We are responsible to have good middos, which means that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors have to be in line with the proper morality. Our thoughts shape our feelings and they influence our behaviors and therefore the foundation for having good middos begins with having our thoughts in line with the proper morality.

The Mesilas Yesharim (chapter 11) teaches us that good middos come from the true understanding of life, therefore our pursuit of good middos is based on our pursuit of the truth in life.

There are a number of core truths that set the foundation for good middos.

For example:

1))Hashem’s middos are His greatness and His essence as we can relate to it.

2)Hashem’s only goal and interest in creating the world was for kindness.

3)Everything that Hashem does in this world is for the purpose of kindness and everything is done with integrity and truth.

4)Hashem is in control of everything, and everything is for our best. (Nobody can actually help us or hurt us without Hashem allowing them to).

5)Hashem created everything human being in His image and Hashem created the world for each and every person in the world. We all have the dignity, opportunity, and responsibility that comes along with who we are.

6)The reward that Hashem will give us will be in both this world and the next.

7)Hashem gave us the Torah and the mitzvos for our benefit. They provide an opportunity for us to improve ourselves and to receive the benefits in this world and in the next.

8)Having good middos is the ultimate goal and achievement of humanity.

9)Our lives in this world are temporary, and all forms of pleasure, comfort, power and fame are fleeting.

10)Our pursuit of money, pleasure, and power can never leave us satisfied.

These perspectives affect the underpinning of all of our middos, whether they are middos of bein adam lamakom or middos of bein adam lechaveiro).

For our thoughts to be in line with the proper morality we need to have the true perspectives about Hashem, humanity, the Torah, the purpose of creation, the purpose of humanity, comfort, pleasure, honor, respect, responsibility, opportunity, and accountability. We also need to have the true perspectives about how to define success and achievement and how to determine what is valuable and beneficial in life. All of our bad middos come from a distortion that we have about these matters.

The 10 truths enable us to have the true perspectives about all of these matters.

For example: The mishna in Avos tells us that jealousy, desire, and honor take us out of this world. The Mesilas Yesharim (chapter 11) explains that the mishna is telling us that jealousy, desire, and honor cause us to have bad middos and to act inappropriately throughout our lives. However, when we recognize these 10 truths we won’t suffer from jealousy, desire, and honor.

Our jealousy and our desire for comfort and honor come from our thought that what is good for us and what we should desire in life should be money, pleasure, power, comfort, and honor. Our goals in life are shaped by this understanding of what is good for us, and the way that we define success and achievement based on what will bring us more money, pleasure, power, comfort, and honor.

However, the more that we recognize the truth about life, our goals will change and we will realize that it isn’t so good for us to have money, pleasure, power, comfort, and honor. They are short lived and the true benefits that we receive from them are limited.

The reality of life is as the Mesilas Yesharim explains (chapter 1) that the main reason that Hashem created us is for our neshama to receive the ultimate goodness; to enjoy the eternal closeness to Hashem. Hashem put us in this world to give us the opportunity and responsibility to do the mitzvos. When we are doing the mitzvos we are not only accomplishing the most important thing in the entire universe, we are also investing in our eternal success, we are enabling ourselves to receive the best portion in the eternal World to Come.

When we understand (as the Or Hatzafun explains throughout his sefer) that our goal in life and the greatest accomplishment in life is to be like Hashem by emulating the middos of Hashem, then we will see the true value of having good middos, and we will dedicate our lives to that goal.

Another example of how the recognition of these 10 truths leads to good middos is the following:

The Truth is that everything that happens in life is determined by Hashem. However, Hashem runs the world in a manner where He is behind the scenes and therefore, we may not see that Hashem is causing everything to happen. Rather, it may seem to be that everything that occurs is either a result of the laws of nature or through human decision. This mistake plays a role in all of our bad middos.

This way of thinking causes us to become; a)arrogant, when we have success because we attribute the success to our own efforts, b)angry, jealous, and vengeful because we think that other people’s actions affect our personal success, and c)anxious, because we realize that we don’t have control over our health, our security, and our finances. It also causes us to put in endless effort into taking care of these matters (our health, security, and finances) because we think that our efforts are responsible for creating the results. It also leads us to relying on other people in unproductive ways when we think that they are able to influence the results that we are looking for and frequently it also makes us vulnerable to lying, cheating, and stealing because we think that our efforts are needed for us to achieve the results that we are looking for.

In contrast, when we realize that Hashem is in control over everything that happens and Hashem wants us to live our lives with the morality of the Torah we will approach all of these matters very differently.

We will a)have humility due to the recognition that everything that we have is a gift from Hashem, b)not be angry, vengeful, or jealous because we will realize that everything that happens to us is through the decisions of Hashem and Hashem determined that it is best for us to have exactly what He has given to us. No one else caused us harm or can influence anything in our lives, and c)we won’t be anxious about our security, our health, or our finances and we won’t have an unhealthy reliance on others to help us in our lives because we know that Hashem is taking care of them. We will know that our job is to put in a reasonable amount of effort (because Hashem gives us the responsibility to do so) and to rely on Hashem for the rest. We will also not be tempted to be dishonest with our business because we know that Hashem is in charge and He won’t make us more successful through our inappropriate efforts.

These are some of the examples that demonstrate the fact that the true understanding of life brings us to having the proper middos and to living a life of morality.

We should all merit to live a life of spiritual and moral clarity and to become closer to Hashem every day of our lives.