I would like to share a thought from Bereshit that relates to our understanding of, and relationship with Hashem.
Let us go back to the sin of Adam HaRishon. As we have said in the past, it is not just his sin, it’s our sin. It is the sin of humanity.
Let’s analyze the conversation between the snake and Chava. The snake was very cunning. He approached Chava and said,
אַף כִּי אָמַר אלקים לֹא תֹאכְלוּ מִכֹּל עֵץ הַגָּן
Is it true that G-d said you can’t eat from any of the fruit trees of the garden?
To which she said, “ No, we can, we just can’t eat from one of them.”
From where did the snake come with this seemingly silly “fake news?”
The Rishonim, starting with Rabbenu Bachye, say that this was one of the Yetzer Hara’s approaches, or what he calls its seductions. The Yetzer Hara wants to tell a person that if he listens to G-d, he won’t enjoy anything, and that G-d forbade every pleasure in the world.
Impossible! G-d created every pleasure in the world for us! What a liar! What a Baal Lashon Hara! The snake was the first one to speak Lashon Hara - on G-d!
(The punishment for someone who speaks Lashon Hara is leprosy, which is why snakes shed their skin. Their punishment was to become eternal lepers, so their skin doesn’t grow with them, as it does for all other creatures. Every year, they have to rub up against a rock, make a hole and shed their skin.)
The Gaon of Vilna has a slightly different approach than Rabbenu Bachye. He says that the Yetzer Hara comes along and says, “There is no way you can ever fulfill G-d’s mitzvot. They’re impossible. You can’t eat anything or do anything!”
The Chafetz Chaim, in the sefer for which he is named, says in the introduction that the Yetzer Hara uses the Lashon Hara approach, by saying that it’s impossible to even talk, because everything is lashon Hara. You’ll have to be a mute.”
And so, the Chafetz Chaim was quite conversant. He was like the life of the party, in order to show people that you can live a happy enjoyable, fun, interactive, engaging life, and not speak lashon hara. It’s all the yetzer hara’s fake news.
Rav Yerucham Levovitz gave a mashal for this, based on episode that occurred to him in the 1930s. He had a heart condition, and wasn’t permitted to drink coffee, although he liked it. At about that time, a young American boy returned to Yeshiva and brought the rabbi a container of Sanka- the very first decaffeinated coffee ever.
The rabbi was skeptical- how could it taste like coffee without the caffeine?
But he tasted it, and sure enough, it tasted good. He gave a whole sermon on it the next day. He said, “Look at the way the Yetzer Hara makes us think. We think that all the good, and all the flavor, is in the poison. But we don’t need the poison to get the flavor. We can take the caffeine out, and it still tastes good. We can have a decaffeinated life. We can take the caffeine out. But
the Yetzer Hara wants us to think we can’t have anything.”
That was the snake’s approach with Chava. Then, when Chava got over this first approach, and told him it wasn’t true, that they were allowed to have from the other trees, the snake changed tactics and said,
“G-d told you that you can’t eat from that one tree? You’re not going to die if you eat from the tree! Do you know why G-d doesn’t want you to eat from the tree? Because G-d knows that the day you eat from that tree, your eyes will be opened and you will be G-dly.”
So what?
Rashi says that כל אומן שונא את בני אומנתו
Every craftsman hates his competition.
The snake’s argument was that G-d ate from this tree, and He created the world, so He doesn’t want you to eat from this tree and become a creator like Him.
Chava and Adam bought into that. Human beings are so great, and we have Tzelem Elokim, we have a little bit of G-d inside us, so we want to be creators.
So they ate and they sinned. How did G-d in his mercy fix this sin? He told them, “Man, you’re going to have to work hard. By the sweat of your brow you will produce food. Lady, you will have a very difficult time with childbirth.” Why are those the main punishments? Because man is closest to his Creator when he puts a seed in the ground and creates a tree. And a woman is closest to her Creator when she has a child. In both of those instances, G-d says, “I’m going to make it difficult for you. You’re going to have to cry out for help and show that no, you are not a Creator. You can’t make money without Me, you can’t plant a seed without Me, you can’t have a child without Me and you can’t raise your children without Me.”
And that was the tikkun.
The tikkun is to realize three things
1- G-d is the Creator, not us.
2- G-d created this world for us to enjoy, and He did not make everything forbidden
3- G-d makes restrictions for our own good, and not for our detriment.
Those are all false, fake news. The Yetzer Hara controls the media, today and forever. The snake symbolizes the media. Everyone is screaming all day about the media, but it is nothing new. We say in our prayers on Rosh Hashanah, “In the future, the mouth of in equity will be shut.” That means that all of the media, with all of their fake and false information, will be shut down.
But the first false information is in our own brains. In our own brains, we are broadcasting fake information. We believe that G-d gave us the Torah to make life difficult. We believe that G-d doesn’t want us to do anything… that we can’t eat this or that because we have to eat kosher…that we can’t eat out.
Mistake upon mistake upon mistake. Eating kosher, and not eating in restaurants that are unKosher, is better for you. It’s healthier for you. It’s better for your soul, it’s better for your self control, it’s better for your life and it’s better for your marriage.
You have to believe that- not that if you keep the Shulchan Aruch you’re going to suffer. That is the Yetzer Hara talking. Stop believing him. G-d wants us to enjoy. G-d does everything for our own good. If you want to enjoy the world-Torah, mitzvot, Shulchan Aruch. Those are the fundamentals. We are not the boss. We are the workers.
Have a Shabbat Shalom