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Urgency, Importance, and the Yeitzer

Rabbi Ephraim Becker wrote in a reply to a comment on one of his posts:

The Yetzer hijacks our urgency (we get more excited about playing with the latest PDA than about getting up and putting on Tefillin) and leaves us struggling with trying to uphold rules that do not move us - only the guilt remains.

Two comments later he elaborates:

Simply put, the Yetzer operates with the ancient principle that nature abhors a vacuum. A person’s mind is going to be filled with something that excites him (be that a positive, productive endeavor or a negative self-destructive one) or, when there is fear of the ‘excitement’ (as when a person is afraid to confront him or herself) then there is numbness. The Yetzer is always alert for such emptyness and offers the person here-and-now excitement in an attempt to distract the person from here-and-now growth and closeness to HaShem. In that sense the Yetzer hijacks our urgency. That is one of the reasons that it is so important to visit and revisit our urgencies and why the masters of Mussar advocated avoiding unnecessary urgency or excitement. Urgency and excitement are precious commodities, to be used with caution and purpose.

Thinking about the yeitzer hara in terms of urgency...

Time management experts point out our habit of confusing the urgent with the important. Picture being a salesman in a store, helping a customer. You get a call, and after quickly assessing the caller, you learn it's a potential customer asking about a product. Who is the higher priority? It should be the person who is interested enough in buying that they came to your store. But since the phone call rings, and demands immediate attention (urgency), we very often fall into the trap of keeping the customer waiting for the call -- in a way that may well cost you the sale. As opposed to politely putting the caller on hold.

The yeitzer is out there seeking immediate gratification. Therefore is it surprising that it too creates that sense of urgency that we so often allow to override our real priorities?

Birkhas Ahavah

The Tefillah: Beyond the Words shiur resumed this week, picking up where we left off, with birkhas Ahavah.

Some of the topics discussed:

• Two dimensions for discussing a middah: "Ahavah Rabba" and "Ahavas Olam"
• How those dimensions are reflected in the structure of the berakhah as a whole
• What is love?
• The avos: Three models for how to express love
• The progression from ahavah (love) to chemlah (pity) to chein (unearned giving)
• The Torah as chuqei chaim (the law for living)
• What do we mean by qiyum hamitvah?

Anu ma'amirekha ve'Atah ma'amireinu

Anu ma'amirekha ve'Atah ma'amireinu. Artscroll renders this line from the machzor as referring to we as Hashem's designated, and Him as our designator.

I would like to suggest a different translation. The mishnah says that Hashem created the world with "eser ma'maros -- ten utterances". Ma'amar means utterances, and in particular, Chazal associate it with the ten statements through which Hashem created the world. Existence is words. The Ba'al Shem Tov stresses that the idea is speech, not writing. Texts are written, and then continue to exist afterward. Spoken words exist as long as they are being spoken. For light to exist now, it means that Hashem is still saying the words "yehi or" even today. The words themselves are the phenomenon we call light.

I therefore believe the relationship described is "We are your statement, and You are the One Who speaks us."

Selach lanu, Mechal lanu, Kaper lanu

Caveat: Most of these entries are extrapolations from something I learned. In this case, the entry is a chidush on top of an earlier chidush.

In Mesilas Yesharim, the Ramchal describes the various types of yir'ah (awe / fear). (This is the topic of an earlier entry.) The first is (1) yir'as ha'onesh, fear of punishment. This is in distinction to true yir'as shamayim. Yir'as Shamayim comes in two forms: (2) yir'as hacheit, fear of the sin itself and its impact on our relationship with Hashem; and (3) yir'as haromemus, awe of the magnitude of Hashem, compared with our limited selves.

In Vidui, we ask for three things: selichah, mechilah and kaparah. According to Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch these are in descending order -- selichah is full repair of the sin, whereas kaparah is the containment of its punishment. I would like to suggest an explanation of the terms consistent with the Avudraham's position that they are an ascending sequence.

According to his opinion, selichah is being pardoned from any due punishment.

Mechilah is forgiveness. There are no ill feelings remaining from the act.

Kaparah is from the same root as "kapores", the cover of the Aron. It's the containment of the inclination that lead to the sin. This also explains the verse "Ki bayom hazeh yechapeir aleichem litaher eschem mikol chatoseichim, lifnei Hashem tit-haru -- for on this day, it will provide kaparah for you to make you tahor, before Hashem you will become tahor" links kapparah to taharah. Taharah, purity, is freedom from adulterations, negative habits inculcated into the soul. (See my earlier entry on the subject of taharah.) Kaparah, then is their containment. Beyond pardon from punishment and restoration of the relationship, but a healing of the very self.

These three stages parallel the three types of yir'ah described above. Selichah, pardon from punishment, is a resolution of the sinner's yir'as ha'onesh.

The one with yir'as hacheit, someone who values His relationship with the Creator is concerned with the impact of his actions on that relationship. That concern is resolved through mechilah, a restoration of that relationship.

Kaparah is the containment of personal flaw. A step toward closing that gap between my finite self and the romemus, the greatness of the A-lmighty.