We read in Parashat Vayishlah that as Yaakov Avinu made his way back to Eretz Yisrael, a mysterious man attacked him, and wrestled with him throughout the night. Yaakov ultimately emerged victorious, although he sustained an injury to his hip, that made him limp.
The Rabbis explained that this mysterious attacker was שרו של עשיו – the angel of Eisav, the Satan, the force of evil, the yetzer ha’ra that tries to lead us to sin.
To understand the significance of this incident, we need to take note of the word used to describe the fight between Yaakov and this angel: ויאבק (32:25). The root of this word is אבק, which means “dust.” Rashi explains that this word is used because when two people wrestle with one another, they kick up dust into the air. The Gemara (Hulin 91a) teaches that the dust that Yaakov and the angel kicked up during their fight ascended all the way to the heavens.
In other words, the fight between good and evil, the struggle that we wage against our yetzer ha’ra, is a fight about the dust.
What does this mean?
The Gemara elsewhere (Baba Batra 165a) teaches that virtually all people are guilty of אבק לשון הרע – literally, “the dust of lashon ha’ra.” Most committed Jews avoid outright lashon ha’ra. We don’t sit and indulge in gossip and spread embarrassing information about people. But almost everyone is guilty of “sort of” lashon ha’ra – of innuendos, of remarks which might not qualify as direct lashon ha’ra, but are clearly intended to make somebody else look not great.
This is what אבק, “dust,” means – the subtle, small particles of “dust” that we put on an otherwise clean, beautiful Torah life.
The yetzer ha’ra doesn’t approach us and try to get us to violate Shabbat or eat non-kosher food. The yetzer ha’ra doesn’t tempt us to go over to somebody we’re upset at and say, “You’re a terrible person,” or “I hate you.” We are all good people who are committed to Torah values. And we’re nice and ethical. We aren’t going to do something awful.
But what the yetzer ha’ra does instead is get us to kick up “dirt.” It gets us to make a somewhat insensitive comment that hurts somebody, to say something subtly offensive, to do something that isn’t precisely proper according to halachah. This is the battle that we face.
The pasuk in Mishleh (10:32) says, שפתי צדיק ידעון רצון – “The lips of the righteous person know how to earn favor.” Rashi explains that a tzadik, a righteous person, knows how to earn Hashem’s favor through his prayer, and also knows how to make people feel good with his words.
Knowing how to say the right thing, how to speak sensitively, how to speak to people in a way which makes them comfortable and at ease around you, is very difficult. Somebody who does this all the time is a tzadik. This doesn’t mean that the rest of us are bad people. It just means that the rest of us kick up “dust” in our relationships. We’re good people, we’re nice, and we don’t want to hurt people, but sometimes we say the wrong thing, we create “dust.” This is the struggle that we face, and this is the struggle that we must try to win.
Rabbi Paysach Krohn told the story of a man who was part of a daily Torah learning group that got together to learn every morning. This fellow was in charge of giving out coffee to all the participants. He made a point of knowing exactly how each and every member of the group liked his coffee – with milk, without milk, with or without sugar, with or without artificial sweetener, strong or not too strong, very hot or not too hot, etc. He ensured to give each person precisely the coffee that he wanted.
But there was something very peculiar about the way he served the people their coffee – he always brought them half a cup. If they finished and wanted more, he would happily bring them more, but he always gave them no more than half a cup.
One morning, he was not feeling well, so he sent his son to serve everybody their coffee. He prepared for his son a detailed list explaining how each member of the group liked their coffee.
As the son was preparing the coffee in the shul, the father showed up.
“Dad, I thought you weren’t feeling well,” his son asked.
“Yes, but I needed to come because I forgot to tell you something very important – you need to make sure to give everyone only half a cup at a time!”
The son didn’t understand. He asked why he couldn’t just give everybody a full cup.
The father explained that there were two elderly members of the group whose hands shook somewhat. Unless their cup of coffee was only half full, the coffee would spill on their Gemara. And since they needed half a cup, he gave everybody half a cup, so they would not feel embarrassed.
This is an example of a tzadik who understands how to avoid the “dust,” how to live a perfectly “clean” Torah life, without causing anyone any sort of discomfort or pain.
Let us be strong and resolute in waging this battle, and keep all our relationships, both at home and outside the home, clean of any “dust,” always trying to make people feel comfortable and at ease around us.