Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. Today we will be quoting greatly from Rav Wolbe’s Alei Shor (volume 2, page 362)
Every single day we say Keriat Shema twice a day, and Keriat Shema is called Kabbalat Ol Malchut Shamayim/ Accepting Hashem's yoke. That means we are committing ourselves to controlling our eyes, our ears and our mouths. Someone who knows himself well will sense a voice inside that says, “I want to speak Lashon Hara.” And it's quite possible that most, if not all, of our senses want to rebel against us, so what are we supposed to do?
I don't want to control my eyes, I don't want to control my appetite. I don't want to control a lot of things.
Someone who's not in attuned to his inner thoughts can easily fool himself. Rav Wolbe recalls that when he was a boy in the Mirrer Yeshiva, he would say Keriat Shema like a good boy. When when you say Shema and say Hashem Echad/Hashem is the One and Only, you're supposed to think to yourself, “I'm willing to give up my life Al Kiddush Hashem.” The rabbis say you are supposed to imagine a big furnace that they are going to throw you into if you don’t worship Avoda Zara- like Avraham Avinu, and you are ready to jump in B‘Chol Nafshecha/with all your soul. You’re ready to die for the cause. And that's how Rav Wolbe said Keriat Shema. Then an hour into first seder, he noticed that he was having a nonsense discussion. Four hours is a long time to learn without any talking, but he said to himself, “Hold on, I'm willing to jump into a fiery furnace, but I'm not willing to learn for four hours straight? Something's a little off here. Something is a little hypocritical. Something is insincere.” And the answer is, his Kabbalat Ol Malchut Shamayim was not complete.
Rav Yisrael Salantar says that you can accept Hashem’s kingdom on the seven heavens and the four corners of the earth, and leave yourself out.
So yes , of course, die Al Kiddush Hashem, but Kabbalat Ol Malchut Shamayim means that you're putting that yoke on all of those inner forces inside of you, all of those voices that want to be in control. You're putting Hashem in control.
There's a famous mashal about a man who was signing up for the Communist Party, and they asked him a bunch of questions. The first question was, if you have two houses, what are you going do with them?
He answered, “One for myself, one for mother Russia.”
If you have two airplanes, what are going do?
“One for myself, one for mother Russia.”
If you have two coats, what are you going do?
“One for myself, one for mother Russia.”
Beautiful. Then they asked, “What if you have two chickens?”
He didn’t answer. Again they asked, “What do you do if you have two chickens?”
No answer. They said, “Why aren't you answering?”
And he said, “Well, I have two chickens…”
Which means, of course you'll give up the theoretical house, coat and plane. Wonderful. That's in theory. But we're talking about practical, as they say, tachlis. “Yeah, I'll jump into the fiery furnace. But not speaking Lashon Hara? That's a whole different story.” So what do we do when we find that darker side inside of us? We have to start realizing that “Yes, I have those things inside of myself. I can't suppress them. They might come out. I have to work them through.”
We'll see exactly what work them through means. There’s a difference between what Rav Wolbe calls a “Frum Keriat Shema,” which means the guy is just closing his eyes and thinking of all of the high and holy things, and saying Keriat Shema in a real and sincere way.
He says you can fool yourself. You close your eyes and pray aloud with a lot of kavana of what the words mean. You imagine you're walking in joy to die Al Kiddush Hashem, but you have no idea what's going on inside of yourself. Our job is to be sincere and serious and realize what's going inside of ourselves. Kabbalat Ol Malchut Shamayim means my ears that I won't listen to Devarim Assurim, my mouth won't speak Devarim Assurim, I won't eat improper things or eat leshem Ta’ava, and so on and so forth.
In his words, “If you really know yourself, you're going realize all these forces are not agreeing to Kabbalat Ol Malchut Shamayim.
Stay tuned to find out what to do when you realize that parts of you don't want to agree.