One of the most seminal articles written by HaRav Ginsburgh is titled, “A Chapter in Divine Service.” It is taught in length in his Torat Hanefesh school of Jewish psychology in Israel and online (in English) through the Nefesh Academy of Jewish Psychology (www.thenefesh.org). The article is based on the tenet that the most important pair of psychological faculties we have are self-nullification or selflessness and lowliness. The development and strengthening of these two balancing faculties in our psyche make up the rectified being of every individual. In the opening words of the article,
Lowliness, as in the verse, “I am lowly in my own eyes” and Selflessness, as in the verse, “And we are naught” are what comprise the being of a rectified individual.
Selflessness is exhibited in many ways in our psychology, but as the article continues, it is most clearly present if, When you do a good deed, it is not your own doing, for as our sages have taught: “give Him [i.e., G-d] His own, for you and yours are His.”
Selflessness is the experiential form of the sefirah of wisdom, meaning that the more a person’s wisdom is expressed, the less he experiences his ego. As the intensity of the feeling of one’s own ego diminishes it is replaced by an acute awareness of the omnipresence of the Almighty.
The verse quoted “And we are naught,” was said by Moses when faced with the unfounded criticism that the Israelites directed towards him and his brother, Aaron. By criticizing Moses, the Israelites were incorrectly identifying him (and Aaron) as the ones who had taken them out of Egypt and were the ones who were responsible for providing them with sustenance in the wilderness (when the provisions they had taken out of Egypt had run out). Any other person in Moses’ place might have been quick to take the credit for having performed the greatest single act in human history—the Exodus from Egypt—topped with what is perhaps the greatest miracle—the Splitting of the Red Sea—while making some excuse for why they had not yet found a source of alternate sustenance in the wilderness. However, Moses’ response reveals his own inner experience of selflessness before God. Neither he nor Aaron could take credit for these awesome feats, they were, in his language, “but naught,” nothing before God. They were merely God’s messengers; thus, the credit could only be given to the Almighty and not to them. At the same time, Moses did take responsibility for feeding the hungry Israelites, but that is a matter for another discussion.
A person who truly attains selflessness emanates an awareness of the Almighty to everyone around him. It is almost as if he or she has become a placeholder, a symbolic pointer, to the omnipresent holiness of the Almighty.
Selflessness is prone to misdirection by imagination. It is easy for a person to imagine that he is selfless, to imagine that he is aware of the omnipresence of the Almighty, while understanding his own true role. In fact, false images of God, in this sense, lead to the aggrandizement of one’s ego with all the negative effects that it entails. The power of imagination is what man shares with the brute, and indeed is initially identified as a faculty of the animal soul. Only after much refinement can the imagination correctly envision the presence of the Almighty.
The envisioning of God both internally (within every Jew) and externally, in the world, is directly connected to the Divine commandment to build Him a sanctuary. This connection appears in the verse: “They shall make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell within them.” The first time this commandment was performed was by Moses who instructed the Children of Israel in the desert to construct the Mishkan, the desert Tabernacle. The second, more complete instance was performed by King David and his son, King Solomon with the construction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
Like the sanctuary, lowliness (King David’s special quality) and selflessness (Moses’ special quality) function together to create a dwelling place for God within our hearts. But the revelation of God is different in each case. Moses’ desert Tabernacle revealed the Almighty’s singular and unique unity. David and Solomon’s Temple served to reveal that there is no God—no object of worship—other than the Almighty. Indeed, because it begins from the fallen state of sensing and aggrandizing the ego, lowliness focuses our Divine service on how to properly view and rectify the ego. Selflessness though, by completely nullifying any sense of self, any sense of our ego, focuses our consciousness on God as unique and singular, with no reality existing but Him.
