Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. I heard a beautiful thought from a vulva: a person is like a building. In a building, you have the ground level, and then you have levels below ground. You have the basement and even deeper layers down. In large buildings, you might have three or four stories below. And then you have higher and higher levels in the building: the 12th, 13th, 14th, or 100th floor, depending on how high the building is. A human being is much larger than he thinks. And he says there are people who live in their basement. He said Freud lived in the basement. We found only negative, lustful desires as the place where the person really is, and that's where he was busy analyzing and looking into.
But a person has higher and higher levels within themselves. As we said, a person's Neshamah (human soul) is huge. And that is what the Nefesh HaChaim describes in Yaakov Avinu: he has a dream in which the ladder's feet are on the ground, but its head is going up to the heavens. And that's the human soul. And you can go up and down that ladder. And we can decide, as we said, to identify ourselves with different parts of man. And what is it that gives us that ability to go up and go down? That means the man is like the elevator box. I'm not sure exactly how to refer to that box. You have the elevator tube, the shaft, and you have the actual box where people stand. That's you. We'll call that your awareness. Where are you going? Which floor are you going to? And the Ratzon, the will to get higher or lower, that's what takes you up and that's what takes you down. And that's why it's so important to cultivate your will.
The Chovot HaLevavot, in the section of introspection and self-accounting, which is called Sha'ar Cheshbon HaNefesh (introspection and self-accounting), talks about a person having levels that he's not quite ready for. But if he wants those levels, then eventually he's going to get there. And this is an important concept: how we can move ourselves up the ladder based on our willpower. That's going to get us to where we want to go by wanting, by yearning, by hoping. And that's why we're supposed to aspire. You read stories about great people, and you want to emulate them and be like them. That is what pushes the button to go up the ladder of man, or go up the elevator shaft of man.
The Rambam writes, again to show how powerful this is. In a section called Pirkei Hatzlacha, he says this in a letter: Every person in the world, if you wanted perfection, you'd be as close to Moshe Rabbeinu. And if you want lacking, you would be like Yeravam Ben Nevat. That is the button that gets you. Rav Chatzkel Levenstein, in Sefer Torah Voda'at, talks about this concept. The name of the chapter is, “If you want perfection, you'd be close to Moshe Rabbeinu.” It doesn't say exactly what you want to get to. It says, if you want perfection, you have to want perfection, just the opposite. No one wants to be horrific like Yeravam Ben Nevat. But if you're not looking for good, you're going to end up getting to that point. And Rav Katz says, if we really believe this, we'll get further in life. The reason why we don't get better is because we don't believe we can get better. But if we believe in this concept, that if we just want, that has the power to bring us to higher levels, and there's nothing stopping us other than the want.
Again, we read the Rambam: If you want perfection, Hayah Karov Moshe Rabbeinu, alav hashalom (peace be upon him).