Mussar Institute - Through a Mussar Lens

By Alan Morinis

As the fuel crisis deepens, we will turn more and more to electric cars. This seems at first glance to be an unalloyed good, as we will get around using a fuel that is abundant, cheap and clean. But there is a problem with electric vehicles: blind people can’t see them, and they purr so quietly that the blind also can’t hear them approaching.

Isn’t this like our own condition with Rosh Hashanah only four weeks away? Can you see it coming? Can you hear its approach? Or has spiritual blindness dulled you to the holy opportunity that will soon be at hand?

I write on a day situated between the death anniversaries of two of the great disciples of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, who founded the Mussar movement—Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv (founder of the Kelm school of Mussar) who died just before the 9th of Av, and Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer (known as Itzele Peterburger) who died soon after. All three of these great men dedicated their lives to helping us escape the veils that blind us to what Rosh Hashanah is holding out to us, if we can become present and alert to the opportunity.

The primary mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah is hearing the shofar. We’re to hear 100 blasts: 30 are required by the bible, 30 more by rabbinic decree, and it is customary to blow 40 more to a total of one hundred blasts. But we don’t wait until Rosh Hashanah to begin to blow the shofar. Blasts are to be heard every morning of the month of Elul, in the weeks approaching Rosh Hashanah. The Rambam reveals the message of the shofar:

“Sleepers! Wake up from your sleep! You in a deep sleep! Awake from your slumber! Examine your actions, do teshuvah [repentance; course correction] and remember your Creator!”

This call to awaken is actually a hopeful message, because it tells us that the blindness that keeps us from seeing Rosh Hashanah’s approach is, thankfully, not incurable. The problem is just that we are asleep, and our eyes are closed.

What is the nature of our unconsciousness? The last of the many sins we confess on Yom Kippur is “Al cheit shechatanu lefanekha b’timhon levav”—for missing the mark as we have done before You by our timhon levav. The same phrase (timhon levav) appears in a passage of rebuke in the Torah: “God will strike you with insanity, blindness, and timhon levav” (Deuteronomy 28:28). Timhon levav has been translated as “astonishment of the heart,” “dismay,” or “confusion.” The commentator Rashi, though, explains timhon levav as “clogging of the heart” [otem halev].

Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, the Alter of Kelm, expands on Rashi:

“Timhon levav is the closing off of the heart, as if a deep sleep overwhelms the person. It is similar to when a person is anesthetized for purposes of an operation on one of his limbs. While he’s submerged in a deep sleep, he feels nothing when they cut into his flesh. So, too, when a person’s heart has been struck with ‘clogging of the heart,’ he is mired in a deep sleep and doesn’t wake up even if his life is in danger!”

Sad but true, our hearts can be comatose. Then we go through life asleep and insensitive. How compassionate that our tradition recognizes this spiritual condition, and has created a season in which to awaken.

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter observed (Ohr Yisrael, letter 14) that, “at one time, every person was terrified by the call, ‘The month of Elul has come.’ One would think that a person who was distant from HaShem’s service all year long would be seized by fear and worry because of the approaching judgment. In fact, the opposite happens: rebuke is taken more seriously and more efforts to improve are made by those who hold firmly to a holy path year-round than by those who all year walk in darkness.”
He explains that there are both material and spiritual reasons for this paradox:
“The materialistic reason is that habit is a very powerful force. The spiritual reason is that when a person sins he draws upon himself a spirit of impurity which pollutes his soul and confuses him.”

We could be so much more sensitive, to ourselves and to others. Why aren’t we? Our Mussar teachers have given us a diagnosis—timhon levav, a clogged heart. They have explained the cause of our condition—deeply rutted habits combined with our history of behaving in ways that have left negative residue within us, there to build up like cholesterol shutting down our spiritual arteries. And they have given us a prescription too. Hear the shofar and awaken your heart!

Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer told a parable of a king who disguised himself in order to mix with the common people. A man and the king sat side by side on a bench for a long time, but it was only after the king had left that the man realized who had been sitting next to him. The man was saddened when he realized that he had missed such a great opportunity. Think what he could have asked the king! Think of the unique conversation he could have had!

Rabbi Blazer’s meaning is clear: the days at hand beckon us to draw close to the Divine source, which is so near to us. This is our chance to open the conversation about the habits and behavior that have clogged our hearts and blinded us. Awaken now! See now! Renew and transform your heart! How unfortunate and how sad to miss so great an opportunity.

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