The Power of Lowliness: Why is Everything Holy Acquired Through Suffering?
Lesson No. 129 | Wednesday, Parashas Beshalach, Eve of 9 Shevat 5758 - Lesson at the 'Simcha V'Emunah' Yeshiva (Ein Kerem neighborhood)
An in-depth article explaining why matters of holiness are always accompanied by immense difficulties, while mundane matters come easily. Through the secrets of Kabbalah, it is explained how suffering, concealment, and a sense of lowliness are the only tools to reach true teshuvah (repentance) and to strip off the garments of impurity.
When you approach a wealthy man or a millionaire to ask for a donation for a yeshiva, he always has excuses: "If you had come to me yesterday... just today I already invested everything in the business. Come back in a month and I will give you. You are exactly two days early, the income tax authority just descended upon me, I just had a fire in the store." Anyone you approach will tell you that if you had come yesterday or a week ago, he would have had the money. With every holy endeavor you set out to do, they tell you: "Right now there is nothing, come tomorrow, come in a month, come in a year. You arrived exactly today, you don't know what the situation is today." Suddenly you find some back door, left with only a few pennies just as a reward for your footsteps.
The rule is that every matter of holiness proceeds through hellish suffering. It proceeds through immense agony. Something that proceeds easily – that is from the Sitra Achra (the Other Side, forces of impurity). If you see that you collected the money easily, people gave to you with honor, yeshivas are built in a second, and there are immediately funds – this is not from holiness. A yeshiva that is truly from holiness, a yeshiva that can bring the Geulah (Redemption) and draw closer the light of Mashiach, everything goes with difficulty there.
It goes hard for everyone. Every effort to guard one's eyes is difficult; every time one must close their eyes, it is hellish suffering. To have intention for every word in prayer – what hellish suffering. To sing the Shabbos zemiros (songs), one literally chokes and cannot sing at all. Because if it is in holiness, and it can have an effect in holiness, then everything proceeds with the utmost suffering and the utmost difficulties.
The Ultimate Dust and Ashes
This brings us back to the matter of Mashiach. Mashiach is the ultimate embodiment of dust and ashes. Even if billions of people shout at him: "You are Mashiach!", it will not help at all; he will not believe anyone. Until a person merits to pray with intention, to guard his eyes, to merit a drop of holiness, to understand a piece of Gemara, until a drop of money is collected for the yeshiva or one merits to sing zemiros on Shabbos – all of this proceeds through hellish torment.
Only when a person feels that he is dust and ashes, only then can he merit to have intention in prayer. Only then does he become a free man and merit the ultimate lowliness, so that he thinks nothing of himself. Just like Moshe Rabbeinu who said:
"I am not a man of words, neither yesterday nor the day before."
Moshe Rabbeinu went forty days and forty nights without eating and without drinking. When he arrived at Mount Sinai, he said: "I am nothing, I am the absolute zero, I am not a man of words."
The Ultimate Knowledge is That We Do Not Know
A person asks himself: "Why did I go through such things? Why wasn't I born into a kosher family in Mea Shearim? Why was I thrown into the streets? What did I need to go through these things for? I never wanted this!" The truth is, even at the time of committing sins, the person did not want them. It was all a spirit of folly, like a person drinking poison.
The ultimate knowledge is that we do not know. A person does not know what, who, and why he was sent to such places. And this is the essence of wisdom – that he knows nothing. He says: "I went through such things, I never wanted them, even when I was in the miry depths I did not want it. Why did I need this?"
The wisdom is that everything is hidden from all logic. Nothing in the world can be understood. Why does this one learn in a good, kosher yeshiva, while that one needs to go through all the secular kibbutzim, Dizengoff Street, the Hatikva neighborhood, and the dirtiest neighborhoods in the world? What did he need to go through all this nonsense for? After all, he always felt bad about it, he always felt that it disgusted him and suffocated him. The answer is that there are infinite paths that Hashem determines for souls.
The Rectification of Souls in the Shemoneh Esrei Prayer
The main thing is that when a person reaches the Shemoneh Esrei prayer, he should stand patiently, letter by letter, word by word, and know that Hashem hears his every word. Through the letters of the Shemoneh Esrei prayer, he can atone for all his sins.
How? Through the letters of the prayer, he creates bodies for all the "neshamos artila'in" (naked souls). For from every blemish of the covenant (sexual sin), tens of thousands of naked souls are created. Now, with the letters of the prayer, he creates bodies for those souls, and through this, the blemishes are transformed into merits.
The foundation is "let no man leave his place" – that a person should know where he stands, in the ultimate lowliness. He should say to himself: "Considering what I have gone through, I will walk with my head in the ground. I will not raise my head, I will not speak against any Jew. I feel myself in the ultimate lowliness, that there is no one lower than me."
Stripping Off the Garments of Impurity
The Megaleh Amukos explains an awesome secret: After the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, man became clothed in the garments of the S"M (the Sitra Achra, the forces of impurity). Before the sin, Adam and Chava shone like the sun, but after they listened to the voice of the snake, man became clothed in garments of impurity.
Therefore, the issue is not just "returning in teshuvah (repentance)" in the regular sense. We need to do true teshuvah, to shed tears like water, to walk with our heads bowed to the ground day and night until our last day. Who knows if he will gain atonement?
Moshe Rabbeinu, who never sinned, never opened his eyes to look at this world, and never had an evil thought, says to the Master of the Universe: "I haven't done teshuvah yet! Why are You sending me? I haven't done teshuvah." So if the true tzaddik knows that he hasn't done teshuvah yet, can we be called baalei teshuvah (masters of repentance)?
A person walks around in the illusion that he is a baal teshuvah. The fact that he keeps Shabbat and puts on tefillin is very good; he will be less liable for karet (spiritual excision) and severe punishments, but this is still not called being a baal teshuvah. A true *baal teshuvah* needs to shed tears like water. To wake up for Chatzos (midnight prayer), to shed tears in a quiet corner where no one sees, until he transforms his entire body and strips off the garments of impurity.
To be a true baal teshuvah is to go into the innermost chambers, to recite Likutey Tefilos and Tehillim (Psalms) with tears, until his entire body is transformed. Because nothing in the world can transform the body—only tears, prayers, weeping, lowliness, and humility. This must be done without any thought of greatness, but rather out of a complete recognition of man's nothingness before his Creator.
Part 2 of 4 — Lesson No. 129