Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. We continue with the letter Rav Hutner wrote to the Yeshiva boy who was struggling with the fact that he didn't feel like he was always successful.
Rav Hutner continues and writes,
“Know, my friend, that the key for your soul is not the tranquility of the Yetzer HaTov, but the war against the Yetzer Hara. In English, there's a saying, ‘Lose the battle and win the war.’ You surely have stumbled and will stumble again and you'll be vanquished in many battles. However, I promise you that after you have lost those battles, you'll emerge from the war with a victor's wreath on your head.
The wisest of all men, King Shlomo said (Mishleh 24,16)
שֶׁבַע יִפּוֹל צַדִּיק וָקָם
The Sadik will fall seven times and will rise. The unlearned man thinks this means Even though a Sadik falls seven times, he will rise. The wise man knows well that the meaning is because the Sadik falls seven times he will rise.”
After adding another commentary and thought, he ends off with best wishes to the young man.
But let's talk about this concept of
שבע יפול צדיק וקם ורשעים יכשלו ברעה
Sadik falls seven times he will rise.”
The Ruah Chaim, from Rav Chaim Volozhin, in Pirkei Avot ( perek 5, mishna 3) says, All the great traits of the Avot, that they worked on, become natural to their children.
The fact that Avraham Avinu said everything that God did was for the best, and withstood the famine without questioning God, gave him the ability to fall and get up again.
Rav Chaim applies this to falling in a physical sense, whether in business, health etc. In that sense, everything that God does is for the good, and I pick myself up again.
The sefer Bat Ayin (Parashat Vaera) applies this to falling spiritually. When a person falls down spiritually, the purpose is to get only closer. Rav Don Segal points out that it doesn't say
שבע יפול וקם צדיק
He falls seven times and gets up and then he a sadik,
But rather,
שבע יפול צדיק וקם
He’s falling as a Sadik, and his greatness is that he gets up.
This is the what defines greatness or failure.
Rav Nosson Wachtfogel used to say the first mussar shmuz is the Torah is in Bereshit 4,6, when Kayin and Hevel bring their Korbanot. Kayin is the one that initiates the idea, and Hevel copies him, but Hevel’s Korban is
accepted and Kayin’s is not. Kayin becomes upset and down. And God says to him
לָמָּה חָרָה לָךְ וְלָמָּה נָפְלוּ פָנֶיךָ
:}ז) הֲלוֹא אִם תֵּיטִיב שְׂאֵת וְאִם לֹא תֵיטִיב…:
What are you angry about? Why did your face fall? If you do good, you'll pick yourself up. But if you don't do good, and don't pick yourself up, the Yetzer Hara is waiting to bring you down.
That's why the great rabbis tell us that more than the Yetzer Hara wants you to sin, he wants you to despair after the sin. Because once you despair, he knows that you're stuck and you won't get up.
The rule, says Rav Sadok AHaKohen, in his sefer Divreh Sofrimאות טז is that:
A Jew never despairs in any area, whether it's physical or spiritual. If it’s physical, even if a sword is on your neck, don't give up from God's mercy. And if it's spiritual, there's nothing that Teshuva doesn't help for.
He asks why God made it that Avraham and Sara had children at age 90 and 100. God doesn't like to perform miracles. They were going have children, so why do it that way?
He explains that it was to show us that our nation was created after a situation of total despair. Look yourself in the mirror and say, I shouldn't be here. That's what we have to believe, that there is no despair. God can do anything.
There are endless stories on this concept of not despairing, and not giving up. But as we’ve said, you must have Emunah and Bitachon and belief in religion in order for them to work.
Rav Yaakov Galinsky, a great maggid that went through Siberia, related that one of his cellmates in the Russian wasteland was a Polish national. Rav Galinsky noticed that the new prisoner had a strange custom of waking up in the middle of his sleep every night.
As he watched the darkness, he would see the man bending down to reach under his bed, putting on a set of clothing and standing immobile. After standing that way for a minute or two, the fellow would remove whatever it was he had put on, return it to under his bed, and go back to sleep. Intrigued, Rav Galinsky asked the Pole what this strange custom was. The fellow wouldn't answer, but Rav Galinsky persisted and finally got an explanation. In Poland, the man told him, he was a general in the army, but, “Here, as a prisoner of the Russians, they attempt to break and dehumanize me. I won't let them. I don't want to ever forget who I really am, what I represent, and what I will yet be.
So under the cover of darkness, I take a few moments each night to put on my military uniform and contemplate what it means to be a general. That way they'll never break me.”
And similarly, for a Jew.
We’re in Galut, but we have to remember who we are. We have to put on our tefilin, which is our crown of glory, to remember who we really are, never give up hope and keep on picking ourselves up, regardless of what's going on.