Elul 1 - Thoughts on Car Design and Brisker Mussar

Have you ever been driving down the road when somebody suddenly honks at you for no good reason? Perhaps they thought you cut them off, when really there was more than enough room for you to pass them safely, or they incorrectly thought that you were driving too slow, or they were too impatient to wait one minute as you pulled over to the side of the road to drop off a passenger.

When I'm in such situations, I sometimes wonder about the prospect of car companies adding a horn to the back of cars, so that people would not have to silently absorb the high-pitched abuse of a car horn behind them. Given a second horn installed on top of their trunk, they would be able to respond with a honk of their own, pointing out to their attacker that they do not accept the insinuation of wrongdoing on their part, but rather were the model of a perfect driver, despite the misplaced insult which they were subjected to.

Like many other inventions, a rear car horn is an innovation which is clearly better off not existing. Could you imagine the road rage that such an automobile feature would encourage, and the horn-honking battles that would ensue? Instead, one who is the victim of a car honk is left with no effective reciprocal recourse save to tuck their tails under their rear wheels and to keep driving. The situation of driving a car is a perfect setting for such a submissive response to an attack, being that, as one will never again interact with one's attacker, there cannot be any rationalizations of a need to respond to an insult in order to save face, and that it is relatively easy to evade an attacker by changing lanes, slowing down for a few seconds, or merely keeping your eyes on the road and not paying attention to the lunatic yelling at you through his and your car windows.

One evening when I was in yeshiva years back, the line for the main course at dinner was rather long, so I decided to fill my plate with bread, cucumbers, and cheese instead, and to go to pick up my portion of pizza at a later point. When I went to get my portion later on, the Romanian doling out the food refused to give me, claiming that I had already received. As I protestingly explained to him that I hadn't yet received my portion, the Israelis who were standing nearby all jumped to my aid and began to argue with the server. Thus outnumbered, the server conceded and gave me my portion of pizza, before letting off as a parting shot, "Ata shakran". Offended, I began to vociferously argue anew with the server, before one of the older Israelis pulled me aside, and said to me, "What do you care what he says?". The propriety of my having put myself into a situation where I would be thus suspected can be left as an exercise to the reader, but I realized that the older bochur was right - while arguing would make me feel better, it would not convince the server of my truthfulness, and thus it was not worthwhile for me to press the issue.

If I understand correctly, Brisk was/is known for an antipathy towards the mussar movement, claiming instead that "der bester Mussar seifer iz a blatt gemara". Nonetheless, it seems that one can learn out a very deep lesson utilizing the classical cheftza/gavra dichotomy that epitomizes the Brisker derech of learning. Too often, we find our actions driven by forces exerted by other people and a need to respond to their actions against us. Ultimately, though, we bear the sole responsibility for our actions. When faced with a challenge to avoid engaging in strife, taking revenge, using insults, or other interpersonal sins, our opposite can be considered as a cheftza d'issura. Much as a chunk of pork is a cheftza that enables one to be oveir an issur bein adam laMakom, the person whom we have the option to retaliate against is also a cheftza that enables us to be oveir issurim bein adam lachaveiro, opposite our own personal gavra who is responsible to do mitzvos and not to do aveiros. A gavra is capable of acting on a cheftza; it's silly and sort of sad when a gavra allows himself to be acted upon by a cheftza.

Of course, one should not make oneself into a shmata; there is a time for everything, and sometimes a harsh response is permitted, or even encouraged. Nonetheless, it should be borne in mind that in the supplication following Sh'moneh Esrei, we pray before HaShem, "V'limkalelai nafshi tidom, v'nafshi ke-afar lakol tihyeh" - May my soul be silent before those who curse me, and may my soul be like dust before all. Do we truly see value in this attitude and pray that we be given assistance in achieving this level, or are we uttering false platitudes in our tefillah?

Life is Autocatalytic

Mi-dei dab'ri bichvodecha homeh libi el dodecha; al kein adabeir b'cha nichbados v'shimcha achabeid b'shirei y'didos - Whenever I speak of Your glory, my heart yearns for Your love; therefore, I shall speak gloriously of You, and shall honor Your name with songs of love.

These two lines of An'im Z'miros by R' Yehuda HaLevi express a very powerful truth that is essential in achieving one's potential in avodas HaShem, or for that matter, most other areas of life. We are taught that one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah. Hence, as soon as one does one positive action, one is more likely than not to be driven to perform another positive action, thus creating a cascade of mitzvos. Although the same is said regarding sins, that one sin leads to another, the two cascades become assymmetrical by virtue of the concept of repentance, which allows one to counteract the latter sequence (as well as to curtail the existent length of this sequence). This being the case, as time approaches infinity in an ideal world, one should tend towards performing only mitzvos. However, experience indicates that this is surely not the case.

The systemic factor that accounts for this deviation from expected behavior is frictional dissipation. Although the performance of one mitzvah increases the likelihood of the performance of another, if one does not immediately convert this potential into action, the advantage is lost. In a similar vein, falling victim to one transgression predisposes one to fall victim to another transgression; bad feelings breed bad feelings. One must therefore strive to break out of this vicious cycle of defeat before it begins to snowball.

That which was is that which shall be, and that which was done is that which shall be done. With dissipation of the positive on the one hand and positive feedback of the negative on the other often conspiring to thwart one's efforts, the only hope for a person to succeed is to consciously fight against these two trends.

For an expansion of the latter idea as summarized from Sichos Mussar, see my post at http://haprozdor.blogspot.com/2006/03/ki-tisa-2.html .

Ki Tisa 2

I was browsing through my new copy of Sichos Mussar by R' Chaim Shmulevitz earlier this week, and saw that he has a piece on the Cheit Ha-Eigel. He asks what is probably one of the most popular questions on a parsha in Chumash - namely, what's up with the calf? How can people who just 6 weeks ago heard HaShem speak to them suddenly turn and build an idol? There are many answers given to this question, such as that it was only meant as an replacement for Moshe and that it was only 3000 bad eggs who were looking for an excuse to worship avodah zarah. R' Shmulevitz has an interesting take on the matter.

He quotes the gemara in Chagiga in which Rebbi, when reading from Megillas Kinos, accidentally drops it, and exclaims, "From a great height to a deep pit!" R' Shmulevitz explains the significance of this statement by contrasting a book with a person. A book, when it falls, can be damaged by the impact. However, it does not inherently suffer from its displacement from a high place to a low place. A human being, on the other hand, not only can be injured from the impact, but also simply from the change in location. It was this dual injury that led Bnei Yisroel to sin with the eigel. When the Satan misled them into thinking that Moshe died in heaven, it had a cataclysmic effect on them, that led them into a downwards tailspin that they were unable to break out of until they hit rock bottom, worshipping avodah zara.

R' Chaim contrasts this to the downfall of Shlomo. He quotes a midrash whose location (Koheles Rabbah?), context, and exact wording escape me, but it goes something like "Shlomo started out ruling over the entire world, then part of the world, then over Eretz Yisroel, and finally he only ruled over his staff." R' Shmulevitz notes the significance of this last clause. Even when Shlomo had frightening downfall, he refused to let himself hit rock bottom, but rather maintained his mida of malchus at the very least over his own staff. This alone could be seen as a very minor distinction from ruling over nothing at all, but to the contrary, it was this small elevation from rock bottom, this small measure of maintaining self-control, that enabled him to ultimately return to his full powers. Had the Jews been able to stop their downfall at any point, they never would have fallen to such a depth. However, as they kept falling further and further down, there was nothing to stop them from reaching this low level.