אִם־בְּחֻקֹּתַ֖י תֵּלֵ֑כוּ וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתַ֣י תִּשְׁמְר֔וּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָֽם
If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments
If you see someone passing out on the street, you will scream for assistance, drop everything, and run over to try and help. You won’t feel “embarrassed” by your actions, because what you are doing is really, really, important. You are saving a life! If someone throws a pile of hundred-dollar bills out the window, most people would gladly run around the street as fast as they can, chasing the bills to put them in their pocket, because money is important to them!
We demonstrate how important our relationship with Hashem is by not allowing what other people will think about us to get in the way of our spiritual growth. Yes, it can be embarrassing to do things that others may look at as being “too frum” or “too spiritual,” but if it is really, really important to us, we won’t let that get in our way. Taking care of our neshamah is simply too important to let a bit of embarrassment prevent it. Should we lose a world of eternity for a moment of discomfort?
There are some people who just pour cold water on everything warm. This is what Amalek represented, someone who would even burn themselves by jumping into boiling water out of their determination to cool down a Yid’s journey. The antidote to Amalek is called Netzach D’kidusha, which is a passionate sense of holy determination. We match the energy of Amalek with passionate determination to protect that which is really, really important to us.
But Netzach D’kidusha doesn’t only manifest as a fiery resolve to stand firm in the face of skeptics or cynics. It can also come from the middah of Temimus. What is a Tam? A Tam is someone who walks with a humble and simple understanding that he doesn’t know anything on his own, so he simply follows the will of Hashem. Because he knows that he doesn’t know, he doesn’t try to outsmart or outmaneuver anybody or anything, he just does what Hashem asks. Such a person is not bothered by what others think about him, because it was never about “him.” It was about following the Will of Hashem. The Will of Hashem doesn’t change just because some people think what he’s doing is unusual or “too frum” or “too spiritual.” Such a person can be comfortable challenging the status quo, and doesn’t feel obligated to blindly follow the way other people do things.
This is the middah that brings a person to become a true Tzadik. Reb Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l, embodied this midah of temimus. He was completely unbothered by how the entire world did things. He created the Torah learning goals that he wanted to, and set up his own system of ‘rules’ and ‘penalties’ if he would fall behind on his daily quota. Someone once asked him if he wanted to get a driver’s license so he could drive a car. His response was that he can just travel by horse and buggy (so he has no need to get a license). Temimus takes the status quo of what “everyone else does” and flips it on its head; it challenges the normal and says: “Who says this has to be done in this way? Maybe it can be done another way.”
If other people, or the yetzer hara, say that a certain level in avodas Hashem is not achievable, the response of the tam is: “Who says it is impossible? If it is the Will of Hashem, then anything is possible!”
אִם־בְּחֻקֹּתַ֖י תֵּלֵ֑כוּ וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתַ֣י תִּשְׁמְר֔וּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָֽם
This is how we can demonstrate to Hashem that we faithfully follow His commandments.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 36.
