We are continuing our study of Mesilat Yesharim. We are in the first Perek (chapter). We read this a few days ago, and we have been studying the subject in depth. The Ramchal writes that a person was created only to have the pleasure of being with Hashem. The way a person is able to be with Hashem is to be like Him. When you are like Hashem, you are made of the same Kedusha (holiness); that radiance of Kedusha is part of who you are, and you become like Him. When you become like Him, you get to enjoy Him. The purpose of Adam is to have this tremendous pleasure. All pleasures are only a ladder to this great pleasure of life.
Today, we are going to spend a few minutes comparing the beginning of the chapter with what we just learned. The beginning of the chapter spoke about how greatness in life is available to the person who has clarity about his obligation. He spent a lot of time on that: a person needs to know his responsibility, his obligation in his world. It is a world of obligation. Here, he says that we were created to have pleasure. That seems like a contradiction. Obligation and pleasure are at opposite ends. A guy lives with obligation; he is thinking about what he needs to do. A person who lives with a goal of pleasure is thinking about what he is going to get. They are polar opposites.
He started the perek with chovato ba'olamo, with the obligation, with the obligation of a person. You want to be something in life? You want to be successful in life? You have to know that you have obligations. When you live up to your obligations in life, you are going to be something. You are going to succeed in this world. Then, not two lines later—it is not like the end of the chapter; we have only learned two lines so far—he says that the person was created only to have the pleasure of being with Hashem. I do not doubt that it is a great pleasure to be with Hashem, but that is not an obligation. That is something a person enjoys; it is receiving. So we have to figure out the solution to what seems like a contradiction. Am I supposed to live my life, to wake up in the morning with the feeling, “What is my obligation right now? How do I fulfill my responsibility today?” Or am I supposed to be looking to enjoy and have the great pleasure of being like Hashem and with Hashem? How do we answer this question? Is it about obligation or enjoyment?
One simple answer to this question is that it is only asked by someone on a lower level of understanding. When you do not have such a high understanding of things, you look at obligations as heavy duties, chores, and things that are not pleasant, and you have to be bribed to do something. For example, when you have a little child who does not have a very high understanding of life—not that he is, God forbid, not smart; he does not understand things the way they are supposed to be understood—when you tell him to do things, you have to bribe him. You tell him, “Listen, go do this and I will give you this. Go learn, go learn the ABCs, and I am going to give you a reward.” The obligation for a young person alone is very hard to carry. So you have to bribe them with a nice word, a nice prize, something sweet. You cannot just tell a kid, “Go here, do this.” He might do it because he is scared of you, but he himself would not want to do it.
The nature of a human being, at least when we are young, is that we do not like responsibilities. In fact, as much as possible, we try to escape and evade them. Pleasures attract us; we do not like to be under the umbrella of responsibilities. Sometimes we have to be, but we have no choice. They put us in a car and send us to school—well, what should we do? Sometimes they have to give us some candy, but obligations are things we try to stay away from.
But as you get greater in life—and it is not automatic; it is not an age thing; it is not because you became older, so now you got it—as you become a greater person, you begin to understand that living a life of obligation is actually where you find the pleasures of life. When you are young in age or young-minded—you could be 70 and young-minded—when you are immature-minded, you look at pleasures and responsibilities as enemies. You look at a burden and at enjoyment. They do not go together. They are at opposite ends of the spectrum. But as you get greater in life, you start to understand that specifically the world of obligation is where you will find the biggest pleasures of life.
It is not a contradiction. Your obligation is to live a life of obligation and to have a life of pleasure. One actually brings the other. You live a life with no obligation. You wake up in the morning wanting to be free from any obligation—not to your family, not to your friends, not to the Jewish people, not to your Creator. You want to be free of your responsibility. You want to live a life of freedom. You might think that this is going to bring you more pleasure, but in reality, it is the opposite. When you wake up in the morning and say, “Okay, what are my responsibilities today? To Hashem, to my family, to the people in my life,” it is there that you will find the great pleasures of life.
Fortunate is the person who understands this earlier in life. A five-year-old is not capable of understanding this. But as you grow up, when you are 12, 13, 14, you can already understand this concept. The earlier you understand this in life, the sweeter your life will become. People spend most of their lives running away from obligation. In reality, they are running away from pleasures. There is no contradiction here. Pleasures and obligations work hand in hand.
But it is still not so comfortable to say what we just said, even though it is correct. Although pleasures do come from obligations, when we read in Mesilat Yesharim, it feels like in the beginning we should be thinking about our obligations. But as we move a few lines forward, it sounds like we should be thinking about our pleasures. Let me explain. There is no question that the outcome of obligation is pleasure. However, my next point is: Which one should be my goal? What is my focus? Is my focus my obligation, and then the pleasures come whenever they come? You know, it is not a vending machine: obligation in, pleasure out. Sometimes you have to fulfill your obligations even though you do not enjoy them.
When we speak about pleasures being an outcome of obligation and responsibility, it is not that you put a quarter in and get your candy. It is not like that. You may have to do things many times and not feel any pleasure in what you are doing. When you think of obligation, you think of doing what you need to do. Obligations and pleasures do not automatically come right away. You may have to invest a lot of time in doing things that you may not enjoy per se. It is the obligation. We never think of obligation as, “Wait, let me see. Is the pleasure going to be here? Is it coming now? Find out how it works.”
You may have to learn Torah even though you do not enjoy it. You may have to go pray in the morning even though you would rather sleep. You may have to write big checks even though you would rather keep the money. You may have to do a lot of things in your life that you do not necessarily like to do, and you may not feel the immediate pleasure. When you think of obligation, you think of doing what you need to do. We are saying that when you live your life that way, you are guaranteed to have a lot of pleasure. We do not mean that it happens right away.
Now, should my mindset be focused on my obligations? That is what the first part says. The second part seems to be saying that my mindset should be focused on the pleasures. So we have not really answered the question fully. We did say they work hand in hand. One is an outcome of the other. We can accept that. But where should my focus be: on my responsibilities or on the pleasures? The highest pleasure is lehit'aneg al Hashem (to enjoy Him). That needs a little more explanation. I hope I made myself clear. I do not know if you understand what I am saying.
So I would like to share with you a very important thought. It is a little bit deeper than maybe even I could fully understand, but we are going to give it a shot. In the Zechut (merit) of the Tzibur (community), we are going to try to get clarity on an important subject. The pleasures of life create obligations. Obligations create pleasures. But pleasures also create obligations.
You might ask me, “What does that mean?” We actually learned the Gemara this morning. The Gemara says that a person who eats and enjoys without making a Beracha (blessing), the Gemara says, is as if he is stealing from Hashem. You drink something and do not make a Beracha: stealing. You go for dinner and do not make a Beracha: you are a thief. Who are you stealing from? From Hashem. Now, when I read the Gemara, I learned it literally. Hashem owns the world. There is no greater owner than the one who made it from nothing. All of our ownership changes from hand to hand. Anything you own in life, somebody else once owned, and then it transferred to you. But the one who makes something from nothing—which is not possible in our world, in the human world—has the greatest ownership. The Creator made the world from nothing. He owns it. Therefore, when you take something and do not make a blessing, do not say, “I appreciate it; thank you,” you are a thief because you are taking something that belongs to Him. You are stealing from Hashem. What are you stealing? The orange. You are stealing the meat. You are stealing the water. He owns it. Make a blessing, and He gives it to you. No blessing, and you are stealing the item from Hashem. That is the way I learned the Gemara. That is what it says.
But then you go to Rashi, alav hashalom (peace be upon him). Rashi says, “What does it mean that you are stealing from Hashem?” Rashi says, “You are stealing the blessing from Hashem. You are stealing Hashem’s blessing.” Wait, I am not stealing the apple. I am not stealing the orange. No, says Rashi. That is not what you are stealing. You are stealing Hashem’s blessing. First of all, what in the world does that mean? How do you steal a blessing from someone? And why did Rashi say that? What is wrong with the way I understood it? You are stealing the item. What is wrong with that? What is bothering Rashi that he needs to take the Gemara out of context and say, “No, no, no, you are not stealing the orange. No, no, no, you are stealing God’s blessing”? First of all, what does it mean? And second of all, what is wrong with the simple explanation?
Rashi, alav hashalom, does not try to shock us with exciting interpretations so that you can show off. Rashi is known to be very connected to the words of the Gemara and tries as much as possible to explain in the most simple, beautiful way what it says. He is not coming to give us the Rashi here. The answer is like this. We make a mistake. If someone asked you, “Tell me, why did Hashem make apples? It is a beautiful, nice-looking, good-tasting apple. For what reason did the Creator make an apple? Why did Hashem create bread? For what reason? Why did He make grapes?” I think most people would say, “Well, He is very kind. The Creator is very kind. If you are kind, you want to give people things that give them pleasure. So even though they could survive without this pleasure, someone who is kind does not only want people to survive; He wants people to survive with pleasure. So even though they could have done without apples, He wants them to have that too.” So why did Hashem create apples and oranges and watermelons? Because He is a kind being who wants to give pleasure to those He can. Wonderful answer.
Then Rashi comes and says that this is wrong. It is the wrong answer. Hashem did not create apples for you to enjoy them. He created apples for you to enjoy Him. There is a very big difference. He did not create the apples for you to enjoy the apple. That is a childish understanding of apples. He created the apple so that you can enjoy Him. We think the purpose is the apple, and the Beracha is how to acquire the apple, as if Hashem needs our currency called the Beracha. He has the apple. He has the vending machine. We put in the Beracha coin, and He gives us the apple. This is a childish understanding of blessings. A child could be, I told you, 90 years old. You think Hashem needs your Beracha to give you the apple? That is ridiculous. And what did you give Him before He created you? Before He gave you your eyes and your legs and everything you have and your brain? What did you give Him? Which currency did you pay? Nothing. You think He needs you to give Him something for you to get the apple? “Nah,” says Rashi. “That is childish.”
The Beracha is the purpose of the apple. It is not that you make a Beracha to get the apple. You got the apple to make a Beracha. Hashem gave you pleasures so that you can use them to be with Him, to be close to Him, to be appreciative of Him, to be appreciative of who He is, to become like Him, to have pleasure with Him. That is why He made the pleasures of life. That is why Rashi says you are not stealing God’s apple. That is very immature thinking. You are stealing His blessing because the apple represents the blessing that you will make. When you take it without making a Beracha, you are stealing it. He made it for you to get close to Him, and you blew it.
This is true of all pleasures, not just apples and blessings. We do not make a blessing for every pleasure because life would be impossible to live. But take it as a rule in life: when Hashem gives you pleasures, they are meant to be a ladder to get close to Him. When Hashem gives you pleasures, they are meant to be a ladder to more obligation. When you feel the pleasures and the love that comes from them, you realize that you have an even greater responsibility. It is not only that responsibility creates pleasure. That is a lower level. It is a good level, but it is a lower level. The lowest level is a child who sees obligations and pleasures as being at opposite ends. That is the lowest. Then we upgrade ourselves and say, “No, no, no. The way to get to pleasures is through obligation.” So by doing your obligation, you are going to create pleasures in your life.
Now we go to the next level: actually, the pleasures of life are what create obligation. The more you receive and understand that you are receiving, and the more you see the kindness of the Creator in your life, which you are getting for free, the more you realize that you have an obligation to do more in your life, both because you are receiving for free and because you are seeing the model of the endless feeling of responsibility that Hashem has. All Hashem does is give people all day long. He is serving the world. When you realize that you are receiving for free from the Creator of the world, you learn from Him how to live life, and you start being a servant of the Creator and a servant of this world.
When you do not feel the pleasures of life the way you are supposed to, you feel treated unfairly. You feel you have not gotten enough. You even have complaints about the Creator: “How come He is not taking care of you?” All that mindset makes you feel less obligated and more entitled, and makes you feel like you need to complain more. That does not make you a great person. Who is the person that they climb to the highest ladder of obligation? The person who has the most pleasure in this world? Unbelievable.
The more pleasure you have in life—or, better yet, the more you feel the pleasures of life. There are people looking for pleasure all over the world. They are flying places, trying to buy things, trying to figure out how they can have pleasure. But the person who lives every day with the highest pleasures of life is the person who is going to feel the greatest obligation about how to live in this world. They feel indebted, and they see the role model of living with obligation. Hashem Yitbarach (Hashem, may He be blessed), the Creator, is the greatest role model of living with obligation.
We say, “There is nothing besides Him.” He Himself is the energy of this world. Without Him, nothing exists. What does He do with us? What does Hashem do when He realizes that only He exists? You know what He does? He takes responsibility. He says, “Well, if I can do this, then I have to do it. Only I can create the world; I have to create it. Only I can give; I have to give.” The greatest example of responsibility is Hashem Himself.
And who is the one who can feel that, learn from it, and be a student of it? It is the one who feels and appreciates the pleasures, the pleasures that are with him every moment. The guy looking for pleasures obviously does not feel pleasures, because if he felt the pleasures every moment, he would not need to go searching for them. People who are searching, going, buying, doing, experimenting—obviously, they do not feel the great pleasures of life. Those who feel the great pleasures every day in their life, those people who make blessings, that is what Hashem is telling you: “When you give, Hashem is blessing.” He does not need your blessing. You need to give Him a blessing. When you give Him a blessing, that means you are appreciative. You understand you got something. Once you understand that, your world becomes a different world. People who feel entitled do not feel pleasures. People who do not feel pleasures do not feel the responsibility of what they need to do for others, like someone is doing for them.
It is a new level of understanding that the purpose of life actually is to have pleasure. Unfortunately, so many people in life have pleasure but do not enjoy it. They do not understand it. They take it as automatic, to the point that they do not even feel the tremendous pleasure they have in simply walking, simply eating, simply singing, simply breathing. They do not live with pleasure. They have the pleasures, but they do not feel them. They are numb.
When you live life without enjoying the pleasures of life, then you cannot have obligation. Obligation will not be real. It may feel like a burden, like it does to a two-year-old. That is not the obligation Hashem wants from us. He wants us to desire obligation. A person who acts out of obligation under duress has no choice. What should he do? He has to do this. They are forcing him to do it. That is also an obligation. But the obligation Hashem wants from us is the desired obligation. It is the guy who says, “I want to be obligated. I am excited to be obligated.” How do you get to that? When you are able to enjoy the pleasures of life, when you can enjoy that apple in the right way. The right way is to see the Beracha, how Hashem gave it to you because He loves you. You recognize that, and therefore you make this beautiful Beracha: Baruch ata Hashem, Eloheinu melech ha'olam, borei peri ha'etz (Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the tree). You make a real Beracha, not just one from the book. If you make a real Beracha on an apple, you are actually going to be a person who desires obligation. Hashem created you to live a life of obligation. And what did He give you so that you would be able to desire obligation, not just do it because you have no choice? He gave you pleasures.
The ta'anugim (pleasures) of this world are not just to enjoy; they have a higher purpose. It is to enjoy His relationship with you. It is to enjoy Him. When you enjoy Him, you want to be like Him, and you desire to live with responsibility the way He does. The enemy of enjoying life’s pleasures is the feeling of entitlement.
We learned this morning in Masechet Berachot, the same Gemara, with the help of Baruch Hashem (blessed is Hashem), that the boys we were learning with came to a beautiful understanding of this Gemara. The Gemara brings a pasuk (verse) in Mishlei. Shlomo HaMelech says, gozel aviv ve'imo, a person who steals from his father and from his mother, ve'omer, and he says, ein pesha (nothing bad here). The word pesha means, “I did something wrong.” This guy steals from his father and mother, and he says, “ein pesha, nothing bad here.” “Chaver hu,” says Shlomo HaMelech; this guy is good friends. He is like—friends are usually like each other. He is a chaver le'ish mashchit (a companion to a destructive man); he is the chaver of the person who goes around the world destroying the world. This guy only stole from his father and mother, but he is a friend of the guy who destroys.
Imagine a guy takes an ax and starts destroying buildings and destroying the world that Hashem made, destroying people’s property—destruction. He said, “That guy needs to put life in jail, life in prison.” All he does is go around hurting people, killing, destroying. That is an ish mashchit (a destructive man). Shlomo HaMelech says that a guy who steals from his father and mother and says, “I did nothing wrong,” is that guy’s partner. Even though he has no gun, he has no ax, he is not destroying anybody’s fields or properties, and he did not hurt anybody, he is still the chaver. These guys are good friends.
What is the connection? We said this morning: first of all, why would a guy steal from his father and mother and say nothing is wrong? What kind of guy is this? What is he? Is he a tipesh (fool)? How can you steal from your father and mother and say, “ein pesha”? There is nothing wrong? How could there be nothing wrong? You stole from your father and mother. And why specifically, when stealing from your father and mother, do you think nothing is wrong? It sounds like this guy knows that if he steals from somebody else, it is wrong. He knows that. But from his father and mother, he thinks there is nothing wrong. Why would he think that?
The answer is that he feels his mother and father are obligated to him. They are obligated to him. He says, “You had me, so it is your issue. You need to give me. You need to take care of me.” So whatever I take from you is something that is due to me anyway. I am entitled. Either because you had me and you have no choice, or perhaps because you have been giving me so much for so many years that I got used to feeling, “I know that is what you want. I know you want to give me. It is all you do—you give me, so I know.” So why does a guy steal from his father and mother? He says, “ein pesha. Anyway, it is mine. It is mine because they have to give it to me. They have to give it to me. My father and mother—what do you mean? Isn’t that what parents have to do? And besides, they love me. They always give me. For sure. For sure they want to give me.”
A guy who steals from his father and mother and says, “ein pesha. I did not do anything wrong,” is the chaver, the friend of the destructive person. What Shlomo HaMelech is saying is that the feeling of entitlement cannot be confined to a compartment with parents. You might feel, “Yeah, okay, I feel entitled with my parents. I do not feel that way in the world. In the world I know my place. I do not destroy people’s property. I am not entitled to that property. I do not go around hurting, killing, doing. I am not entitled to that. Where do I feel entitled? With my parents.” Shlomo HaMelech says, “No, no. Entitlement is not like that. It is not departmental. You cannot departmentalize your feeling of entitlement. Entitlement is who you are. If you feel that way, it is not only with your parents. You feel that way toward everybody around you. You feel that way toward God, toward your friends, toward the world. Ah, you do not steal from them because you do not feel as comfortable. They will put you in jail. They will sue you. They will, who knows, talk about you. With your parents, you feel safe, so you can do whatever you want, say whatever you want. They are not going to hurt you. That is why you act that way. But you would act the same way outside. You would go out and destroy. You would go out and kill. Whatever is to your benefit, you would do it too. You just do not do it because you are not as comfortable. But you are the same guy. You are no different. Entitlement has no departments. It is who you are, and it goes with you wherever you go.”
Therefore, a guy who steals from his father and mother and says nothing is wrong is no different from the guy out there destroying the world. It is just that over there, he has more bushah (shame). He is more bashful. He is a little more scared. That is all. The Gemara brings this pasuk to teach us about stealing from Hashem. The Gemara says, “You steal from your father”—that is Hashem. You are stealing His Beracha. When you steal His Beracha, you are a brother of the person who destroys. You are destroying your life and the people around you. Why? Because you do not make berachot.
Amazing. This concept is so deep. When you do not make berachot, it is because the pleasures of life that Hashem is giving you every moment are not reaching home. They are not reaching home because you feel entitled. When they do not reach home, you do not make a beracha. That means you no longer have a role model called Hashem in your life, and you no longer live and desire responsibility like He has responsibility.
When you give, you give the beracha, make it from the heart, and actually enjoy every small pleasure of life. Those who look for the big pleasures are not enjoying the pleasures of life. Those who enjoy the real pleasures of life, moment to moment, do not need big things, because the pleasures of the moment to moment are so big, there is not enough time to enjoy them. Who has time to plan a crazy trip when I have so much pleasure right now in front of me?
So actually, the pleasures of life bring a person to a greater desire for obligation. Let’s review. We first started the class thinking that obligation and pleasures are at opposite ends. Obligation is giving; pleasure is taking. Then we upgraded and said that when you live with obligation, it actually produces a life of pleasure. It is true. That is also somewhat selfish: I am fulfilling my obligations so I can have pleasure. It is nice, but it is also a little selfish.
But then we went to the next level, and now we learn that actually having pleasure and receiving the memo that comes with the pleasure matters. You just have the pleasure, but you do not get the memo, so you did not get anything. But if you got the pleasure and got the memo with it, the memo says, “I love you. I want to tell you I love you.” If you do not get that memo, you just ate the apple; you did not get the memo, you got nothing. But if you really—if, when you got the apple, you got the memo from Hashem—you did not get the apple. You got Hashem’s love. You got Hashem’s presence in that apple. And that is what you have shown with the beracha that you made.
That actually makes you desire pleasures. Now, you do not do your obligations only because you want pleasure; the pleasure makes you want to live a life of obligation. So actually, both work hand in hand. On a lower level, obligation produces pleasure. But on a higher level, pleasure produces obligation on a much higher level.
Baruch Hashem. I think we have some clarity in understanding the depth of these beautiful words of Mesilat Yesharim. A person needs to know his obligation, and he will know his obligation on the highest level when he is lehit'aneg al Hashem.