Above And Beyond

After a lengthy discussion about a disagreement between Levi and Rav, the Gemara (Niddah 36a) concludes by noting that Mar Zutra ruled that the halachah follows both opinions. In any given situation we will follow the opinion that is more stringent. Tosfos HaRosh raises the following question: The Gemara in Chullin states that an individual who conducts himself stringently and follows two contradictory opinions is like a “fool walking in the dark.” In this dispute, the opinions of Levi and Rav are mutually exclusive. How could Mar Zutra advise that both be followed? The Tosfos HaRosh differentiates between when one is forced to be stringent out of doubt and when one optionally adopts stringency. If one does not know the halachah or which opinion to follow, he can adopt stringencies that are contradictory. However, if an individual is only adopting a stringency out of piety, he should not follow two contradictory opinions.

Colloquially, the term “chumrah” refers to the second type of stringency, an optional stringency in halachah that one takes upon himself. If a practice is mandated by halachah or custom, it would not be a chumrah. Some view gebrochts as a chumrah, while others keep it due to custom. One of my rebbeim told me about an incident that occurred to him as he was eating a Pesach meal at a hotel in Yerushalayim: He innocently dipped his matzah into his soup bowl. The anti-gebrochts sensors went off, and a waiter immediately appeared. He yelled “chametz!” at the top of his lungs, and grabbed the offending contraband. This just goes to show that one man’s chumrah is another man’s law.

I would say that the daily use of a mikveh by a man is an example of a chumrah. However, plenty of chassidim would beg to differ. Purchasing only pas Yisrael, chalav Yisrael, and yashan products is deemed by many to be a chumrah. Yet others would say that adherence to them is mandatory. To ascertain what is and what is not a chumrah, a rav should be consulted.

The Gemara in Ta’anis discusses a bona fide chumrah: The mishnah (10a) says that if rain had not fallen from the beginning of the season until after the 17th of Cheshvan, certain individuals would undertake a series of fasts. Who were these individuals? The Gemara (10b) says they were those who had reached a level of Torah scholarship such that they could be appointed as a leader of the community. The Gemara quotes the words of R’ Meir: “Not everyone who wants to make himself ‘an individual’ can do so.” According to R’ Meir, it is improper for someone who has not achieved the requisite Torah knowledge to fast. It smacks of arrogance to display a level of piousness that one has not really reached.

A similar statement is found in Berachos (16b): A groom is exempt from the requirement of reciting Shema on his wedding night because he will be unable to concentrate properly. May a groom who is otherwise unexceptional in his piety and Torah knowledge choose to recite Shema anyway? Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel answers in the negative: by doing so, he is haughtily displaying to the world that he is able to concentrate on Shema even on the night of his wedding. (Interestingly enough, the halachah nowadays is just the opposite; even a groom is obligated to recite Shema. Our concentration on the words of Shema is so deficient that even on the night of one’s wedding, he is able to achieve concentration close enough to the meager level of attentiveness at which he usually recites Shema. So, if a groom would choose not to say Shema on the night of his wedding, that would be arrogance. He would in effect be saying, “I generally do say Shema with a lot more concentration than everyone else, so my concentration would be significantly impaired by the distraction of the day’s events.”)

There is an interesting Midrash and Gemara apropos to this discussion.

The pasuk says, “Rivkah took the clean garments of her older son, Eisav, which were with her in the house and clothed Yaakov, her younger son” (Bereishis 27:15). The Midrash Rabbah explains: These garments had belonged to Nimrod, and Eisav had killed him and taken them. He kept these garments in Yitzchak and Rivkah’s house and wore them when he served his father. Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel said, “All my days, I did not serve my father with one-hundredth of the honor with which Eisav served his father. When I would serve my father, I would wear [ordinary clothes, even if they were] dirty . . . In contrast, Eisav specially dressed in royal garments when he served his father.”

The Gemara (Chullin 105a) records that Mar Ukva said, “I am like vinegar from wine compared to my father, for if he ate meat one day, he would not eat dairy for 24 hours, whereas I wait only from one meal until the next (roughly or exactly six hours).”

If Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and Mar Ukva realized that something was lacking in their adherence to the mitzvah of kibud av and basar b’chalav respectively, why didn’t they just adopt the proper changes?

The following explanation is quoted in the name of Rav Yisrael Salanter: When a wealthy man sits down to a meal, he doesn’t immediately grab dessert; he first eats his appetizer. Then he consumes his soup, followed by salad. He eats the main dish when he is ready. Only when he has finished his meal does he eat his dessert.

Even if the dessert were displayed beautifully as a centerpiece at the beginning of the meal, the meal would still follow the proper order. So, too, when it comes to avodas Hashem: The way to build one’s character is to improve step by step. If a builder builds a fourth floor without properly supporting the third floor, the building can collapse. Likewise, spiritual floors should be built in order to properly support each ensuing echelon. Mar Ukva and Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel felt that they hadn’t yet climbed to the spiritual level necessary for the added stringencies. They felt that the best approach to avodas Hashem was a continuous upward climb, without skipping steps.

Rav Yisrael Salanter added the following caveat: That was only true in those earlier days. Back then, there were real tzaddikim who were rich in spirituality and who would achieve real love and fear of G-d, alacrity, watchfulness, and all other positive traits. But, he said, nowadays (in the 1800s!), when we are spiritually poor, we have to grab at every available mitzvah. The previous parable of the meal applied to spiritually rich people who had the hope of reaching dessert. We may never reach dessert; we are like a pauper who grabs at every morsel of food offered to him. If he is offered dessert, he will grab at it and eat his fill, though he hasn’t eaten a proper main course, because he doesn’t know if he’ll get any other food. Who knows how many spiritual courses we will be served? We should snatch any spiritual course that comes our way. Only in previous generations did they have the luxury of engaging in a continuous climb upwards, because they knew they would get somewhere. In our spiritually starved generation, we should jump at any possible mitzvah.

A rav suggested that this statement from Rav Yisrael Salanter provides a rationale for grabbing every possible chumrah that’s available. HaGaon Rav Henoch Leibowitz, zt’l, my rosh yeshiva, disagreed. Performing an added stringency without the requisite feelings behind it constitutes a form of falsehood. If a person’s actions are incongruous with his emotions and intentions, he is engraining falsehood into his psyche. Moreover, it can lead to feelings of haughtiness and arrogance. He will view himself as superior to others because he is outwardly acting in a way seemingly more advanced than his peers. This will ultimately lead him to ignore his real deficiencies. He will falsely assume that he has already reached perfection in areas where he is sorely lacking, the result being that while he acts stringently in some areas, he will be left with gaping holes in others.

Rav Yisrael Salanter and his talmidim viewed themselves as being spiritually destitute. They realized how far their level of shemiras ha’mitzvos was from the earlier generations of Tanaim, Amoraim, and Rishonim. Consequently, they didn’t feel arrogance by adopting an added stringency; they felt like they were gasping for spiritual air. They viewed themselves as being terribly deficient in avodas Hashem, and no chumrah could cover that up. Finally, their speech and conduct conveyed this sense of desperation. Viewed from this perspective, an added chumrah would not be falsehood for them; their attitude could truly be likened to that of the pauper, grabbing dessert because that’s what is currently available to him.

The rosh yeshiva said that nowadays that feeling is lost. We don’t view ourselves as being spiritually lacking. We may view ourselves as having slight issues that need to be corrected, but otherwise perfect. In our times, then, a display of outward piety which doesn’t correlate to true inner feelings can bring one to feelings of conceit, further concealing his spiritual deficiencies. In short, we don’t have R’ Yisrael Salanter’s feelings of destitution. Consequently, our mode of conduct should revert to the way it originally was: We shouldn’t adopt stringencies beyond our spiritual level. Rather, we should maintain a constant and steady climb upwards. (However, as I mentioned earlier, it is difficult to ascertain what really constitutes a chumrah. A rav should be sought for guidance.)

If someone is looking for spiritual growth, he should work on the basics first. I was at a gathering on the Lower East Side of Manhattan a number of years ago to hear words of inspiration and pray for our brothers in Eretz Yisrael. Rav Dovid Feinstein, shlita, gave a rare public derashah. His advice for a personal resolution to make was to say Tachanun with more feeling and to try to understand the words. On another occasion, he urged his listeners to resolve to offer everyone a smile. It astounded me that his ideas of personal resolutions were so ordinary and commonplace. Yet these are basics that we all can improve on. When we be’H master the basics, we will be ready for chumros.