Divrei Shavuos
The True Remedy
In his sefer Ya’ari Im
Divshi, HaRav Dovid Wenick shlit”a brings a drasha from Ya’aros Dvash,
by HaRav Yonason Eybeshitz, zt”l, who states, “All of a person’s desires stem
from the heat of the yetzer hara . . . . What can one do to control the heat of
the yetzer hara, yet still retain his other strengths? [For if he tries to
afflict himself, in order to nullify his desires, he loses so much of his own
powers that he is left utterly weakened.] The only way to overcome the heat of
the yetzer hara comes from engulfing oneself in the all-consuming fire of Torah.
Not only does the honest learning of Torah lishmah consume the heat of
the yetzer hara without damaging one’s powers; to the contrary, it actually
invigorates those who learn it.”
From this brief statement comes an astounding yesod. We are used to thinking of the yetzer hara as an “external” foe. While he does dwell within us, we like to think that we are conscious of the challenges he throws our way.
Not so, says Rav Eybeshitz. Every human being is endowed with endless nerve endings and many glands – and the yetzer hara controls the on-off switches on every nerve, and the spigots on every gland. Just as heat on its own is not tangible, yet it exerts a controlling influence (we all remember Mother saying, “Stay away from the heat!”); so is the “heat” of the yetzer hara imperceptible at first glance, yet its influence is pervasive. Ever noticed how your instinctual first reaction to any stimulus (“That driver cut me off --) is invariably the wrong one (“— Boy, do I want to ram him!”)? We are both hard-wired and soft-programmed to do the wrong thing.
By contrast, animals’ gut reactions, whether to fight, feed, or flee, are always right. They have no yetzer hara. And no matter how much DNA we may share with them – according to one researcher, 95% of our genes are identical to those of gorillas – we are fundamentally, intrinsically, utterly different from them. Notice that not only do the umos ha'olam seek to identify with the animal kingdom, but they choose the most aggressive species – note the names and mascots of your local sports teams – and emulate their lowest acts.
The yetzer hara's dominion over us does not end with our bodies. Since one’s emotional, intellectual, and spiritual drives reflect one's physical nature, it naturally follows that the yetzer hara can easily thwart and pervert man’s desires for accomplishment in these fields, as well. History is littered with the empty carcasses of “ism’s” that roared to power, spewed their venom over the world, then collapsed of their own falsehood. For example, the word “juggernaut” is a Sanskrit word, literally meaning “master of the universe,” and describing a once-popular Indian avodah zarah. A huge, heavy idol was pulled on a cart sporting thick wheels through the streets of Indian cities. Devotees would prove their loyalty by throwing themselves under the wheels and thereby crushing themselves to death. British bayonets eventually put an end to the practice.
Taking this concept a step further, the “civilized” world of golus that we live in today has been largely designed and developed by people who are utterly under the domain of the yetzer hara. It follows that their accomplishments reflect their master and his “ideal” -- to utterly destroy us, the Jewish nation, and every spark of goodness that we can generate. There is a book, The Anguish of the Jews, written by a Catholic priest, which tries to fathom the ultimate reason for anti-Semitism. At first glance, there is no pattern. At the very same time that Jews in America were suspected of Communist sympathy, Soviet leaders were persecuting Jews for being “capitalist roaders.” His conclusion? That Jews brought civilization to the world;and we, the nations, hate it and resent it!
And we cannot escape the yetzer hara and his minions. From the egotistically tall office buildings where we must work, to the aggressively-styled and creature-comforted vehicles which we must drive, to the mamzer-dik languages (English, for example, is a bilious concoction of everything from Gaelic to Greek) which we must speak, to the literally thousands of clever advertisements which are cunningly designed to tickle our nerve endings and replace any uplifting thoughts with endless variations of “Shop! Buy! Eat!! Shop! Buy! Eat!!”, and everywhere in between, we are floundering at the bottom of an ocean thoroughly polluted by the yetzer hara.
How bad is it? Listen to our gedolim. HaRav Avigdor Miller zt”l noted in Rejoice O Youth that, contrary to popular belief, the Dark Ages weren’t an eon ago; they are now. The Satmar Rav zt”l said that in America, we are exposed to as much spiritual damage from the outside world in one day as an average Jewish villager in Europe experienced in a lifetime. What’s more, the America they saw – Rav Miller wrote that sefer forty years ago, and the Satmar Rav was nifter thirty years ago – was far more pristine than ours of today.
What free will can we possibly exercise, when faced with a foe who so utterly dominates both our internal and external lives? What chance do we have? It seems that the “yeast in the dough (the yetzer hara) and the enslavement of the nations” (which are utterly under his total control) (see Brachos 17a) form a one-two punch that can knock out any opposition on our part. A man can be hale and hearty, blessed with fame and fortune, yet he can be so enslaved, he does not even know that he is enslaved – truly the worst form of bondage.
“Hashem created a yetzer hara, and He created the Torah as its antidote.” (Bava Basra 16a) The cure for all our ills isn’t a spa, a new hobby, or a lot of money, just the honest learning of Torah, as described by Rav Eybeshitz. Not only does one gain the knowledge to do the right thing, he also fills himself with kedusha and frees himself of the grip of the yetzer hara.
How great is the power of Torah? Three talmidim of HaRav Chaim Volozhiner zt”l went sour. Each one possessed a strength: one had tremendous yichus, with many rabbanim and tzaddikim in his ancestry; one possessed very refined midos; and one loved to learn Torah. He consulted the Vilna Gaon, who told him, “I don’t know the futures of the first two. Distinguished family is no guarantee, and many non-Jews also have good characters. The third one, though, will come back.” And so it was. Such is the power of Torah.
Rashi there in Baba Basra declares that with such strong medicine as Torah within reach, no one has any excuse for being poisoned by the yetzer hara. The Ben Ish Chai there notes that “tavlin -- antidote” is similar to “talvin – a whitening;” namely, that Torah can erase even one’s past sins, as well as protecting one from future misdeeds.
Any Jew who sets times for learning every day will discover an ability to control his desires -- physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual – and live a life of happiness that the rest of the world chases, but can never find.
What’s more, our placement in this low point of history – ikvasa d’meshichasa, the last moments before Moshiach”s arrival – actually increases exponentially our accomplishments in this world and the reward we can hope for in the next. HaRav Chaim Vital, the chief talmid of the Arizal, said that those doing mitzvos in his era (500 years ago) could expect one thousand times the reward than if they had done the same mitzvos in the times of the Tannaim. Why? In the old days, the world was far cleaner, and people were far more spiritually sensitive. It follows logically that because the drop from the Arizal’s time to today is far greater than the drop from the sealing of the Mishnah to the Arizal, the reward we receive for a mitzvoh today could be worth millions of mitzvos from those early years.
And if we learn Torah, we can figure in one more multiplier: “Talmud Torah k’neged kulam” – The Chofetz Chaim tells us that every single word of Torah we learn equals all 613 mitzvos.
Today may be the worst of times, but we can make it the best of times. May we be zochim to lives of true joy, which can come only from limud haTorah.
La’Asok B’Divrei Torah
When we received the Torah from Hashem on Har Sinai, a love affair began that has not cooled for over three millennia. The Rambam outlines a perspective on life which, when followed, can carry a Jew into Olam Habah. He writes, “One has before him both a mitzvoh and talmud Torah. Which does he do? If the mitzvoh can be done by another, he should not stop his learning. If it cannot, he should do the mitzvoh and then return to his learning.” (Hilchos Talmud Torah 3:4) In other words, a Jew should see himself as constantly being in a state of learning. He may be interrupted (by his needs and those of others) and forced to take his mind away from learning, but as soon as he can, he returns to his normal state -- of learning. Those who master this perspective can also transform their this-worldly lives, as this ma’aseh illustrates.
HaRav SImchah ZIssel Broide zt”l, Rosh Yeshiva of Chevron, related that when HaRav Aharon Cohen zt”l, another rosh yeshiva there, fell ill, the doctors declared that he needed a difficult operation. However, Rav Cohen had become so weakened that any anesthesia would be dangerous to him. They were in a quandary, until Rav Cohen spoke up. “As long as you give me fifteen minutes notice,” he said, “go ahead with the surgery.”
The doctors were surprised, but there was no choice. They set a time for the operation, gave the Rav the quarter hour he requested, and started operating on him.
The entire time that he lay upon the table, Rav Cohen stayed calm and tranquil, even as the surgeon cut him open and took care of what was necessary. Others would have been screaming from beginning to end, but Rav Cohen looked like he could easily take a nap!
Once the surgical team had finished sewing Rav Cohen up, the astounded surgeon asked Rav Cohen, “How did you stay so serene?”
Answered Rav Cohen, “From the moment you told me the surgery was impending, I began to think about the sugya that I had been learning. From then on, I didn’t feel a thing!”