Chapter 19- Shelo Lishmah and Being Effective
Some people object to the idea that we should be excited about our opportunity to accomplish. Thinking about what we are accomplishing while we are doing mitzvos does not seem so noble. Aren’t we supposed to serve Hashem out of love without thinking about anything else?
Unfortunately, life does not work that way. Most people don’t yet have the emotional relationship with Hashem to be able to serve Him purely out of love. It is even more unlikely that they will draw enough excitement from that drive to overpower their urges. Though we aspire to get there, we probably aren’t there yet. We must do what is best for us right now instead of worrying about “where we should be holding” or lying to ourselves that we are holding where we’re not — both surefire ways to fall flat on our faces. Our job is to be effective, which is why we must develop our drive to accomplish.
Ultimately, we know that deep down we want to serve Hashem; it just gets covered up by our desires and other interests. If we want our noble part to win, we must use other motivating drives to strengthen our will to win. Otherwise, when the battle begins, our wish to serve Hashem will probably be overpowered by our desire to indulge. That is why we fire ourselves up with dreams of greatness — because that is the way to win our battles.
Of course, we hope to someday love Hashem so much that serving Him will be our only wish. We aspire for our love for Him to be stronger than any desires we experience. One day, we will view our challenges as opportunities to show Hashem how much we love Him, and this excitement alone will give us the strength to win. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that we have not yet reached this lofty level, and thus we prepare responsibly for what will challenge us. Because we want to serve Hashem, we create strong aspirations to accomplish through defeating the yetzer hara, which increases our odds of success.
In fact, Rav Chaim of Volozhin writes (Ruach Chaim 3:1) that it is impossible to attain the level of serving Hashem lishmah (purely for His sake) without first serving Him with intentions that are not entirely pure. Serving Hashem lishmah is a lofty level that is beyond us when we start out. We must grow into it, and it takes time. Although we aspire to reach this level someday, and we inch closer with each mitzvah we do, there is no expectation that we serve Hashem that way now.
Rav Chaim illustrates this with a parable: If a man tells his servant to bring something from the attic, he won’t be upset if the servant ascends the ladder instead of jumping straight up. He will only be dissatisfied if the servant doesn’t try to climb up. Similarly, Hashem only asks us to serve Him as we can now, and through that service, we will ascend the ladder to great heights.