Part II. Illuminating your Mind
The First Rung
Now, zehirus we commonly translate as ‘being careful’. And in general it’s true; zehirus means to be on guard. Hishamru lachem! Watch out! Because this world is not such a simple world; it requires caution. You must look where you're going. When? All the time. On the street, in the home, in the shul. You can never lean back and relax and let things slide. You have to do everything with zehirus, with care and caution.
But actually it’s not exact, that translation. Because technically speaking the word zehirus comes from the word zohar, illumination. It’s similar to צֹהַר תַּעֲשֶׂה לַתֵּבָה – make a light in the teivah (Bereishis 6:16). It’s the same word; tzohar, zohar. It means illumination. And so the first rung on the ladder, zehirus, really means to illuminate the mind. Because in order to be careful it is essential for the mind to have a clarity of understanding; what am I doing in this world, where am I headed.
Make the U-Turn
So a man says, “What do you mean ‘Where am I headed’? I'm an Orthodox observant Jew. I'm headed straight towards Gan Eden.”
That's what you think. But ask your local synagogue rabbi – well, him not; he wants to keep you as a member. So ask the rabbi of the other synagogue, the one you don't attend. He'll tell you where you’re headed. It could be you’re headed off a cliff.
And the only way to turn around and head in the right direction is by means of thinking. It’s impossible otherwise. You can’t be a zahir, you can’t illuminate your mind, without time for meditation.
Jewish Meditation
Now I understand that meditation is out of style today. Who meditates today? Maybe a hermit. Or a fakir from India. But, my friends, it makes no difference what you say. What matters is what the Navi says. שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם עַל דַּרְכֵיכֶם – You must put your mind on your path (Chagai 1:7). A Jew meditates! If a person is not going to take out some time to think things over, he'll never get anywhere in life. There is no progress in zehirus unless the mind is employed.
Now when we say ‘mind’ it's not being intended in the way mathematicians use their minds, or doctors or accountants. These people may be very proficient with their minds, nevertheless their minds are not really active. They're only like specialized machines.
Let's say if you buy a tape recorder, it can do one thing. It can record. It cannot beat eggs for you. It cannot make toast for you. They're specialized machines. Same thing, this accountant. He’s a specialized thinker. He knows all the loopholes to keep your money out of the hands of the government. He can calculate the things he's been taught to calculate, the various deductions and expenses. But to make an accounting of himself, it could be he knows nothing at all.
Yourself! That’s what you have to think about most! And that’s what the Mesillas Yesharim (Perek 3) says: צָרִיךְ הָאָדָם לִהְיוֹת מִתְבּוֹנֵן בְּשִׂכְלוֹ תָּמִיד בִּזְמַן קָבוּעַ לוֹ ... לְהִתְבּוֹנֵן עַל מַעֲשָׂיו – a man must always be consulting his mind, constantly and at set intervals ... to think about himself, his behavior and actions.
The Main Mafsid
Now, the Mesillas Yesharim lists various mafsidim there, various obstacles to climbing this first rung of thinking, of ‘illumination’; but the one that he says is most prevalent is hatipul vehatirdah – busyness. The most general of all the obstacles is being too busy. The plain truth is that most people are too busy to think. In order for a person to understand his way in the world, he must have some leisure; he must have time to think.
Otherwise he is not going to understand anything about the world and about Torah. He won’t understand anything about the Afterlife and all the great Torah attitudes. And most important he won’t know anything about himself; about his relationship to his fellow man and about his relationship to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, his relationship to the Next World. He'll understand nothing at all because it's something that requires a great deal of thought.
It's a pity that this subject is relegated to a vest pocket activity. I'm talking even about people who are interested in it – those who are not don't even have a vest pocket for it – but even the good people are willing only to give a little time to this once in a while; and that's a fatal error because it needs much time!
A Man of This World
And if you become an ish ha’adamah, if you get overly involved in this world, you’ll never be able to do it. If you’re busy with farming, with planting vines – even if it’s for a very good purpose – you’ll inevitably stumble.
And it doesn’t mean only farming. Could be you're not a husbandry man, you're not a farmer. Farming is just one way of accomplishing things, of cutting out a career for yourself in life and making a living. But it makes no difference.
Let's say you’re a researcher in chemistry. A researcher who works in a laboratory and he's looking for the secrets of matter that will help mankind and give him parnasah too, the same thing. He comes home from the laboratory and he takes along with him all of his thoughts. He's still thinking of the formulae; he's thinking of the possibilities of the discoveries he might make and that fills his mind even when he's home. When he goes to bed and arises, that man is enslaved to his career.
And a plumber and a factory man and a mother busy with her children, same thing. Even a yeshiva man in the kollel he’s not immune; everyone can have the same problem. No time to think! It’s the scourge of mankind.
Gadgets and Hobbies
But not only a job, a career. It doesn't mean only that people have a lot of work to do. Even if they work only five days a week and six hours a day or less, but after hours they have a lot of other things to do. People are busy all the time with gadgets. You don't see people sitting on the steps anymore or walking in the streets. You don't see that anymore.
So at night you could say it's due to the judges. The liberals with their bail laws make sure that decent people stay off the streets at night. But by day too – Sundays, legal holidays – we don't see people on the streets.
You know once upon a time people sat on steps. When I was a boy, at night the whole block, all the steps on the block, were occupied by people sitting there. It doesn't mean that they were engaged in the big mitzvos. They weren’t osek baTorah, in zehirus, but people had time. Today everybody is busy. Busy with what? Go find out. They're speeding with the car, in this direction and that direction.
A Busy Home
Some people are especially foolish and even into their homes they bring things intended to keep them too busy for contemplation, for success.
Here, you have a woman who has a special room that is dedicated for her hobby. She has a Turkish Room; she has all types of Turkish things in that room. And it’s her pride and joy; she takes her guests into that room to show them the Turkish tablecloth, the Turkish cups and the Turkish pictures.
Now, that is a waste of a life. You are wasting your life on zero. One hundred percent zero! The money was thrown out in the garbage! I was once in a man’s house, and he took me into his room where he had his coin collection. He was showing me his African coins, and his Chinese coins. I was thinking, “I don’t see anything in it. All I see is a waste of money.”
But money is the least of the problems. What about the time that is being thrown out? It takes time to have African coins and Turkish cups. Not only money is being thrown out but time and thoughts are being thrown out in the garbage. How can a person decide to waste his life on hobbies, on extraneous things, when he needs time to climb the ladder of perfection? Who has time for collecting stamps? Fishing? You’ll spend your Sundays fishing?
A Busy Calculated Life
So if you go out of here tonight and you say, “Rabbi Miller made nothing out of hobbies,” it’s the truth. And spread the good word. Now I’m not saying that a person can’t do things for relaxation. I told you once about the sefer, Shevet Mussar. Shevet Mussar is a very strict mussar sefer; he talks there a lot about onshim, punishments. But he tells you that if necessary, you can even go to parks and walk in the gardens. But who says you have to climb mountains and explore by camping in national parks?
So you’ll speak to someone who knows you, a talmid chochom, and you’ll make a judgement, what yes, what no. But the rule remains the rule: the most prevalent of all the causes of forgetting about your purpose in life is busyness.
The world is full of tendencies and these tendencies come in a man’s life and they take his mind off of his main purpose in life. And today especially we have to know that we are being hampered by the most frequent of all obstacles, the obstacle of hatipul vehatirdah. We’re too busy to think.
