[Avodah] priotitizing mitzvot

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2025 at 06:14:30AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> Notes to a magid shiur -Thoughts?

>> I certainly agree with you that the advice that it's time to be selfish is
>> pretty poor advice, especially in times where there seems to be no lack of
>> individual selfishness, even within our community...

I would consider this an understatement. Selfishness is the primary
characteristic of the yeitzer hara, the keystone to everything the Torah
is there to counteract!

In Qunterus haChessed, R Dessler calls it "Koach haNetilah", whereas
the cornerstone of goodness is the Koach haNesinah.

Netilah is inherently gashmi. It comes from the survival instinct
and the resulting need to horde resources. It also gets in the way of
accepting emes. Only one who lives to be a nosein can possibly get past
misleading negi'os.

(I am now making a new edition of Qunterus haChessed, as a stand-alone
pamphlet with niqud, and another version that also has the Strive for
Truth adaptation side-by-side.)

R Shimon Shkop's whole measure of a soul is the number of people one
includes when saying "ani". Selfishness and a narrow ani is the most
coarse and least developed of souls. "Ukeshe'ani le'atzmi, mah ani?"
(RSS's use of Hillel, not mine. The broad inclusive soul is the subject of
"Im ein ani li, mi li?")

The one gets to R Shlomo Wolbe, who defined the Torah's message in terms
of building an Olam haYedidus.

He also talks about "frumkeit" as a cul-de-sac one can fall into when
one's observance accidentally becomes more about the pursuit of personal
holiness instead of avodas Hashem. Leshitaso, selfishness is a common
destroyer even of what looks like kosher and laudible religiosity!

I am leaving the rest of the post and Aliyah out, since I am still
integrating post Aliyah, and don't have mature thought-out things to
say on how it looks from my new perspective.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Good decisions come from experience;
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   Experience comes from bad decisions.
Author: Widen Your Tent                   - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF