We begin Chapter 10 in the Mesilat Yesharim today! This is exciting! We’ve learned about the trait of Watchfulness and then moved onto Zeal (enthusiasm / alacrity). We’ve learnt about the importance of guarding oneself from anything that stands in the way of us accomplishing our goals and Goal (capital G) in life. We’ve also learnt about getting excited about doing what we must.
We hold ourselves away from evil – and we move on to good. What then do we make of trait #3 – known as Cleanliness? Cleanliness is really Watchfulness on steroids! In other words, “Cleanliness” is that trait that is associated with disassociating oneself from bad – but with one proviso – one does so to the very absolute degree of being careful.
Whereas Watchfulness speaks about a general holding back from those things known to be evil – Cleanliness speaks about refraining from even the smallest iota of anything associated with evil. What does that mean practically? That is what we begin to discuss in this lesson – and will continue learning about for a few weeks ahead.
The trait is a lengthy one and it truly separates the “men” from the “boys”. It is the first moment when we begin to realise, we’re either prepared to work on ourselves as we should – or we end up stationary on a level for the average person.
