Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. We're talking about the step of self-awareness that is realizing what's going on inside of you, and seeing your negative traits. Just recognizing them is already greatness. Realizing( and not suppressing) your weaknesses is greatness.
Rav Yerucham Levovitz, who was Rav Wolbe’s Rebbe, told a story which is brought down in Da’at Torah Bamidbar, page 83. He says that when he learned in the Talmud Torah (where the Elder of Kelm raised the great giants of Torah such as the Elder Slabodka, Rav Yerucham Levovitz, Rav Eliyahu Dessler and Rav Eliyahu Lopian) as a Bachur, there were a few Kollel rabbis that learned there. They were extremely great men. A fire once broke out in one of the houses next to the Talmud Torah, and many houses burned down, but the Bet Midrash survived. While the houses were on fire, as the fire got closer to the Yeshiva, one Kollel Rabbi thought to himself, “I hope the yeshiva gets burned down as well. Then I'll be able to go back home to my wife and children.”
When you hear this, you say, “Oh my gosh, this guy's a horror!”
But he says, No, that's greatness. He realized that deep down inside, he had a desire to go back home. People are normal. He wanted to go back to his wife and kids. (The Kollel rabbis used to spend a month at a time in the Yeshiva, separated from their wives.)
If he were to just back, he'd be embarrassed. His wife would say, “Why are you coming back now? You're supposed to be there. You don't belong here.” But if he could say, “The Yeshiva burnt down. I had to come home,” he'd have a nice excuse. He wouldn’t be embarrassed to come back to his family.
He says a person had to be able to recognize his shortcomings. And that's why the Torah is always looking for and finding fault in our great Avot, and the Dor HaMidbar. Those problems show what's really going on inside of us. And he says, A person who doesn't really know what's going on in himself is not considered a human being at all.
And he quotes a pasuk in Tehilim 49,21
אָדָ֣ם בִּ֭יקָר וְלֹ֣א יָבִ֑ין נִמְשַׁ֖ל כַּבְּהֵמ֣וֹת נִדְמֽוּ׃
If you don't understand yourself, you're like an animal. The Pele Yoetz, on the topic of Pachad, brings down a story that happened in the time of the Rambam. An Adam Gaddol/great man did not want to say Vidduy on Yom Kippur, because he knew that he did not commit those sins, and why should he lie in front of God? God’s stamp is the stamp of truth. The Rambam says, if you knew the level of service to Hashem, you would realize that a day does not go by that you don't do all of the Vidduy.” You do everything.
How could that be? He says, it’s because a person is not judged only on the most extreme. He say to look at David Hamelech. The Torah says he sinned with a married woman, when, in truth, she was divorced. So what does that mean?
That means that when the Torah views a sin and tells us to look into ourselves, it’s talking about the fine points. Everyone has inside of them fine points. This rabbi was able to detect something inside of him. Part of our job is to detect what's going on inside of us. Rav Wolbe told over that Rav Yisrael Salantar said about himself that he would not want to be left in a room with uncounted money. Other Baalei Mussar said, “If you left me a room with uncounted money, I would take it.” Does that really mean they would take it? No. It means that they felt that they had some kind of taste for that sin inside of themselves, because they were always checking on themselves. And that's greatness- to recognize your weaknesses and not shy away from them.
When we hear the story of the Ponzi schemes of Madoff, we say, “What a horrible man.” That's not the correct response.
The Gemara says, “If someone sees a lady who was unfaithful with her husband, and after taking the test, she failed and she exploded and died in a hideous way, what is he supposed to do? Stop drinking wine. Why? Because you aren’t supposed to say, “Ooh, what a terrible lady. Look what she did!”
You're supposed to say, “Oh, If that happened to her, it could happen to me! I also could get into trouble like that. How do I have to look into myself?”
There was once a story where certain Rosh Yeshiva was caught up in some improper relations, and it was a big disgrace. Rav Wolbe was talking to his student, Rav Reuven Leuchter, about it, and he said something to the effect of, “We have to say that it could happen to us also.”
How could that be? He went on to explain how every one of us has things inside of us, and the only people that you're safe from are the people that are always concerned.
Saying, “It's okay. Nothing's going to happen to me,”is wrong. It’s a problem when you don't realize that you have these possibilities inside of you.