The Hunger That Moves Us

“For the one who drinks too much and the one who eats too much will end up poor, and drowsiness will dress a person in rags.” Opening “For the one who drinks too much and the one who eats too much will end up poor.” Here is a simple question. How can a person become poor from being full? The normal path runs the other way. The one who has nothing is poor, and the one who has plenty is rich. So what does it mean that the one who drinks and eats too much, the one who keeps filling himself up, ends up poor? Let us read closely. The verse does not say that being full causes poverty. It says that being full is poverty. Someone who is not hungry has no strength to move. The Foundation: Hunger Is the Driving Force Look at the world as it is. Every movement, every time you get up in the morning, every goal has its root in something missing. A person gets up from his chair because he lacks something. A person studies Torah because he feels he does not know. A person prays because he is in need. Someone who is full needs nothing. That is exactly why he has nowhere to go. Hunger is not a problem to be solved. Hunger is the fuel. Some people rush to put out every spark of desire the moment it appears. They fill their mouths, fill their hours, fill their heads. Those people are putting out their own inner engine with their own hands. In the end they become poor: poor in awareness, poor in vitality, poor in soul. Hunger in Spiritual Life Dear young married man, you know what I am talking about. There is a familiar state. You keep everything. The Torah class, the prayers, your fixed study schedule. Everything is in order, everything in its place. And still, something is not burning. There is no fire and no vitality. You do the things, but you do not want them. What happened? You are not missing knowledge. You are missing hunger. For years, whenever a feeling of lack woke up inside us, we hurried to quiet it. It might have been “I don’t understand enough” or “I don’t feel my prayers.” We quieted it with a small satisfaction, a distraction, a habit. Without noticing, we killed the hunger that could have led us somewhere deeper. The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, speaks of a person “whose soul desires and longs... for the divine.” Its starting point is longing and thirst, not being full. The view there is that the thirst itself is a sign of life. Why We Don’t Eat Before Praying This idea has a real basis in Jewish law. “A person should not eat before he prays.” This is the ruling of the Shulchan Arukh, the Code of Jewish Law. There is a clear legal reason for it, and there is also a deep lesson in it for our inner work. Prayer is a moment of asking. It is a moment of lack, a moment of turning to Hashem. “My soul thirsts for You.” This is how the one who prays begins. Even if he does not feel it, his physical hunger guards him, so he comes to prayer with an opening inside. He does not come full and satisfied and content. He comes lacking, and searching. Prayer with the right kind of hunger is like going shopping when you are hungry. You come with your thirst to the source of living water. If a person has already eaten, what will he ask for? Where will he turn? Closing: Stay a Little Hungry So what is the work? Do not run away from the hunger. Nurture it. Refine it. Take the hunger of the body, the sense of lack, the “I’m not there,” the “something is missing,” and turn it into a holy hunger, a constant thirst for Hashem. Here we need to understand something. The Mishnah praises the one who is “happy with his lot.” That is speaking about the material world: money and everyday life. There, be happy. Do not chase, and do not wear yourself out grabbing at smoke. But in spirituality? There, never be full. There, hunger is the higher level. There, the lack is the opening. The next time you feel empty inside, do not rush to put it out. Sit with it for a moment. It is not the problem. It is the door. “My soul thirsts for You.” This is nothing to be ashamed of. It is reaching higher.