Hello Everyone,
Today we started the eighth chapter of חובות הלבבות which is devoted to self-assessment, חשבון הנפש.
We have seen throughout these shiurim that רבנו בחיי advocates a form of Judaism that is based on clear and cogent sense of the individual’s obligation to Hahsem. רבנו בחיי explains in his preface to this chapter that having discussed repentance he needs to discuss חשבון הנפש because without an honest evaluation of one’s spiritual state תשובה is impossible.
רבנו בחיי as he explains the necessity for חשבון נפש constantly quotes verses from the תנ”ך which contain the words “know” and “remember.” Accurate knowledge of what Hashem has done for us, what we have done with our lives and what we need to do is what enables us to map our road towards spiritual growth.
רבנו בחיי teaches us something important about accountability. Every one of us needs to make a חשבון הנפש but no two people’s “account” will be identical. Every one of us has been given a particular set of talents and we have met with different life experiences. In one sense we are all identical in that we are indebted to Hashem. We differ in how we can go about repaying that debt. Some of us can do more and some can do less. But we all have room for improvement and it is the honest חשבון נפש which demonstrates the areas in which we need to try harder.
Any examination of an individual’s performance will point out defects and shortcomings as well as areas in which the person has succeeded. Since the purpose of חשבון הנפש is to get us to a higher level of עבודת ה’ it would be fair to say that the חשבון הנפש is to “accentuate the negative” in our lives. There is a danger inherent in the חשבון הנפש. Since it is a search for failures and no one is perfect this pursuit of shortcomings can lead to a sense of hopelessness and futility. רבנו בחיי seems aware of this risk and he writes that when a person sees that he has not achieved a worthy goal he should pray to Hashem to give him the means to achieve that goal.[1]
רבנו בחיי does not address the risk of חשבון הנפש leading to spiritual despair. This risk was one of the factors which led to a rift within the world of Lithuanian yeshivot in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This rift is known as the “mussar controversy.” During those years Jewish society was rocked by waves of secular movements which led to a breakdown in the traditional values which held society together. The yeshivot were not immune to this upheaval and many students even while they were immersed in advanced Talmud study read revolutionary political literature as well and eventually left religious observance behind.
At this time the great Rav Yisrael Salanter zt”l led a movement to change the yeshivot’s curricula. The exclusive pursuit of excellence in Talmud is not enough to meet the needs of the students’ souls. To address the soul a person needs to study מוסר which is the “science” of spirituality. This movement to include מוסר in the yeshivot’s programs of study led to outbreaks of violent opposition. Yeshiva students led relatively free lives in their yeshivot and מוסר would lead to tightened supervision of their behavior. Also (at least in its early stages) the study of מוסר with its emphasis on חשבון הנפש could lead to a sense of pessimism which is inimical with the almost aggressive sense of confidence needed to study Talmud.[2] The proponents of מוסר felt obviously that מוסר and חשבון הנפש are necessary and together with the study of Talmud can help a person to lead a balanced life.
This series of shiurim is not the forum for an examination of the claims of the pro- and anti- mussar camps. I only mention the debate because I think it is important to know that חשבון הנפש needs to be done properly. As I noted, even the demanding רבנו בחיי wrote that the חשבון הנפש does not require us to achieve the impossible.
At the end of the shiur I mentioned רבי נחמן and his ideas on התבודדות. התבודדות means “being alone” and Rabbi Nachman wrote at length about the need to find at least an hour each day to speak freely, alone, with God. It seems to me that רבנו בחיי is also speaking about a form of התבודדות since the חשבון הנפש needs to be done alone and could easily take an hour. But I think that רבנו בחיי and רבי נחמן for all that they were both saintly individuals who only wished to lead their readers to a better relationship with ה’ have different ideas about the goal of the daily hour with God- be it called חשבון הנפש or התבודדות.
Here is an excerpt from ליקוטי מוהר”ן (כה):
וּבִלְשׁוֹן אַשְׁכְּנַז יָכוֹל לְפָרֵשׁ כָּל שִׂיחָתוֹ וְ אֶת כָּל אֲשֶׁר עִם לְבָבוֹ יָשִׂיחַ וִיסַפֵּר לְפָנָיו יִתְבָּרַך הֵן חֲרָטָה וּתְשׁוּבָה עַל הֶעָבָר וְהֵן בַּקָּשַׁת תַחֲנוּנִים לִזְכּוֹת לְהִתְקָרֵב אֵלָיו יִתְבָּרַך מֵהַיּוֹם וּלְהָלְאָה בֶּאֱמֶת וְכַיּוֹצֵא בָּזֶה כָּל חַד לְפוּם דַּרְגֵּהּ וְ יִזָּהֵר מְאד לְהַרְגִּיל עַצְמוֹ לְהַתְמִיד בָּזֶה מִדֵּי יוֹם בְּיוֹם שָׁעָה מְיֻחֶדֶת כַּנַּ”ל
Rabbi Nachman holds that this special hour should be a free conversation with God about a person’s regrets, and a plea for Hashem to be brought closer to Him. This is in essence a חשבון נפש but with an important distinction. Rabbi Nachman writes:
וּשְׁאָר הַיּוֹם יִהְיֶה בְּשִׂמְחָה
I don’t want to dwell on the cliché of מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה but on the importance ofשמחה in this context. רבנו בחיי presents his חשבון הנפש as a serious review of one’s life with should lead to serious resolutions for self-improvement.שמחה may come, but only when the goals have been met. Unfounded or premature שמחה could be mistaken for spiritual complacency.
Rabbi Nachman’s התבודדות is a different sort of experience. Rabbi Nachma says that the התבודדות should be about חרטה and תשובה which per force require חשבון הנפש. The התבודדות involves a plea for ה’ to bring the petitioner closer and the חשבון הנפש of רבנו בחיי includes a plea for ה’ to enable the person to succeed in עבודת ה’
ומה שלא יוכל להשיגו במעשה, ישיגהו בידיעה ויתאוהו בלשונו ויכסף אליו בלבו, כמ”ש דוד ע”ה: אחלי יכונו דרכי לשמר חקיך, ואמר: הנחמדים מזהב ומפז רב וגו’. והבורא ידינהו לזכות, והוא חייב לצפות לעתות, אשר תשיג ידו ויוכל בהם לשלם מה שיתכן לו מחובות הבורא יתברך.
So why does ר’ נחמן write that theהתבודדות should lead to a feeling of שמחה? It’s not that רבנו בחיי was against שמחה . It’s only that the חשבון הנפש endorsed by the בעלי מוסר was seen as tool by which a person could work towards a relationship with ה’. We have seen all along that רבנו בחיי is fighting complacency and the route performance of מצוות . People thought that if they mechanically perform the mitzvoth then they have done what Hahsem wants. That is why Rabbeinu Bachya titled his book חובות הלבבות- The Duties of the Heart . We need to think continuously about what we are doing. After we examine how we observe the Torah we need to improve the situation. שמחה about the performance this examination is truly premature.
Rabbi Nachman describes a different sort of self-examination. חשבון הנפש is a private process while התבודדות , despite its literal meaning is not private since Hashem is invited to listen. התבודדות is actually unscripted, spontaneous prayer. Its content may resemble חשבון הנפש but since it is spoken to God it should lead to שמחה. What could be more משמח than an opportunity to share one’s burdens with God?
Thanks to everyone who participated in today’s shiur. I also wish to thank Rabbi Yedidya Rausman of the WebYeshiva staff for coming to the rescue today when the system was acting up. Bye, Stuart Fischman
[1] I will return to this point later in the summary.
[2] Rav Soloveitchik zt”l describes this In איש ההלכה , pages 68-9