Respite from the Rat Race

In Hebrew, self-evaluation is called cheshbon hanefesh, or “accounting of the soul.” We could write an entire separate volume listing the virtues and the praises that our sages said about daily self-evaluation, particularly the daily self-evaluation that’s a part of one’s daily hour-long personal prayer session. The greatest benefit of such a session is self-composure. For an hour a day, we take a respite from the rat race and take stock in ourselves – what we’ve done, where we are, and where we’re heading.

A person with no purpose in life doesn’t particularly care where he is or where he’s going. But, once we have a goal in life, we owe it to ourselves to evaluate ourselves on a regular basis. Are we proud of our actions? Are we doing the right thing to realize our goals? A pilot for example always has one eye glued to his avionics – he doesn’t deviate from the vector that guides him to his destination. In like manner, our daily self evaluation is our spiritual navigation tool. Without it, a person is virtually lost in the world.

How silly it would be for a pilot to say that he doesn’t have time to check his headings. Yet, we allow the rat race to consume all of our time to the extent that some of us claim that there’s no time in the day’s hectic schedule for an hour of personal prayer! No wonder so many people are confused and lost. For that reason, our sages instructed us to get off the crazy rate-race carousel that spins endlessly round and round – at least for an hour a day – and to find ourselves a quiet place where we can spend a soothing hour in personal prayer and self-evaluation. Unfortunately, many people fail to do so, missing a golden opportunity to attain self-composure, emotional stability, a correction of the soul and their own personal redemption – four of the many wonderful benefits of daily personal prayer and self-evaluation.

Imagine a family that buys a loaf of bread, a quart of milk, and a dozen eggs at the grocery store every day. Had they paid cash, their daily bill would have been approximately $5.50. Yet, every day, they charged the purchase. With thirty such purchases a month, they ran up a monthly bill of $165.00. Ten months later, the bill was yet unpaid, and the grocer demanded the immediate sum of $1, 650 for the accumulated debts. The head of the household was devastated; where would he get the money to pay such a massive bill when he barely had enough to pay the rent? If he would have paid his bills daily, he would have only been called upon to lay out an insignificant five and a half dollars a day.

People who don’t devote a daily hour to introspection and personal prayer are called upon from time to time to pay the consequences of their uncorrected character traits or bad habits. Overcoming a negative trait or bad habit is like climbing a mountain peak. Who’s capable of leaping over a mountain in one fell swoop? Yet, any mountain can be climbed step by step.

With daily personal prayer, we correct ourselves little by little, slowly but surely. We gradually climb the difficult peaks and pay our emotional and spiritual debts day by day, so we’re not hit with tremendous spiritual bills at the end of the year. With no outstanding debts, we save ourselves untold severe judgments. Therefore, it’s so very important that personal prayer and self-evaluation be done on a daily basis. With daily teshuva, a person maintains a constantly clean spiritual slate, which is conducive to emotional health and a sensation of happiness and well-being.

Now we can understand why some people have tried personal prayer but where disheartened almost immediately. Their hitbodedut left them with a feeling of sadness and melancholy. In light of the above, this is clear! As soon as such people took a serious look at themselves, they were overwhelmed with the revelation of what they saw. Rather than committing to fulfill our sages’ directive that each person set aside a daily hour for self-evaluation, and thereby making the first important step to climbing their own personal mountain of challenges, they give up altogether. Nothing strengthens a person so much as daily “accounting of the soul” and outpouring one’s heart to Hashem. In time, daily personal prayer brings dramatic results.