HaRav Shlomo Aviner is Head of Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim.
In the month of Elul, in preparation for the Days of Awe, we work on our middot (character traits). One of the great principles in the Introduction to the book “Orchot Tzaddikim" is the distinction between a person whose wisdom rules over his desires and a person whose desires rule over his wisdom.
There is a person whose soul rises upward because he has made his wisdom rule over his desires, while there is another who has made his desires rule over his wisdom, and he is like one who walks in darkness.
This is the test of a person.
Every person possesses a certain degree of wisdom. He knows things. He understands. He can explain. But the question is:
Does his wisdom rule? Does the truth that he knows guide his life? Or has desire taken his wisdom and turned it into a servant?
There is a wise person who uses his wisdom in order to overcome his desires.
And there is a wise person who uses his wisdom in order to justify his desires.
This is very dangerous. A simple person who succumbs to desire sometimes knows that he has fallen. But a wise person whose desires rule over his wisdom is capable of constructing an entire system of thought to justify his fall. He will call darkness light. He will call evil good. He will call desire freedom. He will call casting off the yoke - profundity.
Therefore, the work of refining one’s character traits is not merely a matter of acquiring more knowledge. It is about establishing the proper order within the kingdom of the soul: that wisdom should rule over desire, that the soul should guide the body, and that the fear of Hashem should stand at the head of all of a person’s powers.