Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. Why is it important to start revealing the darker side of a person? As we've been saying, Musar is about looking for and finding your weaknesses and not trying to suppress and ignore them. Even though it's a little uncomfortable to admit what's going on inside of you, what's the reason for that?
Rav Wolbe explains in Alei Shor that there is a force in man—one of the most powerful forces of the Yetzer Hara (evil inclination)—the power to rebel. He proves this with the Gemara in Sanhedrin 91b: Antoninus tells the Rebbe that the Yetzer Hara comes into a person only after birth, not from the time of conception. Because if the Yetzer Hara were inside the womb, it would cause a person to kick and leave. What kind of craziness? Leave? You're going to be dead on the floor. You're going to be in a miscarriage. The answer is that the Yetzer Hara says, “I don't want to be in a locked place like this. Get me out of here.” To the point of suicide. He would just get me out of here. He cannot be under someone else's jurisdiction. He has to be on his own. That's the Koach Hamridah (the power to rebel). And he explains that this force is what gets people into trouble.
He says sometimes you see good people start working on themselves, and it backfires. They stop, and it gets even worse. He says, what's the reason? He gives an example. You have a man—a young yeshiva boy—who decides to have a Taanit dibbur. He's not going to talk all day. You know what happens? The next day, he speaks twice as much Lashon Hara (evil speech). What happened? The answer is, he didn't deal with his desire to speak Lashon Hara. He just tried to suppress it and push it down, and that aroused a force of rebellion inside him. You don't feel it at the time. At the time, you're very happy with what you did, but later on, it's going to show up.
And he brings from Rav Dessler: it's like a spring. You push a spring down, you push it down, you push it down. Eventually, it bounces back. And that goes for a lot of areas. He gives another example: the Siftei Chaim, in his Hakdama (introduction), says that when a person is working on watching his eyes—what he shouldn't look at—if he keeps saying, “Don't look, don't look, don't look,” it might backfire. Because again, he quotes the spring theory. But he says you have to use a positive approach. Be happy with the merit to guard your eyes. And that way, you're not fighting against the Yetzer Hara.
Rav Wolbe did many interesting things in his life. He didn't just stick to the standard job of being a Mashgiach (spiritual supervisor). During the different wars, he would go and help strengthen the soldiers. On one occasion, he flew into enemy territory to give Chizuk (encouragement) to soldiers. They warned him that they were now going into enemy territory and had to fly under the radar, very low. This is a similar concept when you're fighting the Yetzer Hara: you have to go under his radar. And that's why the ba'alei Musar (masters of Musar) say that you always have to take on the enemy territory. You have to take on small things.
We spoke previously about going against your will. Going against your will doesn't mean you don't eat at all that day. That means, like we said from Yerucham Levovitz, you had one scoop of ice cream. Going against your will is, “I'm not going to have that second scoop.” Going against your will is something that's within your reach. It's not something that hurts that much. It's something that you can do. It's like when you exercise: you don't just suddenly do 60 reps. You got to do 5 reps, 10 reps. And when it starts hurting, you got to stop, because if it's too hard, you're just going to stop. So we have to be aware of this concept: if you don't work with yourself, and just suppress, and you're not aware of those negative things, it's going to bounce back.
And again, that's what makes up great people. There's stories. I'll tell you one other, of Eliyahu Lopian, who was a Mashgiach in a Yeshiva in Rechasim. And Kfar Hasidim, I think it was. Kfar Hasidim. There was a boy who wanted to go home for Shabbat from the Yeshiva to Yerushalayim. There were two ways to go. The shorter way was by bus to the central bus station in Haifa, and from there a direct bus to Yerushalayim. There was a longer way that would avoid the central bus station, a detour with some more stops. The boy told Eliyahu Lopian he was going to Yerushalayim. Eliyahu Lopian asked him, “How are you getting there?” He said, “I'm going to the Haifa central bus station, and then I'm going to go to Yerushalayim.” Eliyahu Lopian asked, “You're not concerned about the lack of modesty at the bus station?” He said, “No, it doesn't bother me.” Haifa was a beach town. Eliyahu Lopian became very serious and said, “I'm 90 years old and blind in one eye, and it bothers me.” That means he was aware that, yes, even at 90 years old and blind in one eye, he had the Yetzer Hara inside him. That's greatness: to know that the Yetzer Hara is inside of you and you have to work with him. How do you work with him? We'll see soon.