"The issue isn’t that you can’t have both. It’s that you can’t focus on both"
When I was little, I absorbed a basic principle: There’s an inverse relationship between the material and spiritual aspects of this world. You can’t excel in both. Choose your lane.
As I mentioned, I was young back then, so I probably saw the world without nuance. Or maybe I just lived in a place and time where it was clear which lane people had chosen. Those who prioritized ruchnius generally weren’t all that concerned with new clothing styles or decorating standards. Those who focused on gashmius didn’t seem to invest much time, thought, or energy in their learning or davening.
As I grew older, I saw more subtlety beyond those clear (and juvenile) demarcations. There was the class queen who consciously worked on her Shemoneh Esreh, inspiring us all to follow her lead. The local posek whose wife combined her role as a faithful supporter of his Torah with a decided flair and elegance that came to the fore every Shabbos and Yom Tov. The businessman who developed real mastery of Shas by delivering a daf yomi shiur.
Maybe the demarcations weren’t quite so firm. Maybe I was applying an overly simplified principle to a more sophisticated reality. Still, at its core, I sensed the idea was real. While there have always been singular individuals who managed to straddle exceptional achievement in multiple spheres, and while our nation has the unique capacity to elevate rather than shun the material, it seems basic that human beings immersed in worldly pleasures will have less time, brain space, and desire for holiness.
If you view the relationship between ruchnius and gashmius as a seesaw — one rises only if the other falls — the natural outgrowth can be a certain insecurity. You find that insecurity among youngsters (and maybe not-so-youngsters) who nurture real spiritual goals but also doubt they can be the “real thing” — the real kollel family, the authentic ovdei Hashem — if their home doesn’t feature peeling paint and crumbling cabinets. Apparently, they’ve internalized the “inverse relationship theory” so well that they fear their material blessings neuter their ruchnius potential. How can I have a ruchnius-driven home, they worry, if I engage broadly and deeply in the material world? How does the concept of pas b’melach fit into a healthy, happy 21st-century home? How can I convey to my children the spiritual essence of Shabbos if there’s something inside of me that delights in a beautifully set and generously laden table?
But these days it’s become more common to find a completely different approach, one that discards the seesaw paradigm completely. You might call it the “have it all” mindset. Since they were young, those with this mindset have been told that bnei Torah should look and live just like those with more means. Just because you come from a kollel family, that’s no reason not to have the “right” clothes or the “right” shoes or the “right” handbag. If you can’t afford the brand names, there are outlets with great deals, or knockoffs that can pass for the original. If you can’t afford to rent tablecloths and centerpieces for your simchah, we’ll open a gemach that erases the old societal and financial markers. No one has to feel the difference.
According to this mindset, there’s no reason you can’t harbor grand aspirations in both lanes. After all, your friends and neighbors all aim high when it comes to their homes, their appearances, their simchahs and leisure, yet also aim high in their learning, their davening, their Shabbos experiences, and children’s chinuch. Why shouldn’t you?
There’s something not quite healthy in the view that you can’t strive for ruchnius unless you’re miserable and impoverished. We all have to engage with This World, to give and take in a functional way. But the other view — the “have it all” mindset — comes with its own questions and considerable risks. Can you really have it all here in This World, or is there something self-contradictory in this dual striving?
A few years ago, as I was preparing material for a Yom Tov magazine project, I was privileged to raise this question to Rabbi Yisroel Reisman, rosh hayeshivah of Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Vodaath and the mara d’asra of Agudath Yisroel of Madison. If there is truly an inverse relationship between the two forces, I asked, how is it that so many people and communities today boast heaping doses of both?
You’re making a mistake, the Rav said. The issue isn’t that you can’t have both. It’s that you can’t focus on both. You can’t be consumed by both. It’s always been possible to be blessed with financial means while also pursuing spiritual riches. Hashem dispenses wealth according to a calculus we can’t understand. Torah greatness may be more commonly found in simple, even poverty-stricken homes, but Hashem can grant financial resources to talmidei chachamim as well. What hasn’t been possible — and still isn’t possible — is the capacity to pursue both types of greatness with equal ardor.
He went on to give clear guidance. Spending more is okay, maybe even warranted, if it’s intended to enhance convenience and efficiency. More bedrooms, more cleaning help, a larger car — these are often proper choices. If you have more, you don’t have to pretend to live right above the poverty line. Use those blessings to make your life more efficient. Get the help, order the food, if that will empower you to focus on your bigger goals.
Spending more is not okay, he continued, when it’s fueled by a desire to convey status and prestige. Adding more bedrooms to the family home doesn’t have to translate into a more impressive exterior. A larger car doesn’t have to mean a luxury car with the latest fittings. If you’re spending to be noticed, that’s a very different focus.
And focus is one of the most precious possessions we have. It determines not just which lane we choose to ride in, but who’s driving. To use a paradigm suggested by the baalei mussar, when we select a focus, we determine which of our two assets will be the horse, and which the rider. Which ambition harnesses which resources. Which force holds the reins.
Though we frum Jews always strive to keep our value system apart from our surroundings, aspects of the surrounding society inevitably seep in. For years, that society has broadcast its own version of “have it all.” We were told that we can focus on many goals and tasks at once, that we can split focus into tiny chunks of “quality time” or “power sessions,” that we can steer through multiple items of perfectly packaged information amid eddies of emails and notifications, hop on a quick Zoom to review those latest work developments and finalize that grocery order while also vacationing with the family. Yes, we all have to live in this very dizzying world, and we all have to figure out how to do many things in our many roles. But maybe that sense of unlimited options — that idea that you don’t have to choose — fed into our perception that we could move forward in multiple lanes at once when it comes to values as well.
It’s becoming clearer — in the workplace, in our school system, in the sphere of human development and relationships — that the multi-focused human being, with multiple drivers absent a single dominating goal, was never realistic. It can’t be an accident that the modern world is filled with so many humans with hobbled attention spans, fractured relationships, and flimsy sense of self. People who don’t know who they are and what they’re all about, whose self-definition shapeshifts with every new cause and trend.
Turns out, by consciously selecting our focus, we also shape our identity. And when it comes to the most important decisions of all — who we want to be and what we want to achieve — we ultimately become the driver we choose to place behind the wheel.
