Rabbi Yuhanan Mesilat Yesharim 1.17-1.19 (1)

book and we're on page 100 this is chapter 1.17. another kind of tikkun is recognizing the purpose of life we said that we came into this world in order to fix something we call it tikkun one kind of tikkun we said don't do damage the second kind of tikkun is to emulate Hashem and to introduce the knowledge of Hashem into the world and character of Hashem to behave the way Hashem does to show example to others now on page 100 117 the next tikkun is purpose of life the villagon in his safer eventually man makes the following remark man's main function in life is to break his midot his character traits to improve his character traits and if he does not do that then why should he live since we came for this purpose and if a person does not fulfill it then he came for nothing why should he live you may ask why shouldn't he live he gives sadaka he learns Torah he does many things but the vilnegaon says that if an angry man doesn't learn how to cool down and become moderate or a haughty man doesn't want to learn humility if he isn't going to change his nature then why should he live this is a remarkable statement what about all of his other achievements and the answer is that we are judged according to not the quantity but the quality we are judged according to the difficulty in performing a particular action if something is easy for me then I get very little reward you can say that Hashem implanted in me the good trait so there's no um married on my own Hashem gave me a talent to be kind to be patient to be pleasant and therefore I cannot ask for the word because this is what Hashem gave me and therefore uh Hashem gives us a few things that are difficult for our own benefit those things that are difficult if we overcome them then we're gonna get a lot of reward because they were difficult but if a person runs away from difficult things in life then he is picking up Penny's relative to what he can beginning diamonds the person for whom giving charity is is easy he may be giving a lot of Charity but it's an easy act for him it's a good act he should do it but giving charity is easy for that particular man and therefore the reward is relatively low for some other person giving charity is difficult so for him every time a poor person approaches he almost has a heart attack and he has to calm himself down and remember the Hashem is in charge of money and he has to strengthen his amuna and force his hand into his pocket and take out a quarter and give it to the poor person such a man gets great reward for every quarter that he gives so the first man might be giving charity no problem but he is angry arrogant and the other man might also be angry and arrogant a little bit but he overcomes his uh greediness yes he didn't overcome everything he still has some haughtiness and some uh anger but one difficult thing he achieved and therefore yes he didn't fulfill his entire Mission but when he comes to Allah Hashem is going to say you lived your life with a purpose you achieved something precious you overcame one character trade whereas this guy he did meets what that were easy and the difficult ones he avoided and on the outside they seem the same they're both angry they're both haughty and they're both given sadaka but for one of them giving sadaki is easy though one of them is hard and therefore there's a great difference between them so rabamila says the answer is a person must achieve a transformation of character the Torah says this is an example how the Torah expects us to change our character when you see the donkey of your enemy and your enemy needs help to unload the donkey or to load it you should help him unload it why does the Torah emphasize that it's your enemy's donkey why not if you see a donkey of a Jew of your fellow like it says you should love your fellow like yourself why doesn't say here if you see a donkey of your fellow the Torah says no even if you see the donkey of your enemy the gemara answers because it's more important to bend your nature yes Hashem wants you to do the Mitzvah of helping your friend that's a Mitzvah to help a Jew but it's a much greater mitzvah to help your Jew your your your fellow Jew who is your enemy that's much greater you might be helping a hundred friends but when you go and help one enemy you get more reward for it because you have to overcome your nature and the vilna Gown says that if your attitude is that's how I am don't bother me there you have passed a sentence on yourself why should he live we live in order to change and if a person says just accept me the way I am that's who I am don't try to change me that's who I am and that's why I'm going to be so that means that the rest of his life is not worth living because he doesn't want to achieve anything and now we go to page 101 chapter 1.18 the means and the means by which a person can reach this goal and the goal again is to receive ultimate pleasure which comes in the next World and therefore this world is a an opportunity to earn the Eternal reward and eternal pleasure infinite pleasure in the next world the means by which a person can reach this goal is by doing mitzvot which means what those which Hashem has commanded us to fulfill this is very important because people find it easier and more exciting to do things that are not obligatory people say oh let me do this let me do that and you say yeah but you have other obligations yeah it's okay my obligations are going to wait that's not interested that's boring let me do exciting things I want to volunteer for this organization and I want to do this and I want to help this person and you say yeah but you are ignoring your obligations that Hashem asked you to do first do what Hashem asked you and then do for example there are some ladies who want to learn Gamora and put on Teflon and pray with the minion okay these are nice things but you ask them but did you get married yet and she says no no it's okay I want to come close to Hashem I want to learn gamara and put on tefili and pray with me and you say yeah but Hashem wants you to get married have children raise the children on the right path take care of your household of your husband and she says yeah yeah that's gonna wait first I wanna do for myself oh so you don't want to come close to Hashem you want to just do what you want if you want to come close to Hashem and earn Eternal reward the next World first do what Hashem is asking you and then run for extras and and it's the same even more applies to men who run to do extraneous extracurricular activities at the expense of basic obligations there are two kinds of meat sword Robert Miller says there are the myths what that are in the Torah and there are mitzvot that are in our mind in the intellect which means certain principles are binding because they are intellectually imperative and therefore do not need to be derived from the Torah itself Hashem created the world and he put us in it and he gave us a mind that he designed and our mind works according to logic and we look at the world and we can figure out what needs to be done certain things are proper it makes sense and we therefore are obligated to follow our own logic and we sometimes feel that something is wrong we don't know why and then we find out that yes that's the wrong thing to do or it feels right even though we didn't read it anywhere but we feel it's right and then we ask advice they say yes this is the right thing to do the gamara asks if there is a scriptural source for the fundamental legal principle foreign yeah you can call it intuition logic common sense does it make sense that if you demand something from your friend you have to bring proof that he owes it to you is that a logical principle that talmud says if I want my friend to pay I have to prove that he owes me and the Gamora suggests a source from the Torah but that rejects it even the necessity of the source and says why do I need a verse from the Torah to prove it it is simple logic from there we learned that anything that can be derived by logical law is sufficient to obligate us and we don't need the Torah to tell us that it is required and therefore the Torah gives us are something that we wouldn't even think about for example the Torah says don't curse a deaf person don't curse a person who cannot hear you now in with our intellect we might not have come up with such a Prohibition because we might say if the person doesn't hear my curse then it shouldn't bother him what did I do wrong I said a bad word but he didn't hear me so I didn't hurt him and the Torah says no I'm gonna teach you something that you yourself might not know and that is even if a person cannot hear you you're still not allowed to say anything negative towards him and everything else we derive through logic of course if I cannot curse even a person who cannot hear me then certainly I cannot curse a person who can't hear me but the Torah doesn't need to tell me don't curse somebody who can hear you of course that's obvious I shouldn't hurt people I shouldn't call them names if they hear me the Torah gives us something we wouldn't think about and that is don't curse even the person who cannot hear you even behind his back the mid sword based on the intellect are just as obligatory as the mitzvot that are in homash this is what the verse means your commandment is exceedingly why this is a verse in tehilim what does it mean Hashem your Commandments are so wide there are only 613 Commandments yes it's true there are many details to those Commandments but what we mean is that on top of those 613 Commandments with all their details we have many more Commandments that the mind that the logic dictates there is no end to the number of myths vote if you understand what meets what really mean that's true there are many details to the Torah Commandments however all of the myths vote ultimately come from one place from Hashem how did our intellect become a source of mitzvot and we already answered that question this is what the Torah tells us right at the beginning God blew the Soul into us and therefore Hashem placed the ability to think logically into us so when we use our brain honestly without any bias we will figure out things that are hidden things that are secret they're only available for those that are intellectually honest and unbiased but anyone who is intellectually honest and unbiased the whole world of divine wisdom is open to him what closes the Gate of wisdom our negative character traits therefore the bits what are the means of achieving this Perfection of preparation in this world again how do we know what Hashem wants from us by opening the Torah and learning with all its commentaries and by using our mind looking around the world observing people and seeing what needs to be done and going out and doing it continues and the place of doing this mitzvot is only here in this world yes the ultimate goal is to achieve pleasure in the next world by doing mitzvot where in this world it's what can only be done in this physical world therefore this life is so precious Ezra Miller says that the greatest blessing you can give a person is that you should have a long life because if he has a long life he will have more opportunities to do mid Sport and therefore he will gain greater eternal pleasure so when we are saying that person should have long life every moment that he will live longer because of our blessing he can earn another dimension of Eternity into the next world he would be willing to give anything so that he could get another Mitzvah once he knows how precious they are but too late it's all over the only time to do mitzvot is in this world and come now on page 102 we go to chapter 1.19 free will so far we have established that the real pleasure for which Man was created is the pleasure of the world to come which can only be realized in the next world and which can only be achieved by means of the mitzvot of Commandments which can only be performed in this world well without this world there is no entering into the next World the world to come so that's the answer for the question why couldn't Hashem just create the spiritual world where the souls of people would just enjoy pleasure so that's what we say without this world there is no entering the world to come because the only reward we get the next World the only pleasure we can feel is what we earned in this world and why can Hashem create a spiritual world where you can get things for free without earning them and the answer is that any pleasure that you didn't deserve you don't enjoy as much as the pleasure that you did earn because uh one of the greatest Pleasures that we have is the feeling of Independence that I independently earned my um payment my reward and that cannot be created why because the feeling of Independence is the character of God himself he is the ultimate independent being and he is the only one who can feel true Independence he blew into us then the shama the soul and he gave us part of himself that part of himself is the ability to earn one's own reward to feel Independence although we are all in hashem's mind and it's all at the end of the day is designed by him and he's running everything but still we gave the feeling of Independence and that is irreplaceable and cannot be created without our involvement so without this world there is no entering the world to come for ultimate pleasure that is why Souls before they are born are not capable of entering because they were created they didn't do anything on their own they would not enjoy they would not appreciate they would be embarrassed the day doing nothing or just sitting there and passively accepting reward that they didn't earn they must be born and it is only through the path of this world that one can enter the world to come it is not merely being in this world that prepares one for the Existence in the Life to Come just passing life passing time doesn't earn you the next world the mitzvot that are given in this world for us to achieve are the means by which we are prepared and were made eligible for olamabad there are two ways to gain either by putting in effort and doing mitzvot or overcoming your character traits improving your character traits or experiencing suffering and you choose some people are born with disabilities or unfortunately something happens that they gain disabilities and that itself the disability itself the the pain the suffering and the humility that the person gets from this disability will get him olamapa or on a positive note you can replace that with your effort and if you are running around and doing positive Acts and controlling your character you are gaining but if you just sit and enjoy life do nothing to improve the world improve yourself and everything is going well for you I'll say just say that such a person should be concerned that he is losing his ulama every day that passes he loses opportunity to get another portion of olamaba because he didn't do anything to earn corresponds to that time in his life has explained the place where these means what are available is only this word