Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Staying On (and Returning To) the Path to Olam HaBa

My high school chemistry teacher once handed out a paper entitled, "Don't X the Y too Z".  The paper was about how not to write instructions and procedures.  What is one to do when the instructions advise, "Don't tighten the screw too much"?  Turn the screw till it breaks, then back off a quarter turn?  (I've tried that; it doesn't work.)  L'havdil, Shlomo ha'Melech, the ultimate m'chanech, certainly knew that very well.  Before telling us the three main highways to oblivion, he has already given us the cure for each.

The problem with pesatood (the state of being a pesi, a simpleton) is just not knowing how to reply to the yeitzer hara.  The first attack of the yeitzer hara is usually, "Hey, it'll be fun.  And, after all, what could be wrong with it?"  If you don't know what to answer, then it is very difficult to refuse.  We all know, and the yeitzer hara better than most, the Yerushalmi that a person will be taken to task on the yom ha'din for every permissible pleasure that he didn't enjoy.  We all know, and the yeitzer hara better than most, the story of the Brisker Rav who was insistent that he go to see the Alps while recovering in Switzerland because of that Yerushalmi.  The same yeitzer hara that doesn't want you to learn certainly is a buki in all the Chazals and ma'asei rav along those lines.  So the answer to question of what could be wrong is simply, "Good question! Let's to learn first and see what's wrong."  That's called learning to know.

For the leitz (scoffer), the cure is to realize that every action, thought, and desire produces a spiritual environment that encourages more of those desires, thoughts, and actions.  Speech, coming as it does from the highest realms of creation, is a very powerful producer of spirituality.  When used for d'varim b'teilim (and all the more so d'varim assurim) it pollutes the environment with the worst stench and poison.  When used to t'fila and limud ha'torah (ie, the purpose for which is was given to us) the environment is not only filled with the sweetness of Gan Eden, but it also cleans up all the tuma.  The power of the k'dusha is 100s of times more powerful than the power of tuma, so even the smallest amount of learning can quickly change the environment from Loraxville to Gan Eden.  That's called learning for d'veikus and is a higher level than just learning to know.

Finally, for the k'sil (the fool who is lazy and hates those who are not), the cure is to redirect his efforts.  My father, alav ha'shalom, used to tell me that if I would put half the energy into weeding/cleaning up my room/homework as I put into whining and devising schemes to avoid weeding/cleaning up my room/homework, I'd be finished already.  (I heard that a lot.)  He was right, of course.  (Not that I stopped whining so fast.)  The cure for the k'sil is to just learn.  He will so quickly be caught up in the beauty and depth that he'll forget to be lazy and won't have time to hate.  That's called learning lishma -- just for the pure joy of it -- and is the hightest level of limud ha'torah possible.

In case the message is too subtle: learning, good; avoiding/neglecting learning, bad.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק