Serve Hashem with Joy, not Fear

In our generation, the generation of Geula, serving Hashem has to be from happiness and awe of the greatness of Hashem, and not from fear of punishment. All the Neshamos of this generation are inspired to serve Hashem from love and a connection to the divine, and inwardly truly desire to follow Him. This needs to be nurtured with love and a recognition of Hashem's greatness and not from fear of retribution which emanates from a distrust of human nature, and assumes that a person's inner desire is to act against the will of God, hence the need to frighten him. That's not true; the inner-most desire of those of this generation is to discern the will of Hashem and raise the Schechina. Even if they may be mistaken in the path they take, this is not because they have a bad nature, but because their understanding is confused and inside they are pure and seeking Hashem. Therefore, it is necessary to educate the members of the generation of redemption with light, encouragement, love and joy in the greatness of Hashem, and not with pressure, fear and the bitterness of fear of retribution which hammer a person's soul and weaken it. They give people the impression that inwardly they are evil, and they need to have the filth beaten out of them.
Not only does fear of retribution not succeed, but it causes some to rebel and reject fear of God and the Mitzvos. The person's soul which thirsts for light will fight against the threats and reject everything. Even though rejection will not result in anything good, and it is a mistake to reject, but it results from the threats and frightening demands which are battering an inside that is truly good and not evil.
דברים תרח"צ

A True Tzaddik...

A true Tzaddik, as well as anyone who is not infused with selfishness, feels and cares about the lives of others, his neighbors and acquaintances, his community and nation, mankind in general - Jews and Gentiles - wild animals and farm animals, and everything in Creation. In his heart he desires good for every one of them, for the desire of the Tzaddikim is only good, and he prays for good for all, and he has mercy like the mercy of Hashem for every one of His creations with no exceptions. In his heart he feels everyone's pain, prays for all of them and wants the complete redemption which will bring about the rectification of everything - the Jewish nation who He loves and is close to, all of the Gentiles and their governments, and all creatures. This Tzaddik, the man of pure heart within which the Schechina rests cannot feel completely happy only on the basis of what is occurring in his own life, not even from his own spiritual accomplishments, for these joys pale in comparison with the joy of the redemption of the Schechina and the complete rectification of Israel and the entire world.
דברים תרפ"ג

Spiritual Entropy

In our Thursday night discussions of the writings of the Chalban, we just concluded the section on Parshas Noach. The essence of his theme has been that the sin of the דור המבול, the Generation of the Flood, as well as the דור הפלגה, the Generation of Dispersion at the time of the Tower of Babel, was rooted in the fact that they desired to live a life that was completely without boundaries. Even though the creation of the Universe was predicated upon the creation of boundaries and separation (דין), they wanted to enjoy the unbounded and unconstricted bounty of God (חסד) and they rejected the concept of any boundaries at all. This is why at the time of Noach they engaged in theft and adultery and why at the time of the Tower they were completely united, each represents a rejection of boundaries.
HaChalban explains that this unboundedness, the drive for תהו, is actually an attempt to return to a pre-creation world in which boundaries did not exist, there was just one homogeneous God. While rooted, therefore, in something of value, it still mitigated against the foundation of Creation and was not tenable. I would add that entropy, one of the most basic forces of nature, is the drive drive for תהו, and rooted in the fabric of physical existence inexorably trying to return to its pre-Creation state.
He continues to explain that before the time of Avraham there was no concept of 613 Mitzvos, rather one could connect to God through every facet of his life. When God created more boundaries with the creation of 70 nations, he also created the boundaries and delineations which are the 613 Mitzvos and from then on it was only within the framework of those 613 boundaries that man could connect to God. For this reason we don't find any discussion of the 613 before Avraham.
Finally, he says that the entire concept of boundaries and constrictions was much weaker throughout existence prior to the time of Avraham. At this time God chose to make these lines drawn much more firmly than they had previously been drawn.
With this last line it became clear to me that the reason the people in those earlier eras, in the 2,000 years of תהו, had spent so much time pushing the envelope and trying to dispense with all lines, is because the lines themselves were not so firmly drawn as they are today. It was almost as if they were being invited to challenge them, weak as they were.
I also understood now why the Mitzvah of Bris Milah did not exist until the time of Avrohom. There is no Mitzvah that illustrates the idea of constriction and limitation as much as the Mitzvah of Milah. Prior to Avrohom, with the whole idea of constriction being weak, there was no place for a Mitzvah such as Milah. Only with the advent of the new and improved constriction was there a place for this Mitzvah.

Fear

The biggest obstacle to increasing the level of holiness in the world is fear. Not any external enemies, not the pursuit of physical pleasure and not any intellectual challenges. Within the world of holiness, in the souls of those who are God fearing, there is power-sapping trepidation which prevents Kedusha from being present in the world. There are very powerful desires hidden in the souls of all those who want to do the will of God, but worries and fear, a feeling of powerlessness, lack of self-confidence, and trust in God, prevent these holy forces from doing their job.
More so than the need to do Teshuva for any sins, it is necessary for people to do Teshuva for their laxity when it comes to holy things. The laxity and weakness is the source of all sins and stumblings.
As we are living in a time of Geula, we need to gird our loins, to be strong, powerful hearts and bold, to get up and act for the sake of Schechina, for the sake of Klal Yisroel, and to incease the light of Kedusha. This is a more difficult challenge than that which faces a soldier in battle. A soldier is fighting enemies and can easily inspire himself to fight and destroy them. He is in battle and his challenge is to find strength. When it comes to the Teshuva movement the foundation is love, a smiling face, drawing close and sweetness. It is the movement of great kindness and unity. It is predicated on kindness, not judgment and deals with those who are your brothers. It is more difficult to find the inner strength for this endeavor and the internal resistance is stronger than that facing a soldier in battle.
ה"ו ש"ט

Wicked-I

The Wise Son finds it natural to toil in Torah study and to find God through his intellectual efforts. The Simple Son (תם) has the trait of תמימיות, by which he recognizes that God directs everything, and is the foundation of all existence. God operates through nature and all that happens to him comes from God. He walks after God with perfect and relaxed faith. He asks simple, "What's this?" The word זאת, this, indicates something that is clearly present and can be pointed at. It is the presence of God that he sees clearly throughout existence.

But what of the Wicked Son and the One Who Knows Not How to Ask? They share something in common. Neither one can relate to the way things appear superficially. The Wicked Son sees the Torah and it doesn't sit well with him because he has questions and opposition in his soul. The One Who Knows Not How to Ask looks at the world and finds it so perplexing that he has no idea even where to start asking questions. In order to ask, there has to be some minimal amount of understanding through which he can translate what he comprehends into a question and advance in his understanding. But for someone to whom everything is a riddle, he grasps nothing, there is no place for questioning. The inability to assimilate that which is in front of a person, whether on the part of the oppositional Wicked Son or of the One Who Knows Not How to Ask, even though there is something lacking in consequence, there is also the spark of something hidden, which shows a connection to a deeper realm. The inability to reconcile with and understand what is seemingly obvious is rooted in a desire for something greater and more clear. This is why there is opposition which manifests itself either as wickedness or an utter lack of understanding to the point of being unable to even formulate a question.

The Wicked Son is rooted in the concept of Tohu, the destruction of the world order. Tohu desires to destroy what is present because it seeks a greater light. Questioning always strengthens that which was questioned, and forces it to find something deeper within. Yes, the Wicked Son is opposed to the Torah, but that opposition will cause a deepening of the Torah to reveal greater light until his opposition is complete gone. The Wicked Son truly desires the Torah, but in its present form it is being presented to him in a manner that is incomplete. His heart is troubled by what he is shown and he is full of questions and rejection. He may even think that he is opposed to the Torah, but deep down it is not the Torah to which he is opposed, he just wants a broader and deeper Torah. He is rejecting explanations that come from a Torah which is neither broad nor deep.

Notice that despite his wickedness the Torah refers to him as a son. His behavior may be corrupt, we may need to knock out a few of his teeth, but we must still relate to him as a member of the family.

In his dissatisfaction with what seems to be obvious to others he forces his parents and teachers to deepen and broaden their own understanding in order to reach their distant brother.

Four Sons - Many Approaches to Relating to God - Part II

Every parent and educator has an obligation to broaden his or her perspective on the greatness of Hashem. They will then appreciate that God reveals Himself even in mundane matters, which is the way to God for people who are in the workforce. God is revealed in the soul, which is the spiritual path of artists. God is revealed through intellectual pursuit and logic, which is the path of those who are engaged in Torah study. The primary failure of education is educating a child along a path that is not appropriate for his or her soul. One who understands Hashem and recognizes the myriad ways in which He reveals Himself, can then mentor many people and direct them along the path that is appropriate for their unique spiritual roots.

One of the most basic rules of Chinuch (education) is that prior to examining the souls of one's own children a person needs to know that many facets of God and the many approaches to Torah, and the various forms of serving God. This will prevent the parent from becoming stuck in the notion that his path is the sole path to Hashem and thereby attempt to force the child along a path that is perhaps not at all the path for his soul. A parent doesn't give his child a soul, only the outer garments that clothe the soul. The child's path, however, is rooted in his own soul. It is therefore entirely possible for a parent to have a child whose spiritual path is completely unlike that of the parent. We see this all the time.

Even if a parent is open to the possibility of his child having an alternative path to God, if the parent does not value the path of the child, he will not be able to educate him properly. If the father thinks there is one proper path to serving God - perhaps he feels that it is through intensive Talmudic study - even if he senses that this is not the path for his child who would rather be engaged in stories or songs, if he doesn't force his child down the Talmudic path, but still feels his child's path is mistaken, there will be consequences in the child's overall foundation. Nothing fills a child with life more than the feeling that his parents are proud of him. If the father is still dreaming that his son would be someone else, all the candies and nice words won't help. If the heart isn't in it then the child won't get the nutrition he needs for proper growth.

But the parent can't lie to himself. If he really believes there is only one path to God then in his heart, his child is a failure. And his child will sense this. The parent needs to appreciate the multiplicity of approaches and value their manifestation of God's will, and happily encourage his child from the depths of his heart to go according to his nature and sanctify the name of God in the way that meets his own soul. 

Four Sons - Many Approaches to Relating to God - Part I

God reveals Himself in many ways in the world. This is the root cause for their being so many different types of people. The distinctions between people and the way in which their souls operate are rooted in the spiritual light at the core of their existence. Each person is rooted in a distinct light of God's manifestation which establishes his nature, what attracts him, and his approach to life. Some souls are more connected to chesed, others to gevurah, some to tifereth, and yet others to malchuth.

This is the basis for a proper understanding of educating children, "Educate a child according to his path," the personal spiritual path of the individual child. In order to be ready to properly educate children according to their unique paths a person must first educate himself in the panoply of ways in which God is manifested in the world. Each person is a revelation of God's holiness through his own soul, in his unique expression of holiness which is his task in this world. To understand the uniqueness of each individual it is necessary to first understand the many facets of God's light in order to connect the soul of the child with the particular light which is appropriate for him.

If a person is only familiar with one manifestation of the Divine light he will attempt to educate all his students and children along that path. Since he is unaware of other paths, he assumes that this is the one truth. These efforts will fail for those whose souls are destined for another path. They will be resistant to his efforts, and, as they are not offered an alternative that suits them, will feel opposition in general to God and are likely to reject everything. Almost all rebellion against spirituality results from the lack of awareness that there are other approaches, based in the broad selection of ways in which God is manifest in the world, which could direct these individuals down the path that fits their own personality and desire. The lack of involvement in Kabbalistic study, leads to a lack of understanding of the multiplicity of approaches, and leaves people stuck in one way of serving God. The result is rejection in the hearts of those for whom the most popular path is not the right path.

We are not referring to the realm of Halacha which is established and incumbent on every Jew, and is not dependent on ones personal inclinations. However, the main difficulties in education are not in the area of Halacha, but due to the soul. When a person finds his place within Jewish spirituality, the toil in Halacha will also be sweet to him. He will desire the Mitzvoth of Hashem, even those which are naturally difficult.
הגדה