[Avodah] ha-sameach be-chelko

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Eli Turkel asked:
> 2. In spiritual matters ha-sameach be-chelko seems even less
> appropriate. It seems to be the opposite of teshuva which says
> that one should never be happy with ones status and always
> work on getting better.

Yes, I totally agree.

My understanding is that "hasameach bechelko" applies primarily to one's material possessions, and not at all to one's spiritual accomplishments.

One piece of evidence is that "kin'as sofrim" is commendable. As RET wrote, one should indeed always try to accomplish more in ruchnius.

The second proof is that "hakol bi'ydei Shamayim chutz mi'yiras Shamayim":

1) "Hakol bi'ydei Shamayim" teaches us about the "chelek" that one should be sameach about. Namely, that I got my chelek, I got what is proper for me. This includes (according to Rashi, Brachos 33b) my mental abilities (in Rashi's words, "chacham/shoteh"). Therefore, even in matters of learning Torah, I am not overly jealous of those who are able to learn better than me.

2) "Chutz mi'yiras Shamayim", it seems to me, teaches about spiritual accomplishments. I need to improve myself. I am not impressed by how many blatt gemara a person has mastered, but I *AM* impressed by how hard he worked at mastering them. Similarly, I am impressed by the self-control a person had when he restrained himself in a difficult situation.

These ideas can be illustrated by a comment my wife made a number of years ago, when she heard about the New York City Marathon -- a 26-mile race on foot. She said that she had some admiration for the winners of the race, but not a whole lot. On the one hand, yes they did train long and hard to accomplish those goals, but on the other hand they (or most of them) were blessed with strong bodies to begin with. The people she REALLY admires are the ones who finish the race LAST - sometimes a good 24 hours or more after the race began. Those people could very easily have dropped out, and many of them did. But the ones who stuck to it and kept going all the way to the finish line, those are the people to admire.

So too, b'nidon didan. "Hasameach bechelko" teaches that it is unproductive to wish for things that are not already in my chelek. But in Ruchniyus, where no one is assigned any particular amount, more is certainly better.

Akiva Miller