In our lesson in Mesilat Yesharim we continue in Chapter 6 with the trait of enthusiasm / zeal. The Ramchal elaborates on the theme of the importance of energy and enthusiasm in performing Mitzvot.
We learn that laziness is the very attribute that will hamper us from doing anything that we should. It is a dangerous attribute to have and yet it so much a part of physical world. Everything gravitates downwards in this world and if we are not cautious, we will end up going down with it all!
King Solomon speaks about laziness being a cause for poverty. In the general sense, if a person does not “do”, there will be less opportunity to gain income in the natural sense of life. But it’s not just physical poverty that King Solomon speaks about – it is spiritual poverty which is worse. When we don’t spend our time studying Torah and learning to gain more, we eventually find ourselves forgetting our Torah. Soon we cannot find the place or even read the text. And if it gets worse, we begin to invent things that aren’t even there – because we simply “know better”. But it is the laziness that brings us to this.
King Solomon considers laziness to be one of the most reprehensible attributes to have. Laziness brings the owner of a field and a vineyard to end up with a field of thorns and thistles. Nature has a way of going bad if it is not nurtured correctly! We have to keep ourselves busy. It is so vital to progressing onwards. We just cannot let ourselves stagnate. When we don’t do – something else worse happens to us, and we end up the worse for it.
The nature of the “poverty” of the lazy person is that it comes in small increments. Little by little, one doesn’t even realise what is happening to one… until suddenly, one turns around and realises life has gone by too fast and one has lost everything one could have obtained, had one only been a little more industrious.
