Mesirus Nefesh

25 Teves 5782

“[The frogs] will go up and come into your house, into your bedchamber, into your bed and into your ovens” (Shemos 7:28)

The Talmud in Pesachim 53b states, “What led Chananiah, Mishael and Azariah to deliver themselves, for the sanctification of the divine name, to the fiery furnace? (See Daniel, ch. 3.) They argued to themselves: If frogs, which are not commanded concerning the sanctification of the divine name, yet it is written of them, ‘They shall come up and go into your ovens,’ we, who are commanded concerning the sanctification of the Name, how much the more so!”

The Rebbe expounds on this, “‘Self-sacrifice’ is not just the willingness to die for one’s beliefs; it is the way in which one lives for them. It is the willingness to sacrifice one’s ‘self’ — one’s desires, one’s preconceptions, one’s most basic inclinations. Indeed, the Hebrew term for self-sacrifice, mesirus nefesh, means both ‘giving of life’ and ‘giving of will.’

Thus the lesson of self-sacrifice is derived from a frog, a cold-blooded creature, who enters a burning oven. The ultimate test of faith goes beyond the issue of life and death — it is the ability to transcend one’s very nature for the sake of a higher truth.”

“Nevertheless, in relation to the rank of the beinoni, [this level of love] is regarded as a truly perfect service in terms of their level of truth, i.e., the level of beinonim, in each man relative to his standing in the category of the beinonim” (Lessons in Tanya, Likutei Amarim, end of Chapter 13)

Tanya explains that truth is not an absolute matter. What for the beinoni is a truly perfect service wouldn’t be considered a “true service” at all for the tzadik.

“I will run on the path of Your commandments, for You will broaden my heart.” (Tehillim 119:32)

Similarly, Hashem doesn’t call us up to sacrifice our life every day under the banner of “mesirus nefesh.” Rather, He wants us to overcome our own nature every day as explained by the Rebbe above. Through “running on His path,” Hashem “broadens our heart” and we progress, and there might even come a day on which we are called upon to do actual “mesirus nefesh” in the truest sense of the word. Still, at our current level, overcoming our nature is considered a truly perfect service, akin to the ultimate “mesirus nefesh” performed by the previous generations.