Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. Why is it important to start revealing the darker side of a person? As we've been saying, mussar is about looking for, and finding your weaknesses and not trying to suppress or ignore them, even though it's little uncomfortable to admit what's going on inside of you. What's the reason for this?
Rav Wolbe explains in Alei Shor that one of the most powerful forces of the Yetzer Hara in man is the power to rebel.
He proves it from the Gemara in Sanhedrin 91B, where Antoninus tells Rebbe that the Yetzer Hara comes into man only after birth, not from the time of conception, because if the Yetzer Hara was inside the womb, he would cause a person to kick and leave.
What kind of craziness is that -Leave?! You'd be a dead on the floor!
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 cannot be under someone else's jurisdiction. He has to be on his own. That's the Koach HaMeridah
Rav Wolbe explains that this force is what gets people into trouble. Sometimes you see good people who start working on themselves, but it backfires and they stop, or get even worse. What's the reason? He gives an example. A young yeshiva boy decides to have a Taanit Dibbur/ he is not going to talk all day. And what happens the next day? He speaks twice as much Lashon Hara.
Why? What happened? He didn't deal with his desire to speak Lashon Hara. He just tried to suppress it and push it down, and that aroused, inside of him, a force of rebellion. You don't feel it at the time. At the time, you're very happy with what you did. But later on, it shows up. He quotes Rav Dessler that it's like a spring. You push a spring down, and you push it down, and you push it down, and eventually it bounces back. And that goes for a lot of areas.
The Siftei Haim, in his hakdama, says that when a person is working on guarding his eyes from what he shouldn't look at, if he keeps on saying, ‘Don't look, don't look, don't look,’ it might backfire, because again, he quotes the Spring theory. 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 your Yetzer Hara.
Rav Wolbe did many interesting things in his life. He didn't just stick to the standard job of being a Mashgiach. During the different wars, he would go and help strengthen the soldiers.
On one event, he flew into enemy territory to give hizuk to soldiers. They warned him that we're now going to entering enemy territory and they’d have to fly under the radar- they’d be flying very low.
He says there’s a similar concept when you're fighting the Yetzer Hara- you have to go under his radar. That's why the Baalei Musar say that you always have to take on small things.
Previously, we’ve spoken about going against your will. Against your will doesn't mean you that don't eat at all that day. It means, like we said, from Rav Yerucham Levovitz, that if you’ve had one scoop of ice cream, don’t have that second scoop. Go against your will in something that's within your reach, not in something that hurts that much.
It should be n something that you can do. It's like when you do exercise, you don't just suddenly do 60 reps. You do five reps or 10 reps, and when it starts hurting, you rest. If it's too hard, you're just going to quit.
We have to be aware of this concept- that if you don't work with yourself and just suppress and you're not aware of those negative things, they will bounce back.
This is what makes great people.
Rav Elyah Lopian was a Mashgiach in a Yeshiva in 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 via a bus to the Haifa Central Bus Station and from there, a direct bus to Yerushalayim. There was also a longer way that would avoid the Central Bus Station, with a detour and some more stops.
When this boy told Rav Lopian that he was going to Yerushalayim, the rabbi asked how he was getting there. The boy answered that he’d go through the Haifa Central Bus Station.
Rav Lopian asked, “You're not concerned with the lack of modesty at the bus station ( Haifa was beach town)?”
He said, “No, it doesn't bother me.”
Rav 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, he has the Yetzer Hara inside of him, even at 90 years old and blind in one eye.
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…