We need to ensure that our deepest thoughts are the driving force behind each and every one of our actions for the good

I recently saw a brief but powerful video of Rav Shimon Schwab recounting a Leil Shabbos experience he’d had as a young man with the holy Chofetz Chaim. Rav Schwab related that the Chofetz Chaim cited a maamar Chazal (Shemos Rabbah 25:3) that the manna, which fed the Jewish People during their years of wandering in the wilderness, would assume a flavor matching the thoughts of the person eating it.

Rav Schwab said the Chofetz Chaim asked his listeners, “So what if the person eating the manna wasn’t thinking of anything at all?” When no one had an answer, the Chofetz Chaim answered pithily: “If one doesn’t think, there is no taste.”

The Chofetz Chaim then extended an analogy with learning: “If one learns a daf Gemara without thinking about it, then the learning is bland and tasteless.”

With this in mind, we can turn to a teaching of the Ramchal in Mesillas Yesharim (Chapter 2). When Moshe Rabbeinu demanded that Bnei Yisrael be freed from servitude in Egypt, Pharaoh responded: “Make the work heavier for the men and they will engage in it, and let them not pay attention to false words” (Shemos 5:9). The Ramchal says Pharaoh’s response was predicated upon a particular approach: “His intention was not to allow them the opportunity to consider or adopt any counsel against him. He sought to distract them from any thought through the imposition of [mind-numbing,] continuous, uninterrupted work.”

Mesillas Yesharim points out that denial of “thinking time” is one of the key strategies of the yetzer hara. For this reason, Chaggai Hanavi cries out (1:5), “Pay heartfelt attention to your ways.” And the Ramchal brings the Gemara in Chagigah (5a), “Whoever carefully considers his ways in this world will merit to see salvation from HaKadosh Baruch Hu.”

During the mid-1980s, when fax machines (remember them?) were becoming more widespread, I was present in Manchester when Britain’s then chief rabbi, Lord Jakobovits, addressed a group of rabbanim whose shuls were affiliated with his office. Reflecting on the pressure exerted by technological advances, Rabbi Jakobovits commented, “The ever-increasing pace of modern-day life is denying us the precious oxygen of contemplation!’

In a corner of my home study sits a grainy photo of the renowned mashgiach of Yeshivas Be’er Yaakov, mori v’rabi Rav Shomo Wolbe, leaning against the handrail of the steps leading up to his modest home at one end of the yeshivah campus. The Mashgiach’s head is inclined forward, his chin resting on his chest, and he is evidently deep in thought. That photo reminds me of an episode a few years after I had left the yeshivah to get married and continue my learning back in the UK.

I was visiting Israel with my wife and managed to secure an appointment to consult with the Mashgiach. As our meeting drew to a close, he offered me his house phone (this was before mobile phones) to call a taxi. I responded appreciatively that I didn’t need a taxi — it was a nice day and I was staying only a half-hour’s walk away.

“Ah,” the Mashgiach responded, “zeh tov, atah rotzeh lalechet baregel. Atah rotzeh lachshov [That’s good, you want to walk. You want to think].”

For Rav Shlomo Wolbe, there was hardly a higher accolade to bestow on a person than to call him a baal machshavah.

IN his introduction to Mesillas Yesharim, the Ramchal bemoans the fact that most people think that piety is dependent on “saying many kapitlach Tehillim, very lengthy confessions, harsh fasts, and immersion in ice and snow… while true, desirable piety is distant from our intelligent imagination.”

Granting that immersion in ice and snow is pretty extreme, we may wonder why the Ramchal decries these other commendable practices for being far off the mark of true piety. What’s wrong with saying Tehillim?

Perhaps the answer lies in his choice of adjectives: “many kapitlach, very lengthy confessions,” etc. He is highlighting the error of applying quantitative rather than qualitative measures to spiritual endeavors — or, put slightly differently, failing to think sufficiently about how real piety manifests itself. And this is very much how the Ramchal himself concludes: “For this is obvious — something about which a person does not think will not be on his mind.”

And in a day and age in which attention spans are ever-narrowing, analyses ever more superficial, and the soundbite is considered to be the apex of effective communication, how much time and effort do we have to invest in developing the power of thought and reflection?

A good friend and colleague of mine from Manchester once related to me a remarkable lesson he learned from a phone conversation with Rav Mattisyahu Salomon, the late mashgiach of Gateshead and Lakewood. My friend had finished relating his concern to the Mashgiach and there was a long silence at the other end of the line. My friend, thinking maybe the connection had been lost, started saying, “Hello, hello?”

Rav Mattisyahu responded gently, “It’s okay, I’m here, I’m thinking. I’m sorry you can’t hear me thinking.”

The positive power of thought is illustrated powerfully by a mishnah in Keilim (25:9), which is quoted in Maseches Shabbos (52b): “All utensils become susceptible to contracting ritual impurity through thought but can only emerge from that status through a physical action.” It is possible for a craftsman, only by thinking of an unfinished vessel as being complete, to confer the status of being mekabel tumah, susceptible to ritual impurity. But that designation, even though it was conferred by thought alone, is then so strong as to require a physical action to reverse it.

In a similar vein, the Gemara in Kiddushin (40a) teaches that a good intention that is not carried out, due to circumstances beyond one’s control, is considered by Hashem to have been completed. This is not just Divine compassionate compensation; it is rather further evidence of the power of thought, which is considered to be the main part of the deed itself, as Rashi explains on the Gemara, “One is rewarded just for the thought.”

When Rav Shimon Schwab recalls the Chofetz Chaim’s teaching that an action unaccompanied by thought is devoid of taam, he says the Chofetz Chaim added a further word, by way of explanation — v’nechshav, “it should be considered.” Rav Schwab says this extra word was added for the benefit of those with a deeper understanding, to convey the idea that the key factor that allows a person to invest material items in this world with true sanctity is the power of thought.

So if we want to enjoy lives richer in meaning and filled with greater depth, significance, and purpose, then we need to carve out time in our evermore frenetic modern lives to think about what we should be doing. We need to ensure that our deepest thoughts are the driving force behind each and every one of our actions for the good.

Rabbi Mordechai Ginsbury is the senior rav of Hendon United Synagogue, Raleigh Close, London, the principal of Hasmonean Primary School, Hendon, and the associate director of the United Synagogue’s Centre for Rabbinic Excellence. He is also the author of The Jigsaw Puzzle of Life — A Rabbi’s Perspective (Mosaica Press).

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1052)