שו”ע או”ח ב:ו ויבדוק נקביו, הגה וירגיל עצמו לפנות בוקר וערב שהוא זריזות ונקיות
Outer Action
After Netilas Yadayim, the second thing one should do in the morning is go to the bathroom. Usually a person naturally needs to do this in the morning, but even if you don’t, you should try anyway, because, as we will explain in the inner intention, this is part of the process of getting rid of the klippos and preparing our body for a brand new day of avodas Hashem. Anytime one needs to go to the bathroom, one should go right away.
Inner Intention
When we eat food, we are filling ourselves up with spiritual energy that sustains us. The klippos want to have a part in this too. They want to hijack some of this energy, so they hide Hashem’s presence that is in the food, and they try telling us that all there is in the food is the outer layer (chitzoniyos) of it.
So after we eat, Hashem, with great wisdom and compassion, created a system that once the body takes apart the food, the spiritual energy stays within us, and the klippos get sent out!
This is the pnimiyus of going to the bathroom: sending away the klippos. This is true every time we go to the bathroom, but especially so in the morning, because Hashem made our bodies process food a lot at night, so the main time to get rid of the klippos is in the morning.
This is why it is super important never to push off or be lazy about going to the bathroom. If you feel a need to go, do so right away, so that you can get rid of klippos as soon as you can!
Our body represents our chitzoniyos/actions, so inside our body represents the pnimiyus, which is the source of our passion. The Rashash writes that the klippos want to hijack our desire (ratzon) to do outer mitzvos with passion. This is why they specifically accumulate inside our body. While they are inside us, they try to prevent us from doing mitzvos with passion by keeping us feeling heavy, sleepy, and lazy. This is why, when we wake up in the morning, we tend to feel very groggy and sleepy. It is the klippos within us trying to keep us away from avodas Hashem, and part of getting out of this is going to the bathroom as soon as possible!
We explained by Netilas Yadayim that waking up with klippos is like waking up with cockroaches crawling on our hand — we should rush to get rid of them as quickly as possible! But we don’t want to just get them off, we want to scrub our hands well to make sure there are no remnants of them left. So we aren’t satisfied with just washing Netilas Yadayim, we also go to the bathroom so that we can be sure to be totally clean of klippos.
Next week, we will see how this understanding of the pnimiyus of going to the bathroom explains many things, from the nature of different types of food to our personal food preferences, and even a deeper look at the purest form of nutrition — a baby nursing, and more.
Moment of Mindfulness
When you are going to the bathroom, have the intention to rid yourself of all klippos so that your body becomes ready for a day of serving Hashem. Having this mindset in the morning is important, because even just the thought of “I don’t want the klippos, I want to get rid of them” already helps get rid of them!
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 86.
