Chapter 30: Lowly Before Every Person

There is one more thing a person should take to heart, in order to fulfill the saying of our Sages, of blessed memory: “Be lowly of spirit before every person.” “Be” means in absolute truth. “Before every person” means literally every person, even before the most worthless of the worthless. This is done by following another saying of our Sages: “Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place.”

For it is his place that causes him to sin. His livelihood requires him to go about the marketplace all day and to be one of those who “sit at the street corners.” His eyes see every kind of temptation, and “the eye sees and the heart desires.” And his evil inclination burns “like an oven heated by the baker,” as it is written in Hosea, “It burns like a flaming fire….”

It is different with someone who goes to the marketplace only a little and sits at home most of the day. And even if he does go about the marketplace all day, he may not be so heated by nature, for the evil inclination is not the same in every soul: there is one whose inclination is…, as is explained elsewhere.

Now in truth, even one who is very heated by nature, and whose livelihood is to sit at the street corners all day, has no excuse at all for his sins. He is called a “complete rasha” because there is no fear of G‑d before his eyes.

For he should have held himself back and ruled over the desire in his heart, out of fear of G‑d, Who sees all his deeds, as was explained above, for the mind rules over the heart by its very nature.

Yet in truth, it is a great and fierce war to break the inclination that burns like a flaming fire, out of fear of G‑d. It is like an actual test.

Therefore every person, according to his own place and level in serving G‑d, must weigh and examine himself: does he serve G‑d with a war as fierce and a test as great as this, in the area of “do good”? For example, in the service of prayer with kavanah (focused devotion): to pour out his soul before G‑d with literally all his strength, to the point of “wringing out the soul”; to wage a fierce war against his body and the animal soul within it, which hold back his concentration, beating them and grinding them like dust before the morning and evening prayers every single day; and also during the prayer, to toil with the toil of the soul and the toil of the flesh, as will be explained at length later on.

Whoever has not reached this measure, of waging so fierce a war against his body, has not yet come up to the level and measure of the war against an inclination that burns like a flaming fire, to make it bow and break before the fear of G‑d.

The same applies to the Grace after Meals and to all the blessings, over enjoyments and over mitzvos, said with kavanah, and needless to say, to the intention of doing the mitzvos for their own sake.

The same applies to the study of Torah: to study much more than he wants and likes according to his nature and habit, through a fierce war with his body.

For to study a little more than one’s nature is only a small war. It has no comparison or likeness to the war against an inclination that burns like fire, where a person is called a “complete rasha” if he does not overcome his inclination so that it bows and breaks before G‑d.

And what difference is it to me, “turn away from evil” or “do good”? All of it is the command of the holy King, the One and Only, blessed be He.

The same applies to the other mitzvos, and especially to matters of money, such as the service of charity and the like.

And even in the area of “turn away from evil,” every thoughtful person can find in himself that he does not turn away from evil completely, in every way and in every respect, where a fierce war like the one described above is needed, or even less than that. For example: to stop in the middle of a pleasant bit of gossip, or of a story that puts down his fellow, even with a small and very slight slur, even if it is true, and even to clear himself. This is known from what Rabbi Shimon said to his father, Rabbeinu HaKadosh: “I did not write it; Yehudah the tailor wrote it,” and his father said to him, “Keep away from lashon hara” [see there in the Gemara, beginning of chapter 10 of Bava Basra].

And there are many such things that happen very often. This is especially so with sanctifying oneself in what is permitted to him, which is a Torah commandment, as it is written, “You shall be holy…” and “Sanctify yourselves….” And also, “the words of the Sages are stricter than the words of the Torah,” and so on.

Only, all these and their like are among “the sins a person tramples with his heels,” and they have also come to seem permitted, because he did them and repeated them, and so on.

But in truth, if he is learned, holds fast to G‑d’s Torah and longs to be close to G‑d, then his sin is too great to bear, and his guilt is multiplied many times over, for not fighting and overcoming his inclination with a war of the fierce kind described above. It is far greater than the guilt of the most worthless of the worthless among the street-corner idlers, who are far from G‑d and His Torah. Their guilt for not conquering their inclination, which burns like a flaming fire, out of fear of G‑d, Who understands and sees all their deeds, is not as great as the guilt of anyone who draws ever closer to G‑d, to His Torah and to His service. As our Sages said about Acher: “Because he knew My glory….”

That is why our Sages said about the unlearned that “deliberate sins are counted for them as inadvertent.”