Q&A: Character Refinement
Character Refinement
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I saw on the Atzor Kan forum that people think the Rabbi addressed character traits and Maimonides in positive commandment 8, from which it appears that there is a command regarding character traits.
I don't know when that whole discussion took place, but in any case,
in what I skimmed through in the thread, they didn't address two sources that speak about the issue:
Meshekh Chokhmah at the beginning of the laws of Torah study, where in the course of discussing the commandment of Torah study he briefly explains why the Torah did not command specific character traits.
And at length: Tiferet Yisrael, Kiddushin chapter 1, Mishnah 10, section 79.
What emerges from their words is that commandment 8 speaks about a goal — that is, one must be compassionate and gracious like the Holy One, blessed be He; one should aspire to good character traits.
But the Torah does not command a person to be humble or not to become angry as a defined and fixed trait. The reason is that character traits, unlike commandments, are not a defined and unchanging unit; they depend on the person, place, time, and context.
Tiferet Yisrael brings cases where one needs to get angry, and the like. He cites Moses, who was sometimes angry and was punished, and other times was not.
Therefore the Torah did not command this as a clear and fixed command, since that would be impossible.
Have a good holiday,
Answer
Hello A.,
That is also what Nachmanides and the Maggid Mishneh wrote in the laws of neighbors, and Rabbi Lichtenstein also discussed this at length in his article. I do not agree with it. There are other commandments that have no fixed measure and were nevertheless counted: love of one's fellow, fear and love of God, and others. It would have been possible to define those commandments as commandments of action rather than commandments of outcome.
Therefore I prefer the explanation of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Rabbi Chaim Vital.
In any case, I don't remember what I wrote there, but I have always wondered at Rabbi Chaim Vital's question — why the Torah did not command character refinement — for the Torah does in fact command it in the commandment to cleave to His traits: just as He is compassionate, so too you should be compassionate (the commandment 8 that you mentioned). So how can one say that there is no commandment to be compassionate and gracious like the Holy One, blessed be He? My claim is that the commandment speaks about actions, whereas Rabbi Chaim Vital is speaking about character refinement as inner spiritual work. That is similar to your point, but not identical.