The Seed of Perfection Within Each of Us

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah

In Parshas Vayechi, Yosef brings his two sons, Menashe and Efraim, to Yaakov so he can bless them. To Yosef’s surprise, Yaakov places his right hand onto the head of Efraim, who was not Yosef’s firstborn. Since the Torah considers a firstborn as greater than sons born afterwards, Yosef wanted the greater blessing to be upon Menashe. When Yosef tried to move Yaakov’s right hand onto Menashe’s head, Yaakov explained that he was giving his greater blessing to Efraim, even though he was not the firstborn, because he would go on to become much greater than Menashe (see Bereishis 48:13-20).

Rav Yerucham Levovitz asks: Since Menashe was Yosef’s firstborn, he was singled out for greatness and expected to take a leadership role in the family. Why couldn’t Yaakov have given Menashe his greater blessing, which would have brought out his greatness as the firstborn? Why give this blessing to Efraim instead?

Rav Yerucham answers that a bracha cannot change a person into something he is not. A bracha can only help a person to develop what he already possesses, albeit in dormant form. Yosef felt that Menashe, as his firstborn, possessed the greatness of the firstborn, but Yaakov perceived deeper that this strength truly lied with Efraim.

This idea is supported in the brachos Yaakov later gave to each of his sons, “each in accordance with his special blessing did he bless them” (Bereishis 49:28). He gave each son an individual blessing according to his unique middos (traits of character). For example, the blessing of kingship was fitting only for Yehuda. Yaakov’s blessings helped each of his sons to bring his unique qualities to the fore.

Yaakov blessed Yehuda for his ability to admit publicly to sin (ibid. 8), and he blessed Yosef as a “nazir” — one who can separate himself from material pleasures (ibid. 26). If so, why does the Medrash attribute such great reward for their behavior? Midrash Tanchuma (Bereishis 49:8) states that because Yehuda admitted to the incident with Tamar, he merited that kingship would stem from him. Yosef, through withstanding the test of the wife of Potiphar, merited for Klal Yisrael the parting of the Red Sea (Bereishis Rabba 87:8). Why did these deeds of Yehuda and Yosef gain them such great reward? After all, they were only acting according to their built-in character traits?

Rav Yerucham answers that when a person is especially gifted in a certain midda, what brings this midda to the fore are nisyonos designed just for him. His middos will save him from sin only if he utilizes them in situations where this requires mesirus nefesh. Hashem designed things in such a way that through struggling to pass this test with mesirus nefesh, one’s midda reaches perfection. A different person, one whose make-up of middos is different, would never be tested in such a way. When Yehuda and Yosef passed their respective tests, both of which required awesome mesirus nefesh, they reached a high level of perfection and therefore merited great reward.

Each of us is gifted in a specific midda. One person may have a natural leaning toward doing chessed, while another person may find it easy to control his temper. A third person may be a natural masmid. He has no difficulty spending hours in focused Torah study. A fourth person has exceptional trust in Hashem, and a fifth person is blessed with seemingly limitless patience.

Even though we may already possess a good midda, Hashem wants us to make special efforts to try to perfect it. In times of trial, we should bear in mind that Hashem is only doing this to bring our potential to the fore. Rav Yerucham states that this is in fact the main part of our avodas Hashem. First of all, any perfection we can achieve is certainly valuable. Moreover, perfection achieved in one midda will have a positive influence on all of our middos, because all of a person’s middos are interrelated.

The Alter of Novardok explained this through an analogy of a person who is poorly dressed, and finds himself in the company of low characters. If he is given a brand new hat, it may very well motivate him to get a new shirt and jacket, and perhaps to fix up the rest of his wardrobe. Once he is well dressed, he may realize that the time has come to separate from the low characters he associated with until now. So too, once a person succeeds in perfecting one midda, he’ll want to perfect himself in other areas as well.

Each of us is capable of recognizing certain positive middos that we possess. For some of us these middos might be dormant, but if we look carefully, we’ll find them. Once we identify them, it is up to us to develop them. How can we do this? Of course, we should put these good middos to use as much as possible. Next, we should study what the works of Mussar say about them, looking always for how to apply what we learn to our lives.

In addition, one can ask the advice of a gadol baTorah, “what specific thing can I do to work on this midda?” A gadol has the wisdom and perception to offer small bits of advice that can help you.

I recall over the years people coming to speak to Rav Gamliel Rabinowitz. For example, some wanted his advice on developing their patience and overcoming anger, others sought to develop their emuna, bitachon, or hasmada in learning. Still others needed advice on how to cope with the many chassadim they were involved with. Each of them left Rav Gamliel feeling that he had given them a sound bit of advice that would assist them greatly.

Rav Dessler would say of the Chazon Ish that “he could look into the soul of each and every Jew who came to him, and give him the special advice he needed to improve himself.”

A rosh yeshiva once spoke to the Chazon Ish about a bachur in his yeshiva who had come from a weak background. He was doing well in learning, but was still close to his friends who were not religious, and he feared that this would harm him. The Chazon Ish asked that he bring this bachur to him.

The bachur came before the Chazon Ish, who asked him: “Tell me, how is your learning going?”

The bachur said it was going well.

“Is there anything that could be improved? Do you feel you have good study partners?”

The bachur again said that he thought everything was going well.

“Can you tell me over a chiddush you had in learning?” the Chazon Ish asked.

The bachur told him a chiddush, and the Chazon Ish expressed his pleasure with it, happily sending the bachur off with blessings for success.

The bachur returned happily to the yeshiva.

The rosh yeshiva returned to the Chazon Ish. “May I ask: Why is it that the Rav did not speak to the bachur about his irreligious friends? Wasn’t that the reason you wanted him to come to you?”

The Chazon Ish replied: “What this bachur needs is to derive satisfaction from his learning. When he improves this, he will understand on his own that these friends are not for him.”

May we be zoche to develop our middos!