Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily.
We've been talking about understanding who you really are and how to separate between your da'at, your awareness, and all the other thoughts, desires, and emotions that are going on inside of you.
Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz, quoted in our Alei Shur, Volume 2, page 248, says in one of his kabbalot, his resolutions that he made on Yom Kippur: “I see that I'm not in control. I'm not controlling myself. I'm in someone else's hands. And that someone else is the materialistic forces inside of me that are controlling me. And not only that, they're bribing my intellect to fool him into doing improper things and just to get me away from goodness. And therefore, I accept it upon myself to make my da'at, my awareness, the one in control. And Hashem should help me. And I accept it upon myself, believe me, to do things against my will five times a day.” What does it mean, against my will?
Against my will means I'm walking at a bar mitzvah (coming-of-age celebration). I've already eaten breakfast, I'm full, and I walk by a table and see a sweet, and I say, “Hey, let me eat that.” “You don't need that. I'm going to break that ratzon (will). I'm not eating it.” I went downstairs to my car and said, “Oh, I forgot a certain sefer that I have to take to shul (synagogue). I'll get it tomorrow.” “No, you're not going to be lazy. You're going up.” That's what it means to break a ratzon. That's what great Baalei Musar (masters of ethical discipline) did.
They tell a story of Yisrael Salanter, who once got up in the middle of the night. In those days they didn't have plumbing, and if you were thirsty, you'd have to go to the well. He got up in the middle of the night and said, “I'm thirsty.” Then he said, “Nah, you know what? Maybe it's just unnecessary taavah.” Of course, this is beyond our level. It's unnecessary desire; I don't need it. He said, “Hold on, maybe it's laziness.” What did he do? He got out of bed. He went to the well, got water from the well, came back home, and spilled it out. That way, it was clearly not desire and clearly not laziness. That's a very high level.
But what does Rav Wolbe explain? What are these forces that are in control of us? Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz used the words: there are avot—fathers—and there are toldot—children. Who are the avot? The avot, he says, are the evil forces that are inside of us. Like we said, after Adam HaRishon's sin, evil has entered us. And they create what he calls an abundance of desires—desires in the heart that are not me. They're strangers. And he says it's not easy to discern and realize that these constant urges or wills or desires that keep popping up in our heart are all strangers. We think desire is ourselves. And we think that spirituality and intellect and knowledge are something strange. Desire for delicacies, for honor, and for money is natural to us. And spiritual concepts—we have to force ourselves into them. And that is step one. Step one is to start separating yourselves from your desires. And the only way to separate yourself from your desire is by not giving in to your desire. And when you control your desire, you see you're not your desire, because you're not your desire. Something's controlling your desire.
They tell a story about Napoleon. I wasn't there, so I can't verify it, but this is a story they tell in yeshivas. Napoleon was going to war and came 10 miles from a certain city that was very well known for its cigars. It was a town famous for cigars, and he really did not need to capture that town for the war's success. But he said, “Hey, you know what? I want those cigars.” And he made a detour. I don't know how many people he killed on the way, and they captured this little city. Napoleon's general—or he was the general maybe, his lieutenant—comes over, all excited, and brings Napoleon the cigar. Napoleon raises the cigar to his lips, and the soldier lights it. Then suddenly Napoleon breaks the cigar in half, to the amazement of everyone standing around. He responds, “Napoleon will control the cigar. The cigar will not control Napoleon.” When you're letting things control you, those things are not you. Those things are outside of you.
In the second story, the Alter of Novardok was walking in the streets of Europe and saw a policeman with a thief handcuffed to him. They're both walking together. The thief was embarrassed when people saw him and said, “I'm the officer and he's the thief.” How do we know who's telling the truth? The officer is the one who can take out the keys and unlock the handcuffs. We tell ourselves, “I'm in control. I could stop this any time. I could lose 10 pounds, quit my smoking habit, etc.” The only way to know if we can do it and that we're really in control is when we actually do it. Otherwise, other things control us. And that's our message for the day.