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Thought for the Day: Doing Ratzon HaShem Vs. Doing the Rright Thing

A bit more on why doing Ratzon HaShem confuses the Satan.  The Satan (literally, "adversary") is not so much interested in making us do evil things as he is interested in making us do selfish things.  In fact, he couldn't care less if we do useful and meaningful and even good things; as long as we do it for ourselves.  Once we are doing it for ourselves, we have just permitted every perversion imaginable (and several you can't even imagine).  How does that work?  The big argument of the secular world is that we are religious because it makes us feel good.  They are all for that.  Then they say, "You are just like us.  You do what makes you feel good, we do what makes us feel good.  Being religious makes you feel good.  Being a   makes us feel good.  Ultimately we are all just selfishly satisfying ourselves."  That is the Satan.  That is how every "civilized" secular society inexorably marches toward corruption and self-destruction.  With no external standard of morality, there is no stopping that march.

We say, "No.  It does feel good to do ratzon HaShem, but that is not why we do it.  And the proof is that we stop blowing shofar before Rosh HaShana, etc"  (as discussed before).  That is, we go out of our way with a myriad of large and small, public and private actions demonstrating to them and (more importantly) ourselves that our aspiration is to make each and every action an expression of Ratzon HaShem and not ratzon atzmi.  Those actions nullify the effect of the Satan.  As long as we stick to Ratzon HaShem, the Satan is left bewildered because all of his arguments fall away and he is left stuttering and stammering.
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