Sod HaTaanug #1 – What Are We Truly After?6 min read

This series, of which installments will be”H be posted twice weekly, is adapted from an English translation of Rav Itche Meir Morgenstern shlita’s sefer Yam HaChochmah. This foundational pamphlet, “Sod HaTaanug”, presents a deep perspective on our desire for pleasure and the intense battle with the yetzer hara our generation is fighting before the coming of Moshiach. We hope you enjoy these essays, and please remember to share with family and friends!

Introduction

The neshamah – the soul or the spiritual essence that’s inside every Jew – is seeking pleasure and fulfillment. We can all perceive the extent to which we desire pleasure. We all want to “feel good” – we want to enjoy ourselves, we want to be serene, we want to feel alive, we want to be happy.

So a person opens up his eyes in order to look around and see where he will get pleasure, and what does he find? Taavos – the various lusts, desires, and cravings of the body. Taavos have a certain attraction about them, and they seem exciting. But here’s where a person is in for a shock. Because the more a person gives in to the taavos, he feels less and less fulfilled. He has brief pleasure, and soon afterwards there is always a horrible, empty feeling that follows.

So a person says, “I know what to do about this: I’ll enjoy even more taavos! I will keep experiencing more and more physical sensations and pleasure, and maybe then it’ll feel really good.” But what happens? Exactly the opposite of what he imagined! The more he felt pulled after the desire, the more disappointed he is afterwards.

This leads a person to two gnawing questions.

Firstly, one asks himself: “Why? Why don’t I feel fulfilled and satisfied from all of these pleasures I experience?”

Secondly: “What can I do about this? How do I satisfy my soul that is craving something so badly?”

The Pleasure we are Truly Searching For

The reason why lusts and desires leads to disappointment is because you are Hashem’s child, and He has given you a G-dly soul, a spiritual entity, and the soul in you is not able to be satisfied from physical pleasures. Your soul is spiritual and it comes from Above, so it does not enjoy physicality. Just like an animal enjoys straw and hay while a person does not enjoy eating it, despite the fact that the very same food is indeed enjoyed by the animal, so is the G-dly soul within us (our neshamah) forever unsatisfied from physical pleasures. Although there’s an “animal” level to our soul which does enjoy these physical desires (called the nefesh habehaimis), the G-dly part of our soul (nefesh Elokus) does not.

The satisfaction and fulfillment which your soul is searching for is found in one thing alone: The pleasure of sensing Elokus, G-dliness. To feel the Creator! Only when a person merits to connect himself with Elokus, which is called the “G-dly light” (ohr Eloki), can his soul finally find the pleasure that it wants. Only then will his soul feel good, and only then will his soul find its fulfillment. This is because we are created for pleasure, the true pleasure; the pleasure and bliss of sensing Hashem’s Presence, which is the only true pleasure that exists.

Two Questions

You might be saying, “Okay, fine, I hear that. But I have some questions. First of all, even if you are right, this all sounds true only for tzaddikim, for people who are righteous and saintly, who are on a very high spiritual level. But me? I cannot spend the entire day learning, and I have already committed so many aveiros (sins). How can I reach the level you are describing when I’m so far from Hashem – when I can’t even feel Hashem at all?”

And another question: “If you’re right – that the only true pleasure on this world is to feel Hashem’s presence – then why I am so pulled after taavos? If my neshamah doesn’t want those taavos, then why doesn’t that prevent me from wanting those taavos?”

Hashem Is With You At All Times

So you are thinking, “How can I – with all of the aveiros that I have done – be successful, in getting closer to Hashem and enjoying a relationship with Him? Haven’t all of my aveiros made so far from Hashem?”

The answer is simple. You are not far from Hashem. To the contrary, you are very, very close to Him. There is no one closer to you than the Creator. This is because our closeness with Hashem is a reality that never changes, and it does not depend on any factors. You must know that Hashem not only created the universe in the past, but He continues to renew it every moment, re-creating it anew. He keeps flowing His energy into the universe to sustain it. Not only does He allow you to exist, He keeps renewing you. So He is always with you. He is making for you a new neshamah, every moment. This is true about all creations, but it specifically applies to a Jew, because the Jewish nation are the people who are meant to reveal the Creator upon the world. Every Jew is a prince of the King, as the Torah says, “And you are children to Hashem your G-d.” Any normal father loves his child, no matter what the child has done. In the same way, Hashem is waiting for you to connect to him. He is waiting for you to turn to him and to feel Him.

Connection To Hashem – The True Pleasure

This is what the neshamah is longing for – only for this! And it is so simple, and so good, and so enjoyable: “Taste it and see, that Hashem is good.” The moment a person connects to the Creator – in any situation – the neshamah finds its fulfillment. The fulfillment, satisfaction, and pleasure that we are searching for is only found in this!! In connecting to the Creator. As for all of the evil and forbidden pleasures and lusts of this world – they are just empty acts that don’t satisfy us.

The question thus begs: Why do we feel such a strong pull towards taavos, if our neshamah doesn’t really want those taavos?

The answer to this is that everything in Creation contains a “G-dly spark” (nitzotz Eloki) in it, which is really Hashem’s light that He places into each creation. This light, also called the “G-dly spark”, is what empowers each thing and enables it to continue existing. It is like the battery in a clock – without the battery, the clock doesn’t turn. Whenever we feel a pull towards something that’s evil, we are not really being pulled towards the evil itself. This is because evil has no reality in and of itself. Evil is entirely illusory. If so, what are we being attracted to when we want to engage in something forbidden? We we are being pulled towards the “G-dly light” that exists in that place, to the good that is within it, to the “G-dly spark” that’s contained in the lust. That is what’s making us feel drawn towards the craving.

Now, the spark of good hidden within what we’re feeling attracted to is wrapped, clothed, and covered over by a kelipah, a “shell” – something in our physical world that’s covering the spiritual spark underneath it. We don’t see the “G-dly spark”, because it’s invisible, we can’t tell that it’s there at all. Therefore, when we feel pulled after a lust or a particular desire or physical enjoyment on this world, we mistakenly think that the physical act of the pleasure contains the pleasure that we want, while in reality, it is the G-dly spark that we are feeling attracted to. In essence, we are getting scammed every time. The pleasure will only come from experiencing the “G-dly spark”, not from any physical sensation. It is only the G-dly spark of something that our neshamah is interested in, and nothing else. We get fooled by the external wrapper of what we’re after, thinking that the kelipah will give us the enjoyment that we want. But this is all a trap, because the kelipah has nothing good to offer us at all. When people allow themselves to sin when they’re vulnerable, they take the enjoyment that the kelipah is offering them, thinking that this act will give them enjoyment. But in the end, they are always left disappointed. Initially, they feel pleasure as they are sinning, because they began to touch the sparks of G-dliness found in the pleasure which is what grants them the real feeling of pleasure. However, the spark of G-d immediately falls away from them, and it is gone. The spark is the Creator’s light, and it cannot be attained through doing a sin. The only way to receive true pleasure and to hold onto it – the only way to attain the G-dly spark and to reach the pleasure found in it – is by overcoming the lust. Real pleasure is only attained when we simply overcome the feeling of lust and withhold from committing the act of sin.

To the extent that we refuse to following the offer of the kelipah, realizing that the pleasure in the kelipah is pseudo-pleasure and that it’s not real at all, we are killing the evil that exists there. When we are aware that the pleasure there is false, we take way the kelipah’s energy, and then the G-dly spark trapped within is freed. It then it enters into the person who freed it [that’s you, the one who overcame the desire!]. That is why we always feel good after we overcome a temptation. We feel a certain joy and pleasure that can’t be described. During the moments of temptation, it is a difficult struggle, and our yetzer hora is pulling us towards the desire, but when we understand and realize that it’s all false pleasure and not real, and we overcome the desire , saying “No” to ourselves – we will then feel an awesome, amazing bliss at having overcome the temptation. It is precisely through overcoming temptation, that we are able to retrieve the G-dly spark contained in the evil/illusory pleasure.

To be continued…