Bruce Lee: On Lefum Tzaara Agra

Originally published in July 2013.

This picture of Bruce Lee learning Pirkei Avos may or may not be Photoshopped.

Bruce Lee: On Lefum Tzaara Agra

Pirkei Avos concludes with an oft-quoted teaching of Ben Hei Hei: לפום צערא אגרא (lefum tazaara agra). Although some like to translate this as "according to the effort is the reward," a Hebrew speaker will readily note that this is a poor rendition. צערא (tzaara) is the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew word צער (tzaar) which means "pain" or "suffering." A more accurate translation of Bein Hei Hei's statement would be: "according to the pain is the reward" or "according to the suffering is the reward."

I've heard this statement thrown around quite often, usually as a way of saying, "All that matters is how hard you try!" or "No pain, no gain!" (which, funnily enough, the Wikipedia article traces back to our mishnah). While there may be some truth in these common sayings, I don't think this is what Ben Hei Hei was getting at.

My rabbeim taught me that whenever I learn anything, I should always try to arrive at my own understanding first, and only afterwards consult the meforshim (commentaries). In that spirit, I wanted to share my own pre-meforshim understanding of lefum tzaara agra. My idea was inspired by a quotation from my Jeet Kune Do rebbi: Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee taught: 

People have to grow by skillful frustrations – otherwise, they have no incentive to develop their own means and ways of coping with the world. 

We all have habits. The Rambam would call these "deos" or "character dispositions." Collectively, we refer to these habits as "our personality." By and large, these habits dictate our decision-making. When we find ourselves in unfamiliar situations, our habits influence the direction our minds go in deciding how to act. 

In order to perfect ourselves in any area of life, we must be willing to alter these habits. In order to change our habits, we must act contrary to them. Forcing ourselves to go against our habits may be painful and frustrating, but it is absolutely necessary for the sake of our development. The Rambam writes about this at length in the first and second chapters of Hilchos Deos.

The most painful habits to break are the ones which are rooted in what we value most. The more attached we are, the more painful it is to act against our habits. For example: dieting can be torturous for those who are accustomed to eating whatever they want, whenever they want; controlling one's temper can be extremely difficult for someone who is accustomed to unrestrained "venting"; keeping halacha can feel especially oppressive for those who were brought up living a non-halachic life. 

This is where Torah and mitzvos enter the picture. There is no area of our lives about which the Torah has nothing to say, whether in the derech ha'am or the derech ha'yachid. In every area of our lives, the Torah guides us away from our default habits and develops us in accordance with its objectives. 

So far, we have set forth three premises: (1) we are dominated by our habits; (2) acting contrary to our habits is painful; (3) the Torah compels us to act contrary to our habits for the sake of our development. Put it all together and we arrive at the following truth: Every major breakthrough in our Torah development will necessarily be accompanied by pain and frustration.

Think about it: how would it be possible to have a real breakthrough which doesn't run contrary to our habits, emotions, and personality? If someone claims to have had a breakthrough in Torah which is so in line with his or her present way of living and thinking that it doesn't cause any conflict, then I would seriously question the authenticity of this "breakthrough." 

The Rav writes about this phenomenon in "Footnote 4" of Halakhic Man:

Religion is not, at the outset, a refuge of grace and mercy for the despondent and desperate, an enchanted stream for crushed spirits, but a raging clamorous torrent of man’s consciousness with all its crises, pangs, and torments.Yes, it is true that during the third Sabbath meal at dusk, as the day of rest declines and man’s soul yearns for its Creator and is afraid to depart from that realm of holiness whose name is Sabbath, into the dark and frightening, secular workaday week, we sing the psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters” (Ps. 23), etc., etc., and we believe with our entire hearts in the ultimate destination of the religious man, not the path leading to that destination. For the path that eventually will lead to the “green pastures” and to the “still waters” is not the royal road, but a narrow, twisting footway that threads its course along the steep mountain slope, as the terrible abyss yawns at the traveler’s feet.

Let us reexamine this idea in light of the aforementioned statement of Bruce Lee, which I will reiterate here: "People have to grow by skillful frustrations – otherwise, they have no incentive to develop their own means and ways of coping with the world." To borrow his terminology: the Torah spreads a 613-part layer of "skillful frustrations" over our lives, but instead of leaving us directionless to "develop our own means and ways of coping with the world" the "skillful frustrations" of Torah guide us towards human perfection in accordance with the wisdom of the Creator. 

This, I believe, is the meaning of lefum tzaara agra. Any* time we experience pain as a result of our progress in Torah, we can rest assured that the Torah regimen is doing its job: breaking our attachment to our detrimental habits and our default, emotional, fantasy-based view of reality and instilling within us beneficial habits while guiding us to a truer view of reality. 

According to this reading of our mishnah in Avos, lefum tzaara agra is not a prescriptive statement, but a descriptive statement. Ben Hei Hei isn't telling us, "You'd better power through the pain, because the more pain you endure, the more reward you'll get!" Rather, he's providing us with a useful perspective for monitoring our own development, saying, "If you are experiencing pain and frustration in your relationship with Torah, this isn't necessarily a bad thing! To the contrary, it is indicative of progress: the more pain you are experiencing, the more progress you are (potentially) making." This perspective can provide a much-needed jolt of motivation during those "spiritual crises, pangs, and torments" of which the Rav spoke.

This is how I imagine Bruce Lee would say, "Nice pshat!"

Well, that was my pre-meforshim interpretation of lefum tzaara agra. Do any meforshim learn this way? ... Not exactly. I have yet to see any meforshim on Avos itself who take even a remotely similar approach. The only leads I have found are the Meiri and the Rambam. The Meiri interprets agra (reward) here not as "reward" (as conventionally understood). Instead, he writes that agra refers to "the outcome [of our involvement in Torah], namely, the apprehension of the truth." Check out the rest of his commentary there. It's possible he's taking a similar approach, but I'm doubtful.

I am more optimistic about the Rambam. The Rambam brings down lefum tzaara agra in the sixth chapter of the Shemoneh Perakim in the context of chasid vs. kovesh es yitzro. Frankly, I don't have enough energy tonight to summarize his views and explain why I think my idea is on the same train of thought as his. Perhaps I'll do that in another post.

For now, let me know what you think of this idea. Specifically, let me know whether you think it is a good pshat, or whether it might be more of a drash, or whether it doesn't amount to either.

* Of course, this assumes that we are keeping Torah in the correct manner. It is certainly possible for a person to experience pain, conflict, and frustration based on a misunderstanding of Torah; this tzaara would not yield agra.