Merkava - 5th class in the series Keter

Ratzon- Primal Desire "Nothing Stands in the Way of Desire"

Rav Kalonymous Tapping the Void Principle

Rav Kalonymous Kalman Shapira, the Piazentzer Rebbe, also known as the Warsaw ghetto Rebbe, teaches the powerful lesson based on the following hypothetical illustration:
Imagine yourself standing by a burning house. The house is yours and inside of it are your most precious possessions and closest family members, G-d Forbid. How would you react?! Certainly, you would react with superhuman adrenalin-filled clarity and power in saving whatever you could. There's no choice!! Most likely, every single aspect of your psyche would be enlisted in an effort that would bring superhuman results. Have you ever heard a story of a normal, everyday mother seeing a child of hers run out in front of an oncoming truck and the mother almost literally flying in the nick of time with one hand swooping up the child and with the other hand stopping the two ton truck? No, she is not a contestant in the Guinness Book of World Records, nor is she a comic book hero. She is just like you and me and what Rav Kalonymous is trying to teach us is that we don't have to wait to be confronted with emergencies like these to illicit a very potent power we have inside of ourselves. We can simulate, or tap, this sense of urgency to achieve virtually anything we want. This is the power of "ratzon," or primal desire, the third of three realms of the highest sefira, Keter. About this aspect of the psyche, our Sages say, "Nothing stands in the way of desire," and this will be the subject of the essay. As is our way, we will first try to isolate the sources and essential elements of ratzon in order to come up with the omek hamusag, or essential definition.

The Kabbalistic Creation Source of Primal Desire

The obvious place to start is in the beginning, ie... in Hashem's creation process, as it is explained by Kabbalah. At first, all there was in existence was G-d. There was only Infinite G-d!! He had a desire to share existence with His creation so He restricted some of this infinity, thereby leaving a void. As we all know, nature abhors a void (and you know where nature got it from), and the void had to be filled with what is basically all of creation! To make a long story short, that void is ratzon, or primal desire, or to put it in terms of our above illustration, that Divine void is the source of urgency to save one's loved ones form the fire and from the oncoming truck and any other urgent, must-do, must-have situation we can tap or simulate to get anything we want in life. The greater the void, the greater is the sense of urgency and the greater is our ability to get whatever we want. The Arizal's magnus opus work, "Aitz Chaim," teaches that no new generation of spiritual influx (or spiritual light) can take place unless it is proceeded by void, or to use the technical term- tzimtzum, or contraction.

Identifying the Essential Element of Ratzon

What are the essential elements of this last aspect of Keter, called ratzon, that we've discussed so far? First of all, there is a void. Something must be accomplished with single-mided urgency, whether is is actually an intolerable situation flung upon us unwittingly or else a desired goal which we decide that we must achieve. We tap a void and this urgency to fill up this void drives us toward our projected goal. The drive enlists all of our powers of the psyche- our intelligence, our creativity, our emotion, our know-how, etc. until we get it done!! The greater the urgency of the void, the more effective we will be, even to the point of unleashing supernatural powers. The granddaddy of all new age self actualizing books is called "Think and Grow Rich," by Napoleon Hill. Using these principles, Napoleon boasts of personally transforming thousands of average breadwinners into millionaires. Our Sages summed it up by saying, "Nothing stands in the way of desire." We are referring to primal desire.

Putting Ratzon into Perspective with the Rest of the Merkava

We need to put this ratzon, or primal desire element, into perspective with the other elements of our evolving merkava consciousness. Perhaps we can sum up all that we've learned so far in this merkava course with the following statement: Until now, I've learned to paradise or take pleasure in my G-d-permeated and G-d-guided existence. Now we've got to bring that mindset down into our day to day lives. This is the role of ratzon. Ratzon is the driver and the director of this G-d -permeated consciousness until it is actualized, until the goal is reached. What is the goal? The answer, of course, is whatever you want it to be. Whatever you're driven to accomplish from without or from within. The deeper the answer, however ( the answer which integrates all of the pleasure-filled, G-d-permeated mindset that we've discussed so far and thereby, taps your true deepest ratzon) is the idea of actualizing your own personal calling.

Ratzon and Finding One's Calling

Fulfilling my calling is basically the reason I'm living. It's what the Kabbalists refer to as our unfinished business- as the main reason that we have been reincarnated (for much more knowledge on this fascinating subject, see the link on this website dealing with reincarnation). And according to the Kabbalists, we are all reincarnated and, therefore, all have unfinished business, ie. our calling. Some of our greatest Jewish thinkers point out that even if we spend our whole lives being virtually perfect saints, if we don't identify and fulfill our calling, it's almost as bad as saying that we have wasted our lives, G-d Forbid!! This essay is about ratzon and not about finding our calling. It is an entire subject and essay or series of essays and beyond our scope (until with G-d's help we will try to tackle that also). All I'm trying to point out is that tapping your calling is tapping your deepest ratzon and unifying and integrating all he rest of the merkava psyche powers also.

Ratzon Counseling

I would like to point out that I have been what I call a ratzon counselor for a number of years now. And our efforts to identify what is a person's calling is basically the most essential element in achieving whatever his/her goal might be. We examine his past experiences and try to identify what's the common denominator driving. So too, we examine his present core motivations and his future yearnings and visions. When we come up with something that really resonates, we go with it as being an inner motivator and an inner guidance system to get what he wants. Invariably, when he runs into dilemmas or confusion or obstacles in the nitty gritty stages of actualizing his goals, the most powerful piece of advice is to go back upstairs to your essential primal desire or ratzon. I'm pointing this out to illustrate that the inner guide and motivator of that which we do in life is ratzon and it is illusive and easy to lose, but once we draw it back into its rightful honorary ruling role, everything becomes realigned again.

So how so we internalize this all important trait?! I'll give you a basic exercise which utilizes one or more of the essential elements. However, I humbly think that for a full, all encompassing "find your calling" ratzon overhaul, I'd probably have to do a one on one session with you, or at least I'd have to dedicate a whole separate essay to the subject.

The following is one ratzon element exercise:

Internalizing Ratzon

Presume`- practice writing or meditating or presenting a portrait of an ideal you or what you'd like to be or accomplish in some future projected time frame(s), such as a lifetime, 5 years, one year, 2 months, a day. Frame it as a graduation speech which you are giving now, ie. you are NOW standing in the future. This is the meaning of the word presume (pre= before and resume`= my personal accomplishment). The goal is to go a bit beyond your present capabilities (which gives you something to grow into). Take note of the whats and the hows, ie. what you achieved and how you achieved it. I recommend strongly that you do this presume` for maximizing what you can get out of this merkava course. Give your merkava graduation speech now and follow it till the end. At another opportunity I hope to discuss more about tapping the void type exercise!!

Questions? Contact founder and Director Rabbi Yitzchak Schwartz by email.