Let me begin with a question. Have you ever sat in shul next to that person who is sitting on the squeaky chair, or standing on the creaking floorboard? As they sway in devotional prayer you can’t do a thing. You are so distracted and irritated, your mind in flooded with anger and frustration that the culprit isn’t aware of how annoying they are being. How can they think that their shockeling is reasonable when others are being distracted. As anger gives way to resignation you feel disappointed that you have not be able to daven. Finally, you do utter a prayer begging Hashem that they stop!
The halocho as always gives clear guidelines for how we are expected to behave in private and public. For example, if you find yourself davening in a small minyan then each participant is expected to daven a little quicker to not delay the start of the repetition. There is no scope for individual piety whilst ignoring the needs of others. Tircha d’tzibura, the prohibition against causing the community to be burdened is expressed in a range of Halachic situations including taking two sifrei Torah out when we have an extra reading instead of rolling which might take no more than a minute or two. It really is important to take in to account the impact that our individual behaviour might have on others.
A Jew with a rudimentary Jewish education knows that each person has a tachlis, a purpose for which they were born. Our personal challenges, talents and experiences are chosen with Hashem’s wisdom to enable each of us to fix our broken neshomos. Chazal teach us that a neshomo makes several promises before being encased in a body. We have learned “An oath is administered to him. ‘Be righteous and be not wicked.” Nobody wants to fail and make the wrong choices. But existence is not as simple as me as an individual. There are two aspects to our identity, we are individuals with needs and wants, concurrently we are part of the Jewish people. Ideally, there will be harmony between my personal needs and my contributing to the Jewish people and our national story; but there are no guarantees.
One challenge arises when there is friction between our individual spiritual needs and those of others. How do we determine where our energies should go? There is a beautiful idea drawn from the rather abstract topic of the laws of Eruv. We know that halacho differentiates between a reshus hayachid a private domain and a reshus harabim a public domain.
A private space is very narrow but unlimited in hight, whereas a reshus harabim is very wide but not very high. Symbolically, these two zones can be used to represent different types of people. An individual who decides to give of him/her self to the Jewish people, may inspire many people, but they might not develop themselves much. They are reshus Harabim Jews. Their own spiritual journey maybe more limited, because the community is their area of life. Whereas someone who stays within their own daled amos, a reshus hayachid Jew, will have less impact on society but they might grow to become a huge talmid chochom and a true eved Hashem rising very high in levels of spirituality.
There is of course a third option, one which creates a private space within the public space. Not everyone is suited for such a task. It takes great wisdom to grow personally and to spread out and impact others. To know how to balance competing needs is an artform. It’s this very artform that our squeaky chair friend is missing as are the long daveners who ignore the needs of their small minyan.
The Vilna Gaon in Even Shleimah chapter 1 teaches us that all spiritual growth depends on improving character traits.
“All service of God is dependent upon the improvement of one’s character since character traits are like clothing to the mitzvot and are the general principles of the Torah. Conversely, all transgression stems from unimproved character traits. The prime purpose of man’s life is to constantly strive to break his bad traits. Otherwise, what is life for?” We really do need to concentrate on ourselves, to build our own reshus hayachid.
But when we do focus on others, we must not be fearful that we will ruin ourselves. Before Hashem tells Avrohom that He will destroy Sodom, Hashem discusses why He will tell Avrohom about His plans. The conclusion that Hashem reaches is that Avraham teaches his children and household about the way of Hashem and therefore he deserves to be told about future events. The Chasam Sofer writes that Avrohom was not sufficiently a prophet to be told this information without this important qualification. The Chasam Sofer encourages us to follow the example of Avrohom. “If a person says, kirvas Elokim li tov, it’s good for me to be close to Hashem, but it’s an impossible task if I dedicate time to help others, then the Kirvas Elokim, the closeness to Hashem is really not as close as was thought.
If our actions are motivated by bringing honour to Hashem then we must surely realise that Hashem can help us get close to him even when we are not actually focusing on ourselves. Chazal have already told us , ‘… I learnt the most from my students’. We should do what Hashem commands us and He will take care of the rest. One who teaches and shares the “Morasha kehilas Yaakov” with other Jews will receive a great deal of siyata dishmaya which will enable him to attain greater heights than humanly possible. The Chasam Sofer’s lesson applies to all of us. There are times in a person’s life when we are faced with the opportunity to help others. The fear of how the individual will be impacted is understandable but misplaced. At these moments we need to understand that Hashem is calling to us to build our reshus hayachid in the reshus harabim.
Many years ago, I purchased a sefer called What’s wrong with being human. No doubt we could list several things to answer the question. Notwithstanding, please don’t give up on humanity. Juggling two different identities is not simple, yet it’s very beautiful that Hashem values us twice. Once as individuals with a specific task and secondly as members of the am segula Hashem’s special people. Be’ezras Hashem we will merit to actualise our dual identity.
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