nothing that comes after it, he will live a very sad life. The happiness in life is to see our entire journey in life as one long path that brings us closer and closer to Hashem; that is the apex of our 70-year journey.

We are willing to put in a lot of work to get things we want. Anyone who works long hours at a job knows what this feels like. So why can’t we understand, by the same token, that we are investing  70 years of our lifetime, in order to receive eternity afterwards? Anyone who works at a job will use various means in order to get to his goals at the job; nobody works without putting in some kind of effort. The same must go for anyone who is a maamin; he must know why he came onto this world. He does not expect every second that he will reach his purpose in life. Instead, he is investing effort every second, which will bring him to attain his eternity.

We don’t mean to say here that a person should only invest in his spirituality and not try to earn livelihood. Only Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai and other rare individuals like him, were capable of only learning Torah and with no need to pray for livelihood. Those individuals merited to become close to Hashem even without the means of This World. But everyone else needs to invest on this world in order to reach Olam HaBa, just as much, and even more, than how much they are willing to put in hard work when reaching their materialistic goals on This World.

Happiness: Only Through Attaining A Palpable Sense For The Spiritual

After all that we have elaborated upon here, it is now clear how we can have simchas hachaim, a joy in life, and how we can maintain it even as we amidst times of tribulation.

Maybe a person will still counter: “It is understandable that we can still be happy in spite of others’ troubles, but if a person himself experiences something very difficult and traumatic, like if he loses a child, rachmana litzlan – how can he remain happy?” Without a doubt, it is certainly a difficult thing to go through, but the perspective described earlier can be applied to this as well.

Here is a story which wouldn’t happen in our times. It is told of the Chofetz Chaim, after he had just lost a child. Someone came to visit the Chofetz Chaim and he was unaware that the Chofetz Chaim had just lost a son, whose name was Shalom Leib. The visitor asked the Chofetz Chaim, “Where is Shalom Leib?” The Chofetz Chaim responded, “Baruch Hashem, he has gone to yeshiva.” He was referring to the yeshiva in Heaven. These were not mere words. The Chofetz Chaim saw the loss of his child as a temporary departure, as if his son had gone overseas to learn in a yeshiva in America.

If a father doesn’t see or communicate with his son for one or two years, this would not disturb him that much, because in his heart he can feel that his son isn’t that far away from him; especially if he knows that his son is in a good place. But most people, who are not on the level of the Chofetz Chaim, become emotionally disturbed in such a situation.

Olam HaBa does not feel palpable to most people as America does. Even if a person has never been to America, he is much more aware of America than Olam HaBa, which he feels only on an esoteric and distant level. If a father knows that his son is learning in overseas in a yeshiva in America, he can feel that he knows where his son is; he knows that his son can visit him and that he’ll eventually return home. And his son can send him pictures and write letters to him, so he can always feel connected to his son even when his son is away. A person lives in the material world and therefore he seeks connection that is of a material nature.

But when a person becomes elevated, he can receive different and higher understandings. There are higher senses that we have, which can sense the spiritual. There are people who are blind, because they are missing the sense of sight, and there are people are deaf, and people who cannot feel love, and people who cannot hear music; so too are most of us missing a sense for the spiritual. It remains hidden from awareness.

Keeping Torah and mitzvos is the external aspect [of spirituality]. There is an inner aspect, which is “the spiritual sense.” When a person merits to feel this sense, everything that we have explained in this derasha will pass from his mind and into his heart, and he will feel all of this knowledge described here.

Understandably, we cannot begin with feeling. We must first begin with “knowing”, for the verse first states, “And you shall know today”, and then “And you shall settle the matter upon your heart” ­– we need to begin with “knowledge” and then at reach the level where the knowledge is internalized in the heart. Avodas Hashem (serving the Creator) requires a change in our senses. We need to add on another sense onto our five physical senses: the sense for the spiritual.

It is attained through reflection and deep thought, for a long amount of time. One needs to change his thinking patterns, and slowly he can then develop a sense for the spiritual. It takes a long time and, without a doubt, it is not easy.

True simchah is only possible when a person merits to reach this sense for the spiritual: when one’s Torah is not mere knowledge in his brain and his mitzvos are not merely actions performed by his body, and instead his Torah and mitzvos are deep in his heart - as a palpable feeling, and not an imaginary feeling.

Simchas Purim – From Erasing Amalek

Simchah (happiness) is the point of shleimus (completion). As explained earlier, a person is happy when he feels that he has completed something that was lacking. To know and feel the existence of Hashem is not just a knowledge, but a palpable feeling, and this is the shleimus that is simchah. Not to feel Hashem is the greatest form of lacking that one can have, and therefore, feeling Hashem’s existence is the greatest and most complete form of fulfillment and happiness.

The antithesis to simchah is Amalek, who has the same gematria (numerical value in Hebrew) as the word safek, doubt. Doubts are awakened when there are contradictory forces within the person, where a person is being pulled in several different directions, and he cannot decide between them. “Erasing Amalek”, then, means to unify all of the soul’s forces together, so that there are no inner clashes.

Esther sent a message to Mordechai, “Go and gather all the Jews.”[35] The deeper way of understanding this is that the entire “Jew” needs to be gathered together, both his outside and his inside, and to be unified into one piece. Through entering within, a person can connect and unify his inner layers with his outer layers. Then the inner contradictions will cease, and all “doubts” within him will be erased.

This is the simchah of Purim. True simchah is not an external show of joy like dancing in front of a groom and bride. It is an inner kind of joy, and it is a result of inner shleimus (completion). It is an inner reality, where a person feels a sense of completion, and that he lacks for nothing.

True Happiness Is Revealed Only When The Inner Desires Are Fulfilled

It is written, “Wine gladdens the heart of man.”[36] Chazal explain, “When wine enters, the secret exits.”[37] What is the connection between wine, secrets, and happiness?

As explained above, a person has many desires, desires within desires; there are desires that are deep in his subconscious, which he may not be aware of. If a person isn’t used to reflecting, he will believe that his desires are the desires that he is aware of. When those desires become fulfilled, he will become joyous. But if these are external desires that he has, the fulfillment of such desires will cause only a superficial, temporary feeling of happiness. Deep down, he will remain sad and empty. By contrast, if a person’s desires are more inner, the fulfillment of such desires will result in a more inner kind of happiness. If a person merits opening awareness to a more inner point of himself, the fulfillment of those inner desires makes it possible for him to reach a more inner kind of happiness.

Wine causes secrets to exit – when done properly, the intake of wine brings a person to an awareness of the more inner desires present in himself. This is the “secret” that the wine reveals. From that point onward, a person can then fulfill those inner desires, and reach inner, true, happiness.

The Level of Perfect Happiness

Now this will be explained deeper.

The Hebrew word for “happy” is שמח, equal in gematria to the word חמש (five). This shows us that happiness is linked with “five”. What is the connection?

It is as we have explained above. The soul is comprised of five compartments: the Nefesh, the Ruach, the Neshamah, the Chayah and the Yechidah. Most people are experiencing their life through the Nefesh layer of the soul, and they usually do not even recognize the part in themselves that is beyond that, which is the Ruach. And not everyone who is in touch with their Ruach has reached their Neshamah. When a person has not yet uncovered all five layers of his existence, he is lacking in his shleimus (completion).

True shleimus (completion) is when a person has uncovered all five layers of the soul, and after that a person can reach the true d’veykus with Hashem. When one reaches this inner unity in the soul, he is able to integrate his own existence with the Creator. Of the Creator it is said, “Splendor and joy in His place”[38], and in the Midrash it is brought that splendor and joy are one of the ten forms of happiness.[39] The ten forms of happiness there listed are: sasson, simchah, gilah, rinah, ditzah, tzahalah, alizah, chedvah, alizah, and alitzah. A person can only find simchah where he finds Hashem.

Butsimcha is not merely a result of attaining self-perfection. It does not merely result from the sum total of many factors coming together, such as when pages are attached together and a book is formed. That may work in the physical dimension, but not in the spiritual. In the spiritual, completion does not result from merely combining together parts. The neshamah is called “a portion of G-d from above”. Simchah is the completion that one attains in becoming attached to the Creator.

There is a long path to traverse until one attains simchah, and indeed, it is this aspiration which we need to direct ourselves, throughout our life.