The Importance of Peace of Mind for Avodas Hashem
Thought Is Everything
The pasuk at the beginning of our parashah says, יצחק אל אברהם אל וארא יעקב ואל, and I have revealed Myself to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to Yaakov. Says Rashi: האבות אל, to the Avos. These words seem superfluous. For every child knows that Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov are the Avos!
The Sar Shalom of Belz teaches an incredible yesod around these words: The primary emphasis that a person must make in his life is in his mindset, his thought process, his ways of thinking. That is, it is there that his ups and downs take place.... It is in his thoughts that he can truly ascertain where he is in life.
Everything is dependent upon the thoughts. The bittul of a person, the desires of a person, his ability to repair and rectify things, his way of appraising situations around him, and so forth—all of these takes place in the machshavah. Thoughts are the root of all the words a person speaks and the actions a person takes. Indeed, when a person speaks words of lashon hara and rechilus—he is simply revealing his mindset, what’s going on in his mind. It is obvious that he thinks in negative ways about people and things.
This yesod is built upon the Zohar HaKadosh, who says (Zohar, Part 2, 254:2) אתברירו במחשבה הכל, everything is clarified through the mind. And a person can utilize this power of machshavah in many ways... to think about the Ribbono shel Olam, to properly understand and address the challenges and nisyonos in his life, and so forth.
But for a person to build his machshavah and utilize it properly, he must have הדעת יישוב, peace and serenity of mind.
For when a person is stressed and his mind is on overload, he cannot think properly, because he is preoccupied with “putting out fires.” Only when a person has peace of mind is he able to repair his mindset and build a proper way of thinking for himself.
Oppressing the Mind
The klipah of Pharaoh knows this secret, and he invests untold effort in stealing the serenity and peace of mind from Yidden. The yetzer hara will often allow a person to proceed in his avodas Hashem, but at the same time rob him of his peace of mind. He doesn’t always need to tempt a person with the worst of the worst (sometimes he does this, too) but he has other methods to trip up a person, and that is to steal his peace of mind. And once the person can’t think properly, he persists in making many mistakes and retaining incorrect notions.
All the while, the yetzer hara stands on the side with an evil laugh, saying, “This is wonderful. Let’s see how he will look in another year. He won’t be making any positive changes in his life in the coming year; he is simply too preoccupied.”
This was what Pharaoh meant when he said האנשים על העבודה תכבד, intensify the work on the people.... Pharaoh said, “I will trip them up in this way: by intensifying their work. Now they won’t have any time to think... this is wonderful... it’s perfect.”
Stealing Serenity
In our times, we can see the same thing playing out. Even those who speak at length about all the challenges and nisyonos of technology neglect to address the aspect of the yishuv hada’as that is stolen from a person through these gadgets. Were a person to understand how much these distractions affect his avodas Hashem—how deep the error runs—he would understand the choice he must make.
Our society has built an entire program wherein we’re bombarded with news and updates at every moment, disturbing our serenity with nonsense. This acutely affects our avodas Hashem. It’s very straightforward: A person doesn’t have the ability to enjoy his growth in learning, to understand, to learn, to enjoy a thought in avodas Hashem... he doesn’t have the time or the presence of mind, since his brain is constantly jumping from one thing to another.
Finding Freedom
Indeed, when a person—with the help of the Ribbono shel Olam—decides to take back his yishuv hada’as... to take steps, according to his ability, to bring back his serenity... he merits incredible freedom. It’s difficult in the beginning, for his mind is still hungry for the distractions, but afterward he begins to feel the pleasure even in material ways.
The machshavah, as we have noted, builds the entire person, and to build up the power of our machshavah, we must have serenity and harchavas hada’as. The klipah knows this, and it therefore does everything possible to steal serenity from a person. It does so in myriad ways, inviting all kinds of distractions and preoccupations—doing everything so that a person should be obsessed with his problem and issues, and thus be unavailable to understand and appraise what’s happening in the world around him.
The Mind of a Talmid Chacham
When Chazal describe the talmid chacham, they allude to a person who is “preoccupied with Torah learning (see Talmud Bavli, Gittin 6a). His problem is the opposite: He needs eitzos regarding what to do in impure places where one is prohibited from thinking about learning. Furthermore, when Rabbi Zeira was asked how he merited long life, he replied: “Because I didn’t think about Torah in impure places!” It was a nisayon for him... a talmid chacham’s mind wants to constantly think about matters of Torah, and he must restrain himself not to do so where it is improper.
We tend to think that “thinking about learning” refers to complex sugyos in learning. That is true as well! But thinking in Torah means reflecting on and contemplating what Hashem wants from us. Every person has numerous nisyonos and challenges every single day, and he must analyze: What is this about? Where is coming from? Is there a specific reason for this, or is it simply that Hashem generally wants me to grow? How many deep meditations and understandings a person can attain if he were to properly utilize his machshavah!
Were a person to pause for a moment in meditation, he would realize how all the matters of the world are false and foolish. But the yetzer hara won’t allow him to pause and reflect; he increases the “weight of the work” so that a person won’t be able to do so.
Serenity from Above
Continues the Sar Shalom: Moshe Rabbeinu complained to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, הזה לעם הרעות למה, Why have You done evil to this People? זה למה שלחתני, Why have You sent me? והצל הזה לעם הרע בשמך לדבר פרעה אל באתי ומאז עמך את הצלת לא, And from the time that I have come before Pharaoh to speak in Your Name, he did evil to this People, but You did not rescue Your people.
Moshe Rabbeinu was pained by the fact that Klal Yisrael had lost their previous lofty level. Until Pharaoh increased their workload, they were still able to gather and draw strength from one another. Why? Because they still retained their serenity and peace of mind. But now that their serenity had been robbed from them? הזה! לעם הרע heir state has wors-T ened! They cannot contemplate avodas Hashem.
The klipah has the power and the ability to rob a person of his yishuv hada’as, and when he has no peace of mind, he has no ability to think, and he is simply not present! This pained Moshe Rabbeinu as he complained to Hashem: עמך את הצלת לא והצל, How will they ever be able to be redeemed from here, he cried! In order to leave Mitzrayim, one must be a person, a human.... But the Yidden have lost their מח—the defining characteristic of what it means to be a human! If so, how will they ever be able to leave Egypt?
Help from Above
But at that moment, Hashem revealed to Moshe Rabbeinu that if Klal Yisrael find themselves under duress and thus unable to find the presence of mind to awaken themselves (through their actions and awakening down below), HaKadosh Baruch Hu will arouse a Heavenly Desire, in the merit of the holy Avos—gifting them serenity and peace of mind in order to serve Him. The Ribbono shel Olam will send them serenity and peace of mind as a gift, even if they’re undeserving and unworthy, in order for them to know how to begin to reflect and understand how to come closer to their Creator.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu can bring peace of mind in many ways. It doesn’t necessarily need to happen by sending money to the person per se (indeed, when a person has what he needs, his mind is better able to think about G-dliness); it can often be through other means of bringing a person serenity and enabling him to pause and reflect upon his situation.
Heavenly Arousal to Redemption
Chazal (Sanhedrin 98a) tell us regarding the pasuk אחישנה בעתה ה' אני, I am Hashem, in its time I will hasten [the redemption] (Yeshaya 60: 22): If Klal Yisrael merits it, then the redemption will be hastened; if they do not merit it, then בעתה, in its originally intended time. And the question is asked: If Klal Yisrael, chas v’shalom, does not merit redemption, and the originally ordained time arrives, in what merit will they be redeemed?
The answer is that when the time comes to be redeemed, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will inspire within them a spirit of wisdom and understanding, and once they have דעת, they will automatically attain the necessary madreigah to be redeemed.
This is why, the Sar Shalom explains, the word אל is found at the beginning of our parashah יעקב) ואל יצחק אל אברהם (אל—the numerical value of תיקון, rectification—because in the merit of the Avos, the Ribbono shel Olam sends us a spirit of דעת despite our unworthiness.
