Rabotai (gentlemen), we’re continuing Chovot HaLevavot, discussing our battle with the Yetzer Hara (evil inclination). After he tells us about the tremendous power of the Yetzer Hara and what it’s capable of doing to us, we got a little taste of it. I can’t say we read every word. Lachen, he says, therefore, listen to these words.
I want to stop right there. One more time: the Chovot HaLevavot says, “Therefore”—what is the result of everything we spoke about? What’s the takeaway here? I like it; I guess it’s like a preference. The takeaway is: do not be busy with any war except the war with your Yetzer Hara. You have an enemy that is constantly coming to bring you down. This is a real war. Put aside all the other wars, and make sure you are ready. Be ready for this battle. These are beautiful words.
But again, when I think about these words, I say they have no practical application. Let me explain what I mean. If he said to me, “Make sure you fight your Yetzer Hara,” those words I understand. Make sure you’re aware of where your decisions are coming from. Make sure you hear the voices and know who is the one saying it. Understand yourself better. All that I do understand. If the Chovot HaLevavot would say, “Make sure you fight this war. Make sure you’re ready for battle, because your enemy is always waiting for you,” that I do understand.
What is bothersome, at least to me, is when he says you should not be involved in any other war except this one. If I were a soldier in the army fighting for my country, I might understand what he means, but I might also disagree with him. Is he telling the soldier who is right now defending his country, which is in danger, that he should leave the war, go back home, and fight the Yetzer Hara? Does he not have an obligation as a soldier to defend people? People are dying; people are at risk. Doesn’t Am Yisrael have an army that sometimes needs to be put into use? So clearly, he’s not talking to a guy who’s in the war and telling him, “Go home and fight the Yetzer Hara.” He’s not saying that. When there’s an obligation to fight, when you have to defend your family, your community, and your country, that’s what you have to do. Nowhere in the Torah does it say that a warrior or a soldier should go home to fight the Yetzer Hara. So clearly, he’s not talking to him.
And if he’s talking to me and you, you know that we don’t go to war; we’re not soldiers. So what war is he talking about? He says, “Don’t get involved in any war except the war of the Yetzer Hara.” It’s confusing to me what he means by that. Which war am I fighting now that I should hang up and get busy with the war with the Yetzer Hara? I’m going to read the words again, so you understand why it’s bothersome when I read them. Poetically, they sound very nice, but this is not poetry. It could be written nicely, but it’s not poetry. He says, “Therefore, the takeaway of all of our talks: do not busy yourself, don’t occupy yourself, with any war, with the exception of the war of the Yetzer Hara.”
I like when I learn something, as we all should. The right thing to do is, when you learn something, to understand what you’re learning and how it applies. Very often we learn things and keep them in the safe deposit box of things that aren’t relevant to our lives. We have to make sure that whatever we learn has some application. What does it mean that I should leave all my battles? Which battles are you talking about?
So I’d like to suggest what the Chovot HaLevavot is referring to. I can’t say with absolute certainty that he means this, but it’s absolutely certain that what I’m saying is true.
You know, humans are born to fight, which means that when we are born, we have this war with the Yetzer Hara. It’s clear that Hashem gave us the ability, both externally and internally, to be fighters. By nature, a human is a fighter. He’s a fighter who wants to win. The best example of this, perhaps, sometimes comes from the silliest places. When you see something so silly and yet everybody is connecting to it, you know it has to be something built in. Perhaps the biggest example of this is sports, especially spectator sports. It makes very little sense to an outsider. Again, I say “an outsider” because those who are in it can appreciate it so much, but it makes very little sense to an outsider who has no connection to the people playing the game. They don’t like him, for sure. They have no connection to him. He doesn’t usually make money when they win or lose money when they lose.
But there’s this unbelievable feeling that any fan of any team can swear he has. It is an amazing feeling to feel like a winner when your team wins. This is something repeated throughout the world by billions of people: when your team wins, you feel like a winner, even though in reality nothing happened in your life at all. Zero. Nothing happened. You feel like a winner to the point where you want to celebrate, like you want to sing in the shower because your happiness is just overwhelming. You didn’t make a dollar. You didn’t buy a new house. Nothing happened. You didn’t eat anything. But you feel like a winner.
It’s one thing when you’re playing, based on how well you do—which I’ll get to in a minute, too. When you’re playing and you win, at least we can understand that there’s logic to that. I’ll get to that in a minute, too. But when you’re just watching someone play and they win the game, you feel such happiness. It’s very hard to understand.
At the same time, when your team loses and you’re feeling like it’s 9-0, that’s what people feel. I say, Halavai (if only), that we should feel the loss of the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple) like people feel when their team loses a game. But that’s Emet (truth). If my team lost the game, if I’m a real fan, you can’t talk to me for at least a day. I’m not in a good mood. I don’t feel good. Tears, crying. This is a reality. All types of reactions when there’s a loss, like violence, fighting, death, killing. If you weren’t on this planet and someone told you about this from an outside source, you’d say, “Impossible. You’re talking about a virtual reality. This can’t be. Cannot be.” How could it be that people can have such a connection and feel these feelings about something they really, really have no connection to in reality? This is a big question.
Again, it’s not a question that we’re here to change the way people think. That’s not my question. But when you see something so silly—it’s really silly—and it’s being done billions of times over, you know, when one guy does something silly, you say he’s a silly person. When 10 people do it, okay, it’s a minyan (quorum of ten) of silly people. When billions of people are doing it, that’s reason to look deeper into what Hashem made. What did Hashem make that brings this and brings these feelings? And the answer is very simple.
Humans have a natural desire to be a winner, period. It’s not something you have to pick up in school. You don’t have to learn it from your parents. It’s something inborn. Humans have a desire to win. If they feel like a winner, even if whatever is happening is not really relevant to them, but somehow they’re connected to that team and see themselves as the fan, then it’s my team. It doesn’t really mean anything to say it’s your team, but just that alone—feeling this connection, “It’s my team, and my team won”—makes me feel like a winner. And if my team loses, I feel like a loser. Not a good feeling. I lost.
Inside every human, there is this desire. Even when you play sports, it’s not as grand, not as temuha—as perplexing—but even then, it’s natural for us, when we play sports, to want to win. We don’t just want to have fun. When people play sports, they don’t just want to have a good time. Actually, the way they have a good time is by trying to win. The good time usually isn’t the game. It isn’t, “Wow, what a great shot.” It’s not the exercise. The good time is that I am competing so I could win. That is what most people enjoy about sports, not the game itself. Very few people just enjoy the game. Most people enjoy the competition. Again, it’s inborn. There’s an inborn desire to be a winner wherever I can make that happen.
Now, when it comes to sports, it may be silly, but it’s also innocent. I’m not sure how much damage is going to happen if I play sports to compete. I’m not sure how much damage is going to come out of following a team. Besides that, it’s a tremendous waste of time. But besides that, I’m not sure what damage is going to happen in that case.
But this attitude shows its face in many, many places in life that really make a huge difference in our lives. This natural desire to win shows up daily in the way we talk, in the way we behave, and in what we’ll call our vision of success. We all wake up every morning to succeed. The question is: define success.
For most people, if they’re not going to stop and learn and recalculate, success in life is based on being a winner. It’s not so much that I did well in school. We train kids from a young age already, and it’s not a good thing. In school, you don’t get measured. But you get measured by how you compare to others. So when they gave out the valedictorian award at eighth-grade graduation, they didn’t choose the boy or girl who did very well. They chose the one who did the best, even though there was another one who also did his best and was very successful in what he did. But in comparison, he had higher grades. It could be that he was smarter, and that’s why he got higher grades, but we don’t look at that. When we give out awards, the way we give them out is based on comparison. So already, when children are little, we teach them that success in life comes through comparison to others. You do well in school when you’re better than others. You’re not doing well when you’re less than others.
So already from a young age, not only is this a natural desire, but even well-meaning adults, even rabbis and teachers, are pushing the same mahalach, the same system. I say it’s an evil that schools do, where they place success on the basis of comparison. Now you might ask, “I’m also part of a school, so I’m also doing the evil.” It’s true. It’s an evil that right now has, at least to me, no answer. Unfortunately, the only way to get people to apply themselves, to learn something they don’t want to learn or aren’t really interested in, is by causing a competition. So we actually play to the weakness of a human being.
I have a kid in front of me. I know he has no interest in being in school. Why should he? He’s only seven. He doesn’t understand the value of reading. He doesn’t understand the value of writing. He has no interest in math. He doesn’t see why it’s relevant in his life. He opens up a gemara and doesn’t know why he should learn it. “Let’s learn Hebrew”—he doesn’t know why he needs it. So every subject he opens up, the guy sees no value. So how am I getting this guy, for 10 years, for 12 years, to learn something? Imagine the first 10 years he learned nothing. What happens to him? He can’t read, can’t write. He doesn’t know Hebrew, doesn’t know how to learn. I mean, he could be very wealthy. That’s not the problem. But he’s not going to be a great human being. He can’t read a book, can’t write an email, can’t really connect to people on a very deep level.
So what am I going to do with this kid? The answer is, I’ve got to play to his weakness. I know that every human has a desire to win. So if I could set it up so that when you do well, you’re called a winner, and if you don’t do well, you’re called a loser, then I have a reason to get him to do well. But this is an evil, because you’re teaching them that this is how success is measured. Again, I say it’s a necessary evil. I don’t know what other way there is to do it. I wish there were another way. But at least, at least, I say that much: we talk to the students about the value of being yourself and being great at what you do, despite what’s going on around you. You have to constantly talk about it, at least. But in reality, that’s what’s going on.
This feeling of needing to win becomes very, very, very difficult as you move on from school and go into real life. In real life, the world becomes a battleground. What’s supposed to happen is that people should have a desire to make Parnassah (livelihood). They should have ambition to make money so that they can support their family, support their children, and their grandchildren if possible. They should have ambition to give charity and support people. There’s no reason why a person going into business shouldn’t have ambition. Ambition is the cause of success. But the question is: what’s the ambition? If you don’t catch yourself, the ambition is to be wealthier than others. It’s not so much the ambition “I want to make money”; it’s “I want to make more money than others.” It’s not so much “I want to live a good life,” but “I want to have things that people don’t have.” This is the battleground. It’s not so much that I want to do well. I want to be better than my competition. I want to beat them. I want to make sure they’re not as good as I am.
This is not only in business. It’s also in the Beit Midrash (study hall). Unfortunately, when you go to the Beit Midrash, it doesn’t mean you have sterling character because you stepped into the building. You have people who sit down and learn, and their measurement of success is, “Am I the top boy here in the shiur (Torah class)? When the rabbi has a question, does he turn to me because I’m the guy?” So, in the Beit Midrash, you have 30 guys sitting there very hurt and very upset. Why? Because they’re not winning. In their mind, success means being better than others, and they’re not recognized as better than others.
But you’re doing great. You’re a beautiful person. You’re learning beautifully. Your character is wonderful. You’re growing in life. You’re a great person. But comparatively, I’m not getting the recognition. People don’t see that I am the guy.
This continues in a person’s life in every area. A person gets married. One of the worst issues people have in dating is that they can’t find the right girl or the right boy. Very much of it has to do with this inborn desire. When they go out with someone, they’re not looking at whether that person is the right person for them. They’re comparing. “Well, is she as beautiful as this one?” I mean, she’s beautiful enough and you’re attracted to her. That’s enough. That’s all you need. You don’t need more than that. “No, but that one is more attractive.” “Is this guy super wealthy?” Well, he’s wealthy enough. He can afford to get you an apartment. He can start working. But the other guy has more. He has more money.
In all areas, it could be money, looks, Torah, anything. When you start dating, you compare, and that’s not a way for a person to get married. It makes no difference what the other people are doing. If this person works, is the right person for you, then make it work. But unfortunately, so many people are confused. They’re not confused because of the person; they’re confused because in their mind they’re looking at everybody else.
This continues beyond marriage. It’s even there when we raise our children. When we look at our children, again, we’re comparing. We don’t look at what’s best for my son. I’m not looking at what’s best for my daughter. I’m always comparing. I’m looking to see who’s better or worse in a certain area. When I come to build a home, the answer to the question of how to build a home is: build what you need. Enjoy your home. But unfortunately, this attitude could enter in there, too. It’s not so much the nice home that I want to build. I want to build something bigger and better, and that’s where I feel good.
Buying a car, same story. The way I dress—all that needs to be done when you dress is to look nice, to look mechubad. But again, unfortunately, when we shop, especially women in this area, it very much is comparison. It’s all about how I compare to others. It’s all over.
A person lives their life by comparing themselves, and they’re not able to be happy with their marriage, because, “Look what they’re doing.” Social media especially has taken this to a new level. A happy couple—they’re happy. He’s doing okay. She’s doing fine. There’s no reason not to be happy. But then they have all these pictures and videos flying around from different places, and they’re not there. “Wait, wait. Why do they go there? I don’t go there. That means I’m a loser.” You’ve seen kids call their friends losers. They don’t say, “You’re not happy.” They don’t say, “You’re not good.” “You’re a loser.” Nothing is worse than being called a loser for someone who has a desire to be a winner.
All of a sudden, you’re on your trip, enjoying your few days with your wife. It’s fine. But then you get this picture and video, like, “Whoa. I don’t get a seat on that yacht. I’m on a little boat, four by ten. My boat is basically…” I was enjoying it. I was enjoying the rocky little boat that I have. Then I see this guy on a ship. There I thought I had a nice vacation, till I saw that guy. I’m in the water with this little paddleboat, and the guy is flying by next to me, making waves. Oof. I was happy till then, and I realized what I could have had. Where I vacation, what I buy, where I live, what I build—everywhere. This attitude is in every, you could say, almost every area of life. Instead of looking to do what’s good for me and enjoying what I have, the winning attitude becomes my goal in every area.
In reality, winning means nothing. It doesn’t make you a winner or a loser whether you’re doing what other people are doing or not. Winning and losing has nothing to do with anybody else. You could enjoy your life tremendously if you stay within your life.
That’s what the Gemara tells us. The Mishnah says, “HaKinah”—jealousy, right? Where does jealousy come from? What is jealousy? The definition is: He has something I don’t have. And by the way, I may not need what he has. And by the way, for sure I don’t need it, because if I need it, God will give it to me. Jealousy is a person who lives their life continuously comparing himself. It’s very hard to live your life that way, and it’s very hard to enjoy people’s success because of that.
Okay? “Oh, she got married.” It’s like, of course I say Mabruk, but it’s Gehinam (Hell) for me. What does that have to do with you? Because now she got married and I didn’t. She won. I lost. It’s not so much that I’m not married. Not being married is not so great, but it’s also not Gehinam. It’s not Gehinam. But it is Gehinam when 10 people next to you got married and you didn’t. Why? Because you’re in the same mindset: “Oh, you’re comparing. They did. I didn’t.” I don’t have a child; they do. Having a child or not is not easy. Agreed. But it makes it so much more when I feel like a loser. I didn’t get married; I’m a loser. I don’t have a child yet; I’m a loser. I’m not making billions of dollars; I’m a loser. I didn’t build a 40 by 100; I’m a loser. I don’t have that car; I’m a loser. In reality, you can enjoy everything you have, but not when you feel like a loser.
And this is how we go through life. Jealousy—where does jealousy come from? This attitude. The attitude of having to feel like a winner to feel successful, and winning means being above you.
It will take you out of this world. What does that mean, “take you out of this world”? It means that you’re not going to be successful. You’re going to be not good enough. You’re always going to be looking in front of you or behind you, because you’re never going to be satisfied. There’s always someone better-looking than you, more proper than you, wealthier than you. There’s always something, someone, that’s going to be ahead of you. But who cares? It’s not where you are. It doesn’t mean anything.
If you live your own life, HaKinah vehaKavod and honor. You need to be recognized more than others. “How come they got that? How come I didn’t get that?” You and I have seen some amazing things that people have done for kavod, honor. Honor is the feeling of needing to win, not through my car, not through my house, and not through my business. It’s needing to win through popularity, through being recognized. I need to feel like a winner in that area.
You have no idea how many mothers and fathers, when it comes to their children’s graduation—of course, those who are relevant; the bottom 80 are not relevant—but the top 20%, your son is doing great, your daughter is doing great, she studies every night, she works hard, she’s a beautiful person. How many mothers and fathers are on eggshells? Literally. You will not believe this, but if you asked your kid, you would realize that. Whether their children are going to get the recognition of winning, valedictorian, salutatorian—that’s not a good thing. Anyone who has those feelings, it’s not a good thing. It’s not something a father or mother should want for their children. You should want them to do great, but you should not care if they get recognized or not. Because, by the way, when you care, they see how much you care, and now you build up this already natural feeling and make it real and important. And now they actually feel like a loser when they walk out of graduation and they didn’t get what they’re supposed to get.
A father and mother who are smart tell their children, “It doesn’t matter. We don’t need that. You do great for yourself.” That’s not idle talk; it’s real talk. We don’t need that. It’s not important. What’s important is what you accomplish. That’s what a father and mother should teach their children. But unfortunately, we’re not realizing that parents teach their children about these things. And I’m giving you one example. There are so many other examples where a father and mother, well-meaning, play into this weakness and make things worse for their children.
We spoke about sports, but not in this area. Sometimes parents with their kids in sports become so competitive that if their children didn’t make it to the top five, they feel like a basket case. Again, that’s not an appropriate way to train your children to be happy people. Competitiveness was not created for this purpose. Hashem gave us this inborn desire to be competitive, to be a winner, but not for this reason.
There was a famous story about a Dayan, a judge, in the city of Brisk in Europe. A butcher from the town came to him because he had a question about the animal he had slaughtered: whether it was taref or not. It was, I guess, a borderline type of question. So he went to ask the rabbi what he thought. This was a cow, worth a lot of money. The rabbi looked at him and told him, “Taref, no good.” The butcher told the rabbi, “Thank you very much, I appreciate it.”
That butcher came to court sometime later. He had a dispute with somebody, someone he had given money to, whatever it was. During this court case, the rabbi heard both sides and ruled on the case. The rabbi said, “I’m sorry,” and told the butcher, “I’m sorry. I feel like he is right. You’re not supposed to get paid, or you’re supposed to pay, whatever it is.” This guy went wild. He was yelling and screaming, all kinds of things coming out of his mouth, all types of things coming out of his ears. Okay, it happens. People get upset. You have to understand where they’re coming from.
The rabbi went home and was baffled. He said, “I don’t understand.” He was thinking to himself: “He came last month. The cow was worth thousands of dollars. When I told him it wasn’t kosher, he kissed my hand and said, ‘Thank you very much, Rabbi. I appreciate your time,’ and he left. Today’s court case was $100. He lost $100, and now he’s going crazy. It doesn’t make sense.”
So he went to ask the great Rav Chaim from Brisk, Chaim Soloveitchik. He asked him, “Rabbi, could you explain to me what’s going on here? This is what happened last time. This is what happened this time. What’s going on?”
Rav Chaim told him like this: “I’ll tell you what happened. Last time, there was only him and the behemah. That’s it. He lost the behemah. He lost the animal, no problem. It is what it is. Sometimes in life, it was money. But this time, it was against somebody else, and now he lost to somebody else. Before, he wasn’t a loser. Before, he just asked, and he lost his animal, but he didn’t lose to anybody. But now you lost to somebody. When you lose to somebody, now you’re a loser. When you’re a loser, it doesn’t matter how much money. It makes a very big difference.”
The great Chafetz Chaim tells a story. I don’t know if it was in this town or a nearby town. Somebody in the town, a Jewish fellow, had a big problem with the mayor. I don’t know why or what the problem was. Whatever it was, it was a big issue with the mayor of the town. They argued with each other, and he was very upset with the mayor. He came home and told his wife, “That’s it. I’m committed. I’m going to bring that mayor down. The horrible person. I’m bringing him down.”
His wife said, “Calm down. What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to bring him down,” he said. “I’m going to tell the government that certain boys were given army exemptions they didn’t deserve. I’m going to tell the government. I’m going to bring this mayor down.”
His wife said, “How could you do that? Your own son got the exemption. If you tell the mayor, they’re going to come after you.”
He said, “I don’t care. I’m bringing that guy down. Whatever happens, happens.”
That sounds like a crazy story, and I’m sure we’ve heard similar stories and similar words. That’s competition. I can’t let you win.
There’s much more on this subject, but I’ll stop for today. I’d like to suggest that this is what the Chovot HaLevavot is talking about. He’s saying that the feeling you have to fight, to be a winner, to go to war, is a feeling Hashem put inside of you, and you should use it every day. But unfortunately, you’re using it in a war that you’re not supposed to be fighting. That’s why the Chovot HaLevavot says, “Don’t go to war with your neighbor. Don’t go to war with your competitor. Don’t go to war with your wife. Don’t go to war with your friends. Don’t go to war. What are you doing? Don’t go to war with your neighbor. Don’t go to war with your friends. Don’t go to war with the team that plays for you or that you root for. Don’t go to war there.”
Don’t waste your energy using this God-given gift of going to war to be a winner. Don’t use it for anything else, because it was only given to you for one thing. Why did Hashem give you this vehicle? Why did He give you this desire to be a winner? Because there is one war. You have to fight. You are constantly fighting your whole life. That’s to win the Yetzer Hara. And that’s why Hashem gave you that feeling to constantly fight. But when you’re fighting all the other nonsense wars, then you won’t be able to fight the Yetzer Hara’s war. That’s what He’s telling you. He’s telling you that you have to choose which war you want to fight. If you want to choose the Yetzer Hara war to fight, which is really going to make a big difference in your life, you’ve got to put aside all the other wars and focus on this one. But if you fight all the other wars, you’re not going to be able to fight this war. That’s the Chovot HaLevavot. What amazing advice for all of us.