Mussar Institute - Through a Mussar Lens

By Alan Morinis

It’s mid-winter in the Northern Hemisphere, a time when the world appears dark and depleted of energy. Trees have gone dormant, and the flowers have retreated to potentiality under the earth. The colorful summer birds (and, where I live, the eagles) are nowhere to be seen. People feel withdrawn as well, barely visible underneath coats, hats and wraps.

Winter has a spiritual side as well because at this time of year it is possible that we will feel a lack of a very important middah (or soul-trait) in our lives, which is zerizut, or z’rizus. That’s the quality often translated into English as “zeal” or “enthusiasm,” something that may well be lacking in your life in this season when the darkness and cold bring on Seasonal Affective Disorder. Winter can be a time when the get-up-and-go seems to have got up and left your life.

But like all aspects of our inner life that we are guided to understand through the lens of Mussar, we need to know that in this case too, we have choice. This season may invite us into a particular state of mind or energy level, but it is up to us how we respond to that invitation. It is entirely up to us whether we are content to sink into the darkness, or whether we rise to the challenge and endeavor to renew ourselves in the face of the darkness.

The challenge of living with resounding spiritual energy through the winter is actually no different from responding to any other time of spiritual depletion and darkness. Having a spiritual practice and a spiritual orientation does not mean you are exempt from dark times (since you are still human, after all), but it does give you perspectives that help you understand the trial of the moment, and tools to help you to respond.

With that goal in mind, I’d like to explore the trait of zerizut a bit more deeply. The English translations—“zeal” or “enthusiasm”—help us understand to a certain extent, but there are deeper levels of meaning that remain unrevealed in these terms. Zeal even carries something of a negative connotation (at least to my ear) because a zealot rings of fundamentalism. And is enthusiasm not just the quality we see in a bouncing cheerleader? Is that for us?

Rabbi Henach Leibowitz, Rosh Yeshiva of the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva, discusses zerizut in his new book, Pinnacle of Creation. He draws there on the 16th century Mussar classic, Orchot Tzaddikim, which contains an entire chapter on the trait of zerizut. What Orchot Tzaddikim says about this quality is both surprising and useful.

It says there that zerizut is the foundation of all the traits, which makes sense because your energy level is like a general condition that affects everything else in your inner life. How will you be generous if you lack the motivation to carry through on your intentions? Are acts of lovingkindness even possible without energy on your part? And so on, as zerizut touches on and affects every other inner trait.

So if everything depends on this one quality, does it stand alone or does it, in turn, depend on something else? This is an important question because what we are really asking here is whether it is possible to cultivate zerizut. It will be much more obvious how to do so if that quality depends on something else, which we can stoke up to fire the zerizut in our lives.

The answer to this question that Orchot Tzaddikim brings up explains why I have continued to use the Hebrew zerizut rather than resort to the English zeal or enthusiasm. It says, “Zerizut depends upon the state of a person’s heart. When a person frees his heart of all other thoughts that reside in it and seizes upon one thought, then he will be a zeriz, without doubt.”

The key to zerizut that is revealed here is single-mindedness. Mussar teachers have characterized our minds as being like hotels that are open to the public, with all sorts of ideas coming and going, and everything residing there only temporarily. They even go so far as to define the spiritual ailment of pizzur ha’nefesh—a scattered soul—which is not a psychiatric condition as much as the state of mind that most of us live with most of the time.

What’s surprising about this focus on single-mindedness as the root of zerizut is that there is nothing here about energy or speed or rah-rah that is the usual connotation of zerizut. No, we are led instead to understand that the desirable trait of zerizut depends on an inner experience that is uncluttered, clear and focused. Rabbi Lebowitz builds on this very idea concluding: “Speed is not necessarily an expression of zerizus…In many instances, it requires the exact opposite—slow, careful and deliberate movement.”

This insight is a great gift for helping us face the times of darkness in our lives, whether seasonal or otherwise. Where will we get the resources to meet the challenge? The answer here is that we need to cultivate a mind that is capable of single-mindedness.

How do we get to single-mindedness? Two ways present themselves.

One is to learn to concentrate. Mental concentration is not a natural quality with which we are endowed, like height or eye color. It can be cultivated, however, and even one who has a natural inclination to concentrate can leave that propensity undeveloped, and be scattered as a result. Concentration is best cultivated through a regular practice of mind-training, as in meditation. We read about just such a practice in the 19th century Mussar text Cheshbon Ha’Nefesh, by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Leffin, where the following story is found:

There were once two young men who took it upon themselves to pray with devotion, concentrating their attention on the meaning of the text. In the end, one of these men became misled in his prayer, while the other became famous as a scholar, a fine human being, and a great devotee of God.

Rabbi Leffin writes of the latter: "When asked how he had merited reaching this level, he replied: `For many years I took it upon myself to focus my mind on a single thought—either Torah or prayer—for a specific period of time. By doing so, I eventually trained myself to be able to concentrate for an hour or even more.’"

This person accomplished great things because he trained his mind through meditative practice, until he became capable of single-mindedness.

Another exercise you can practice to help develop single-mindedness is to take time to define your priorities. If you sort out what is really important in your life from what is secondary or even expendable, you will know what is worthy of attention and what is not. Without a clear sense of priorities, every thought that occurs to you and everything that comes across your path competes for your attention. It’s so common to see people sweating tiny details that are actually unimportant and at the same time neglecting something crucial in another area. It’s easy to see when other people do that; preventing that from happening to you means defining and holding to your priorities.

A mind that is capable of concentration, plus knowing what is really important and what is not. Here we have two conditions that will give rise to zerizut in your life. Both are simple to understand; neither is easy to master. To get reasonably good at either takes practice, and that is why our ancestors developed Mussar.

The fruit of that practice will be the stronger presence of zerizut in your life. You’ll find then that the wintry seasons that come along will no longer have such a dominating influence on your inner life, and you will be equipped to respond.

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