Spiritual Understanding Within Your Reach

Translated from Rabbi Arush’s feature article in the weekly Chut shel Chessed newsletter. The articles focus on his main message: “Loving others as yourself” and emuna. 

In Times of Crisis – It Finds You 

I heard this story first person, about a distinguished talmid chacham, a distinguished rabbi and teacher. Somehow the book The Garden of Emuna (faith) turned up in his house. The sight of the book and its name made him smile somewhat derisively. He didn’t even think of opening it. He was sure that such a book is intended for common people, for baalei batim, for women. But what need does he, a talmid chacham who deals with deep sugyas (Talmudic issues) day and night, have for simple words of emuna (faith)? 

But Hashem yitbarach has His own agenda, and the corona pandemic came along, shaking up the whole world, and so, that scholar found himself shut up in his house for days on end, with no contact with his students. This brought him to a very difficult emotional state, and there was nothing that would keep his spirits up. One day, his eye fell again on The Garden of Emuna, but this time, he did not smile derisively. He decided to open the book and see – perhaps it would be of some help to him.  

From the moment he opened it, he couldn’t put it down; indeed, he read almost all of it in one sitting. Needless to say, his view of life changed completely, and his emotional state improved tremendously. He started living again. And since then, he has understood that in spite of the fact that he had been keeping mitzvot all his life and learning Torah constantly, he too needed to do teshuva, return to emuna. He keeps the entire Torah, and certainly believes in Hashem, but his faith was really very, very far from what it needed to be.  

This is not the only story of that sort that I hear. Quite a few great Torah scholars, learned men, and even sons of Chassidic Rebbes tell me similar stories about themselves and about their close friends, who in moments of crisis had nothing to lift them out of the rut they were in and empower them. Only then did they discover the great light in the Garden of Emuna. The book healed them and caused them to do teshuva!  

It’s Not Beneath You 

That is a big mistake of a great many people who think they are “mature” already; they think they have daat (knowledge, understanding) of the holy Torah, and don’t need this “lowly” thing known as emuna. It does not befit their status to study that subject. 

Where does this mistake originate? It is true that according to Kabbala emuna is the lowest level. So, the idea of emuna can be very misleading. It seems faith is not so deep and is meant only for the simplest people.  

But what those luminaries don’t know is that in spite of the fact that emuna is the lowest level, it is the gateway to and the condition for meriting all the higher levels. Moreover, all the daat that a person acquires without emuna is nothing compared to the daat that he would have acquired if he had invested more in his faith.  

The truth is that this is a very ancient mistake. Rabbi Natan of Breslev in the holy book Likutei Halachot explains that that was exactly the mistake of the Spies. They had great daat, as befits Jews who are completely removed from this world and all they think about is learning Torah from Moshe Rabbeinu himself.  

The Land of Israel is emuna. Emuna is much lower than daat, and therefore, from their point of view the Land of Israel was a step down! That is why they came and spoke disparagingly about the Land. And that was precisely the mistake: They should have left their daat and their own understanding behind and believed wholly in Hashem’s promises and in Moshe’s teaching that the Land of Israel has an extremely high level, even though that didn’t make sense to them. 

The Paradox of Faith 

The novel idea I wish to bring in this article is that when a person leaves his daat behind and seemingly “descends” to the level of emuna he receives a much greater and more elevated daat! 

Rabbi Nachman explains in Likutei Moharan that the Torah is completely spiritual. When a person’s sechel (intellect, understanding) is physical, his grasp of Torah is very limited. Even if a person has great talent and has an excellent grasp of Torah and impressive knowledge, this is still a drop in the bucket of the Torah’s infinite range. But when a person has spiritual intellect – sechel ruchani – he can grasp the entire Torah in his head. And he acquires the spiritual and infinite Torah in its entirety. 

What is sechel ruchani? How does one acquire it? Sechel ruchani is emuna! 

Because without emuna, a person’s brain is always thinking about himself, about people, about physical reasons, about nature; a person spends time blaming himself or others, is jealous, hateful, sad, depressed, worried. His sechel is tied and shackled to this world, whether he wants it to be so or not. But a person who has complete emuna, who knows that ein od milvado – there is nothing other than Him – thinks only of Hashem. He has no thought of materiality in his head. There is no “I”, there are no people, there is no material existence, there is no nature. There is only Hashem. That is called sechel ruchani! 

It’s the simplest thing in the world: You think only about Hashem – and your brain is spiritual. You think about people – your brain is physical! And when your brain is physical, whatever you know of the Torah is just a drop in the bucket. And when your brain is spiritual – you acquire the complete and spiritual Torah! 

So emuna is a paradox! Emuna is indeed on a lower level than daat, but it brings a person to the level of sechel ruchani, and through sechel ruchani the person gets daat on the highest level, true daat Torah. 

Who was Achiya Hashiloni? 

And therefore, David Hamelech, who was all emuna, merited to be one of those who passed on the Torah to the next generations, and he was the mentor of Achiya Hashiloni. Who was Achiya Hashiloni? The Rambam says he was one of those who left Egypt. In other words, he saw all the miracles of the Exodus and received the Torah from Mount Sinai and studied for forty years with Moshe Rabbeinu and lived more than four hundred years in generations of prophets. And after so many years, he sat on the ground learning from David Hamelech who was several hundred years younger than him – and only then did he himself pass on the Torah and become the mentor of Eliyahu Hanavi! 

How could this be? From the point of view of knowledge, it seems that there’s no room for comparison between Achiya Hashiloni and David Hamelech. How could it be that David knew the Torah better than Achiya? But because David was all emuna and prayers, and did not think about people, and even when Shimi ben Gera cursed him, David Hamelech thought only of Hashem and said: “Hashem told him to curse”. Because of that David Hamelech received the sechel ruchani of the type that could grasp the entire Torah, with no limits! 

Freedom 

The main point for us is that without emuna, the person’s brain is in the captivity of this world. People are slaves to their bad middot (traits), to thoughts about other people, to worries regarding their livelihood, anxiety, and fears. These thoughts are truly like jails. It is almost impossible to release oneself from them. The belief that there is nothing other than Hashem is the only thing that saves a person and releases him from all kinds of thoughts. Therefore, emuna is the perfect healer of the soul. 

The most severe disease is the seesaw of pride and depression. When a person thinks only of himself, he is on a seesaw: When things go well, he feels proud, and when things don’t go well, he blames himself and knocks himself down. The main soul healer is to live the only reality, which is that everything happens according to the will of Hashem yitbarach, and there is no “I”, neither in success nor in failure. That is the main spiritual point of ein od milvado! 

And even Torah scholars who deal with Torah and halacha, they too, must devote some of their time to learning emuna and tefilla and doing hitbodedut, which are the practical acts of emuna. Because emuna ensures their emotional health and purifies their brain so that they can elevate themselves further and further and merit a spiritual Torah on the highest level.