Simple

18 Teves 5782

“[I am regarded] among the dead who are free, like corpses lying in the grave, of whom You are not yet mindful, who are yet cut off by Your hand.” (Tehillim 88:6)

Sometimes we put all our strength, or what we think is all of our strength, into our divine service but it doesn’t feel like we are getting anywhere. In those moments it can feel like Hashem has abandoned us, turned away from our efforts. We feel like we are pushing against a wall. Despite all our effort we are still immersed in day-to-day life, our desired unity with Hashem is still outstanding.

“Afterward, after this person has transgressed, the good that is in his divine soul asserts itself, and he is filled with remorse, he will seek pardon and forgiveness of G-d for his transgression, and if he repents with the appropriate penitence, in accordance with the counsel of our Sages, of blessed memory, G-d will indeed forgive him” (Lessons in Tanya, Likutei Amarim, Chapter 11)

We have to understand that feeling remorse over not doing enough is the defining characteristic of the spiritual level most of us are holding on. Most of us are, according to Tanya, incomplete reshaim, wicked ones who possess some good, albeit of a higher degree, closer to a beinoni than a complete rasha (wicked one). As such, the subservience of our good side to our evil side is exceedingly minor, only expressing itself in infrequent, occasional lapses, in minor transgressions with only one of three of the animal soul’s garments at a time. The feeling of remorse and repentance is the quintessential characteristic, which drives our divine service, and differentiates us from the “real” reshaim who transgress on a regular basis with little to no regard.

“The bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed” (Shemos 3:2)

The Holy Baal Shem Tov comes to connect this verse to our insight above:

“At Sinai, Moses beheld the heart of the simple Jew.

‘Man is a tree of the field’ (Devarim 20:19). But the field has many types of trees. The Talmud compares the righteous Torah scholars to fruit trees, which bestow beauty, fragrance and nourishment upon the world. The fruit trees also burn — they burn with the ecstasy of their Torah study, with the fervor of their prayer, with the warmth of their good deeds. But theirs is a fire that burns and burns out, a fire that is sated by the words of Torah and prayer and the fulfillment of the divine will.

But the thornbush burns with a fire that is never satisfied. The simple Jew, who cannot fathom the depths of Torah, who can barely articulate his prayers, who has little understanding of the significance of a mitzvah — his is a thirst never quenched. His heart burns with a yearning for G‑d he can never hope to still, with a love he can never hope to consummate.

When Moses, the most perfect of men, beheld the heart of flame that smolders within the thornbush, he was humbled by the sight. ‘I must turn aside to see this great sight,’ he said: I must move from where I am and strive to awaken in myself the insatiable fire of the simple Jew.”

Hashem wanted us to be simple Jews. Otherwise, he would have created us as complete Tzaddikim. Our mission is not to be Tzadikkim, but simply to try our best to be simple.