This week we read about the person who ignores the Torah and says, “I will go as my heart sees fit”. Such behaviour is described as being, “adding the drunk with the thirsty” (drunk meaning having quenched thirst, not being intoxicated!).
The RaMBaM explains the terms “thirsty” and “drunk” as follows. Someone who has drunken is compared to the state of someone who is satiated, happy with what he has. Whereas thirsty is talking about a person who is craving something, he is hungry for something to satisfy him.
The cycle of a person, says the RaMBaM is that at first he will have a small desire for something. If he were to harness this craving correctly he could get real contentment from it. However one who lets himself be lead “by the desires of his heart” – by the animal inside him, will blindingly give in. What happens next is that he will have an even greater hunger for that very thing. His craving will literally end up eating up his life.
The verse can now be read as follows; a person who follows his base inclinations will not be satisfied with anything; even that which could have made him feel content [drunk] will not give him satisfaction, he will still be thirsty. He has added his potential satisfaction to his craving. It’s like drinking saltwater to quench thirst. The more you drink the thirstier you become!
However this poses a very important question to us, how can we possibly remain “drunk”, how do we satisfy our desires? It would seem from the RaMBaM that the only option we have is to live a life of complete celibacy and abstention? Live a life of seclusion, on bread and water, never get married. Giving in to any of our desires according the RaMBaM is going to be fatal? It will just put us on the slippery slope down.
Rav Dessler provides us with an amazing insight. Everything in this world is here for a purpose, nothing is just haphazard. But we, with our ‘free-choice” can choose how to use, and harness that which is in the world. Let’s use food as our example; most of us, most of the time appreciate that the desire to eat is just a means to an end – to be able to live. Sometimes we do lose ourselves in a good steak or a packet of kettle chips, and we think that eating itself is an ends! In the world at large this is actually becoming a norm, the eating itself has become the pleasure, not the life we live! Eating and dining out is now a whole culture.
But here’s the catch: something that Hashem created just as a means cannot possibly act as an end and give us any real satisfaction; it wasn’t created to do this! So we stuff our face like an animal hoping that the process of eating itself will bring us pleasure, but we end up over indulging; because we rationalize “just one more chip will give me the optimum contentment”, just like the RaMBaM said would happen – we make ourselves thirsty for more… and more… and more.
The correct way to feed our desires and feel content (“drunken”), is to remember not to switch the “means” to an “ends”. The food is just to get us to an end – are we living to eat or eating to live? When we eat to live, the food is being used correctly as a means – therefore it has served its purpose and will provide us with real enjoyment and satisfaction, since it has been used correctly.
With this in mind we can understand why the Torah places such an emphasis on the beauty of women. For example the Talmud tells us that with the Manna fell one other important commodity – women’s jewellery, makeup and perfume!! This was the only other thing that was important enough to fall with the Manna – the women had to look nice for their husbands. Similarly the Torah makes a point of telling us how beautiful the matriarchs were. This view of women’s external beauty seems to be in line with the tabloids!?
No! No! No! The Torah view on beauty is very different. The outside world at large see the beauty of women as an ends in itself, marriage is just the means (sometimes!) to get the beauty. Hence they can’t get contentment with something that wasn’t created for that purpose – they’re “thirsty” even for that which could have made them “drunk”. We however have to remember that the Torah perspective is that external beauty is just a means, to facilitate a real deep connection with our spouses. Beauty is the means to marriage – marriage being the building of a real meaningful and satisfying relationship. With this mindset we will remain ‘drunk’ and content not needing to look elsewhere for anything.
This is the key to controlling all our desires, and this is how we can indulge and be labelled (as we say in the Friday night Evening Service) “a nation saturated with pleasures”. But at the same time not end up becoming like mere animals. For further thought try this ‘means’/’ends’ idea on holidays; money; work; homes; clothes; sleep; etc!
Good Shabbos, Yaakov.