November 27, 2022|ג' כסלו ה' אלפים תשפ"ג Spiritual Fatigue
Print ArticleHow many of us are just exhausted? Eacה and every day, there is so much to do and not enough time so we constantly push ourselves and yet we find ourselves constantly exhausted. And do you know who else is constantly exhausted? Our teenage children. Often it is a challenge to get them out of bed in the morning and I apologize if I am bringing back some painful memories for some of the grandparents in the room. And I wonder if that was Esav. Esav is a fifteen-year-old teenage son and he is exhausted. He comes home from a hard day in the field and he is “ayef.” In fact, he is the only person in the entire Torah who is described as “ayef.” Of course, the meaning of “ayef” is a little unclear. The Rashbam thinks the words “ayef” and “yaef” from the bracha of “hanoten la’yaef koach” are interchangeable. They both mean weary. However, Ibn Ezra believes that the two words have different meanings. “Yaef” means weary, but Esav who was “ayef” wanted food, not sleep. According to the Ibn Ezra, “ayef” means hungry and thirsty and he brings a prooftext from Sefer Yeshayahu.
So Esav is a teenager who is exhausted and/or famished from a long day in the field and while he is exhausted and/or famished, he makes an apparently stupid decision selling his birthright for a bowl of lentils. If that is what “ayef” means, then maybe the message of the Esav birthright story is that we shouldn’t make important deals when we are exhausted.
However, Chazal understand that “ayef” means much more than physical fatigue. Targum Yonatan ben Uzziel translates the word “ayef” as:
וְהוּא מְשַׁלְהֵי אֲרוּם חֲמֵשׁ עֲבֵרְיַן עֲבַר בְּהַהוּא יוֹמָא פְּלַח פּוּלְחָנָא נוּכְרָאָה שָׁפַךְ אַדְמָה זַכְיָא וְעָל עַל עוּלֵימְתָּא מְאַרְשָׂא וְכָּפַר בְּחַיֵי עַלְמָא דְאָתֵי וּבְזָא יַת בְּכֵירוּתָא:
Esav committed five sins that day. He worshipped idolatry, he committed murder, he had relations with a betrothed virgin, he denied the afterlife and he disgraced the birthright.
This is not just someone who didn’t get enough sleep, or someone who is famished, or someone who needs a little more self-care. Chazal understand that Esav did some pretty horrific things that day. Rashi is not as condemning as Targum Yonatan Ben Uziel. He just explains that Esav was “ayef birtzicha” – he was exhausted from murder and he brings a prooftext from Sefer Yirmiyahu that the term “ayef” can refer to exhaustion from murder.
Why does Esav get some a bad rap, or more precisely, why does “ayef” get such a bad rap. The Siftei Chachamim explains that if the Torah wanted to say that Esav was starving, it should have said “ra’eiv,” meaning hungry, instead of “ayef.” Perhaps this is why “ayef” must mean something else. Additionally, I think that the fact that the Torah states, “va-yeevez Esav et ha-bechora,” that Esav despised the birthright, indicates that Esav didn’t simply make a bad decision while he was exhausted; rather, he actively despised the birthright and all that it stood for. He didn’t want any part of the birthright. And if that’s the case, we need to redefine what “ayef” means. It literally means fatigued, or exhausted, but not physical fatigue. To be “ayef” means to experience spiritual fatigue. As such, the story of Esav then becomes the story of a teenage boy who is no longer interested or engaged in anything spiritually meaningful, and the question is why.
Esav is called an “ish sadeh,” a man of the field. Rav Soloveitchik explained why Esav is described this way. What does the man of the field desire? He desires abundance and prosperity. In fact, that is the bracha that Yitzchak wanted to give Esav, a bracha of “mital hashamayim u-mishmanei ha-aretz,” or “from the dew of the heaven and the fat of the land.” What else does the man of the field desire? He desires power and mastery over other people. In fact, that is the bracha that Yitzchak wanted to give Esav, a bracha of “yoducha amim v’yishtachavu l’cha l’umim,” that other nations should kneel before him.
What happens when we spend all our time trying to attain more and more wealth and more and more power? We spend all our time just doing and not thinking. In fact, the Torah describes how Esav did five consecutive actions when he sells his birthright – “va-yochal va-yaisht va-yakam va-yailach va-yeevez.” He ate, he drank, he rose, he went, and he despised. I don’t think there is another place in Tanach with five consecutive verbs because all Esav does is act on his instincts without thinking and without contemplating.
What happens when we are solely consumed with wealth and power? We become “ayef.” We become spiritually fatigued because we don’t have any other priorities in life. “Ayef” then is the result of “ish sadeh” unchecked. The only other place in the Torah where we find the word “ayef” is the attack of Amalek. There the Torah states “v’ata ayef v’yagei-a v’lo yarei Elokim.” We were “ayef” and didn’t fear God. We were so overly concerned with how we will survive in the desert that we didn’t have any loftier goals. “V’lo yarei Elokim” – we didn’t fear God. That’s when Amalek comes to attack us.
What prevents us from being motivated and interested in being a mevakesh, in being someone who is spiritually growth-oriented? When we don’t leave any room in our heart for God. There is nothing wrong with trying to get ahead in life, to earn more, or to get a promotion, but we need to leave space in our heart and soul for God. It's okay to be exhausted after a long day of work, but if our exhaustion does not allow to grow as yirei shamayim, as God fearing people, then we suffer from the spiritual fatigue of being “ayef.”
But maybe there’s another cause for Esav’s spiritual fatigue in this story. Esav's grandfather, Avraham Avinu, had just passed away, and this shook Esav to the core. Avraham was Esav’s hero. He was active like Avraham. He was an outdoorsman, he waged wars and he made alliances. He wasn’t a homebody like Yitzchak. But then he died. The midrash in Breishit Rabba (63:11) states:
ויזד יעקב נזיד [כ"ה, כ"ט] א"ל עשו מה טיבו של תבשיל זה א"ל שמת אותו זקן א"ל באותו זקן נגעה מדת הדין אמר א"כ לא יש מתן שכר ולא תחית המתים
“Yaakov cooked a stew”. Esav said to him: What is the reason for this? Yaakov replied: For that elder [Avraham] has died. Esav said: The Attribute of Justice [middat ha-din] applied to Avraham? There must be no rewards for good deeds, nor must there be techiyat ha-metim[resurrection of the dead].
According to the midrash, Esav had a crisis of faith. Avraham is such a righteous person and yet he died. Then Esav said, “hinei anochi holeich lamut v’lamah zeh li bechora,” so I’m also going to die so why should I care about something like the birthright, about Avraham’s spiritual legacy? Avraham was a holy man but he died, so I will die too. His spiritual legacy means nothing to me. And that is when Esav agreed to sell his birthright. Esav is “ayef” when he confronts his mortality.
Sometimes we suffer from spiritual fatigue when we are consumed only with material wealth and success. And sometimes we suffer from spiritual fatigue when we suffer from a crisis of faith. And maybe the only way to fight this type of spiritual fatigue is to turn to God.
My daughter Leora who is currently studying in seminary in Israel sent me an article that her friend wrote this past week to articulate how she felt when she recited Hallel on Rosh Chodesh, the day after the terrorist attack that claimed the life of 16-year-old Aryeh Shechopek. She wrote the following:
“As Hallel began and we sang the words הללו את שם ה׳, I wondered how it could be that we were all here praising God just 24 hours after a child’s life was taken. I thought about Aryeh’s family, who should be singing Hallel this morning, but instead have to sit shiva and mourn their lost son. As we continued with Hallel, we sang the words, לא המתים יהללו י–ה... ואנחנו נברך י–ה. [The dead cannot praise God… and we bless God.] How terribly fitting. Aryeh could no longer praise God. But I can. But is that what I should be doing now? As I continued saying the words of Hallel, Hallel began speaking back to me. יקר בעיני ה׳ המותה לחסידו - grievous in God’s sight is the death of His devoted ones. God is also mourning today, not just us, not just Aryeh’s family. So אנא ה׳ כי אני עבדך, please God, מן המצר קראתי י–ה, in my distress I call out to you. There is so much pain, so much suffering, that all we can do is pray. All we can do is call out in pain. In the מן המצר paragraph we call out to God because what can man do? God is the only one who can save us. We are surrounded by enemies, but God will bring us salvation. We continue and say לא אמות כי אחיה ואספר מעשה י–ה, we will live and tell of God׳s actions. Maybe that is all we can do. Live. And then celebrate the goodness of God. Maybe Hallel is fitting for today after all. As we finished davening in the beit midrash, we began to sing and dance together. Sometimes that is what it is like to live in the Jewish reality. To suffer and still dance. Mourn and still praise. Be sad and still love. Remember never to forget and to take our suffering with us.”
I gave a shiur this past week when I spoke about, among other things, the prayer of modeh ani. I was thinking about the shiur and I was thinking about how we can effectively fight “ayefut,” the spiritual fatigue that sometimes envelops us and our children. Maybe modeh ani is the answer. The Shulchan Aruch Ha-Rav writes that the purpose of the one line of modeh ani is that every morning when we wake up, we contemplate ׳׳לפני מי הוא שוכב לפני מלך מלכי המלכים הקדוש ברוך הוא׳׳ – or “Before whom were we just sleeping? Before God.” God is always present when we sleep and when we wake up. The moment that we wake up and say modeh ani, we realize that God is present and we are waking up for a purpose and a mission and we wake up bi’zrizut, with energy and motivation. The Shulchan Aruch tells us that every morning we should be “mitgaber ka’ari.” We should strengthen ourselves like a lion to serve God. Every morning we must wake up knowing that despite the fact that we are going to work hard to earn a living, to advance in our careers, we promise that each and every day we will leave space in our heart and soul for God, whether it means really focusing when we daven that day or whether it means that we will carve out time during the day to study Torah and/or engage in acts of chesed. And when we finish modeh ani, we say “rabah emunatecha” – great is our faith in You. We resolve that if we find ourselves questioning and doubting that we will have faith in God that He will give us the strength to persevere. It can be very exhausting to fight “ayefut,” to fight spiritual fatigue, but that is our charge each and every day.