Two weeks ago, we spoke a little bit about Ramchal's very, very important idea that every one of us lives in olamo. Every one of us lives in his own personal, personalized world with his own personal opportunities and challenges, with his own strengths and deficits. Let's maybe follow up a little bit on that just for a few minutes. The Mishnah at the end of Makkot says אמר רבי חנניה בן עקשיא רצה הקדוש ברוך הוא לזכות את ישראל לפיכך הרבה להם תורה ומצוות.
All the meforshim, the meforshim are engaged by the question: Why is it that the ribui mitzvot is a zechut? It would also seem to have a downside to it. It allows for more opportunities Rachmana litzlan for failure as well. The more assignments, the more one has to do to score well. So the Rambam gives a fascinating answer based on his understanding of a Gemara in Avodah Zarah. Rambam says it's an ikar that for a person to be zocheh to chayei olam haba, amongst the Torah u'mitzvot that a person accumulates in olam hazeh, there has to be at least one, one time that a person is mekayem at least one mitzvah totally lishma. In addition to the rov zechuyot that a person amasses, those zechuyot may all have elements of shelo lishma mixed in. But a person has to once do something lishma, totally lishma. Once in his life a person should be mekayem at least one mitzvah totally lishma. What רבי חנניה בן עקשיא is saying, says the Rambam, is that the ribui mitzvot allows for the fact that even though we're all different, each person has his own proclivities and his own strengths, but it's impossible that a person won't find within that multitude of Torah u'mitzvot, a person won't find his mitzvah that he'll be able to, again, fulfill entirely lishma. The ribui mitzvot ensures that the Torah plays to everyone's individual strength. The other side of that coin is that we each have our individual weaknesses, which the Torah also recognizes and positions us to be able to address. When the Mishnah says in Avot that nedarim seyag laprishut, so the Rishonim explain, the Rambam, Rabbeinu Yonah, that it allows a person to create extra gedarim for where he personally needs them. Again, Rabbeinu Yonah is ma'arich that a person should only create that geder betorat neder as a last resort. He should try to self-impose that geder without a neder, and the Mishnah only means to utilize nedarim as a last resort. But as crucial as that is lema'aseh in terms of the point that we're tracing. That it's something which we can, which we don't need to focus on. There is a pitfall that we need to avoid. If a person attempts to live and be oveid Hashem, albeit with the sincerest of motivations, but not beolamo, he's certainly setting himself up for gratuitous and inordinate difficulty. To explain a little bit how that happens, perhaps with the following mashal. For a long time, I never understood why chas veshalom you have someone who's blind or deaf, why such individuals reject the label of being handicapped. I never understood it. את חטאי אני מזכיר היום, I always thought to myself that it reflected some kind of denial, some kind of linguistic game of euphemism that our society plays. In our society, a beis olam, a cemetery, is a memorial park. So, it certainly does happen in some context that we play linguistic games and the point of which is denial. את חטאי אני מזכיר היום, I thought that this was another example of it. But it's not. There's a profound lesson in that and it's true. The rejection of the label is correct and true, and there's a profound lesson in it. There are all kinds of sounds that even people who are blessed with hearing, good hearing, don't hear. There are sound waves that the human ear isn't sensitive to. There are all kinds of nuances that the human eye can't detect. We don't go through life feeling deprived or frustrated or angry because of those limitations because we don't see them as limitations. Because we define our world based on the abilities that we do have. And the ability to succeed to the best of one's ability and to flourish requires that a person recognize olamo, and then a person can succeed and flourish. If you tell a blind person he's handicapped, so you're telling the blind person that really, to live a meaningful life, you have to have sight. So, how's he supposed to live a happy, fulfilled life? If one doesn't impose the definition of someone else's olam on him, he can, and there are many individuals who have demonstrated he can live a tremendously productive, meaningful, happy life, no less meaningful, no less less productive and no less happy than people in whose world there is sight and there is vision. But if a person tries to live not be-olamo, so then it's again, it's a formula for frustration, for lack of fulfillment, and and that obviously is a is a recipe for lack of accomplishment. But that need to define one's world in a way that matches the need for a person subjectively to define his world in a way that matches the personal objective world that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave him is is not only in in those extreme cases that we gave. Because we all have limitations that we can look around us and see that other people don't have. And when I make the mistake of of defining my world in the categories which I see in other people's world, so again, it just ensures frustration. It ensures misdirected effort, wasted energies in in the same way it's a waste of time if if if the human ear can't pick up certain sound waves, if I'm going to spend time, you know, trying to hear, it's it's going to be a wasted effort, it's going to squander energy, it's going to waste time, and it's just going to be a source of endless frustration. So it's it's crucial that that a person identify that he have the self-knowledge and the self-awareness so that he, in his mind, correctly identifies the world in in which he lives. When a person identifies correctly his own world, so then a person plays to his strengths, addresses as he's supposed to, to the best of his ability, his weaknesses. But when I don't live in my own world, so then lav davka that what I'm trying to address is a weakness that I'm trying to, that I'm supposed to address. It's not, it's not part of my world. If I should be in profession A and instead of that I I look around and I see other people who are earning more money in in profession B, but I don't I don't have the kochos for that. I don't have the kochos for that. It's not, it's not part of my avodat tikkun hamiddot to to make myself into a successful professional in field B. It's not, it's not part of my world. A very, very high quotient of the discontent Not correctly identifying olamo and trying and measuring themselves against someone else's, someone else's world. Even when we look to rebbeim, to whoever serve for us as role models, it's very important to understand that with all the affinity that must exist for a rebbe's teachings to resonate with a talmid, with all the inspiration that our role models provide us with, but a person should never be looking to exactly replicate or duplicate what his role model does. Because as much affinity as there exists, so every person is a yachid. Sometimes when a person's involved simultaneously in two different limudim, so they intersect, or he imagines that they intersect, try to figure out which of the two it is. So the following thought is based either on a real intersection or an imaginary intersection. The mishna in the fourth perek of Sanhedrin famously says in the context of how there they would be ma'ayem on the eidem of dinei nefashos, not rachmana litzlan to say eidus sheker and to cause a person to wrongly be put to death, כל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו קיים עולם מלא וכל המאבד נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו איבד עולם מלא.
So clearly that idea, the chazal certainly expresses what we're talking about because there is on one level, it taka is an olam malei because everyone's inhabiting olamo and and it is an olam malei. But itachen that this again, this individuality, this uniqueness that we're talking about in all its implications, maybe the pshat in this as the mishna goes on to say: להגיד גדולתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא שאדם טובע כמה מטבעות בחותם אחד
when you produce coins, so each coin is identical, כולם דומים זה לזה. However, מלך מלכי המלכים הקדוש ברוך הוא טבע כל אדם בחותמו של אדם הראשון ואין אחד מהם דומה לחברו.
And yet no two people are exactly alike. No two people are identical. Itachen that that one element of what we... Itachen that one element of what Chazal here are telling us, a person is b'tzelem Elokim. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu is absolutely and uniquely unique. Obviously that isn't and can't be true of anything else of anyone else. But a me-ein of a me-ein of a me-ein of that is that אין אחד מהם דומה לחברו that one aspect of the Tzelem Elokim is obviously in a very different way on a human level. Every person is also unique and because he's unique he lives and potentially can flourish but only flourish in his own world chovaso be-olamo.