Part I. A Good World
The Missing Yetzer
When the Gemara in Sukkah (52a) wants to describe for us the yetzer hara, the ways and means in which he makes men into failures, it tells us that we find in the kisvei hakodesh that the yetzer hara was given seven different names. And it enumerates all of them there, the Gemara quotes different pessukim.
But there's a question here. Because at the very beginning of the Torah we find that Hakadosh Baruch Hu Himself gave the yetzer hara a name, and it’s not mentioned among these seven.
In our sedra, when Hakadosh Baruch Hu saw that Kayin was crestfallen because his younger brother's korban had been accepted more than his own, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu told Kayin “Be careful now, because ı≈בֹרו ̇‡ָ טַח חַ ̇∆ּפַל – at the doorway there’s chatas lying in wait (Bereishis 4:7). Hakadosh Baruch Hu is talking about the yetzer hara here; He’s warning Kayin that crouching in ambush at every turn is “Chatas”, the evil inclination.
And so it’s a kasheh. We see that Hakadosh Baruch Hu Himself gave a name to the yetzer; the very first name it was given in history. Why isn't that name enumerated in the list that the Gemara in Sukkah gives us? It should be first on the list.
A Cheit is Not a Sin
And the answer is that the word chatas has to be understood; we translate it as ‘sin’ but that’s not accurate. Of course it's a sin, but that’s not it. If you’re familiar with the kisvei hakodesh you know that ches tes alef means ‘lacking’, ‘missing’. Like it states in sefer Shoftim when he describes the seven hundred stone-slingers of the Shevet Binyamin, it says הָרֲﬠַׂ ַ̆ה ל∆‡ ן∆ב∆‡ָ ב ַﬠ≈לֹ ̃ – they aimed at the target, ‡ƒטֲחַי ‡ ל¿ו – and they never missed (Shoftim 20:16). They would sling a stone at a hair-target—a target as thin as a hair—and they wouldn’t miss. ‡ƒטֲחַי means to miss.
Or when Batsheva the mother of Shlomo came to Dovid and reminded him that he had promised to make her son Shlomo king, and now Adoniyah, one of the other sons, is trying to usurp the throne; so she said “יƒנ¿ב ו יƒנֲ‡ יƒ ̇יƒיָה¿ו יםƒ‡ָ טַח הֹמ ל¿ׁ ̆ – My son Shlomo and I will be the chata'im” (Malachim 1: 1:21). It doesn’t mean they’ll be ‘sinners’. Batsheva was telling Dovid, “You promised us that Shlomo will be king, and we'll be losing out on what you promised us.”
And so, when we say that cheit means to do something wrong, actually it's more than that. The original meaning of cheit is when a man misses out—not so much doing something wrong, but to not do something right.
And that’s what Hakadosh Baruch Hu was saying when He told Kayin that chatas is waiting to pounce.
Hashem was telling him, “Look. Here’s a golden opportunity for achievement that you shouldn’t miss out on. Your brother has triumphed over you; he, the younger brother, won out and now you are so downcast. It’s a golden opportunity for achievement! If you’ll be mischazek, if you’ll reinforce yourself and you’ll go shake hands with him and say, ‘Hevel, I have to hand it to you. You won. Congratulations!’, that will be your success.”
Ah! That would have made Kayin better than Hevel. He would have utilized the golden opportunity—he would have fulfilled his purpose in this world; to accomplish. But to miss out on the opportunity of accomplishing something, that’s the real cheit. That’s called missing the target of life.
The Underachieving Trucker
I’ll use one of my old meshalim that you already heard from me. Let’s say you sent your worker to Los Angeles on a mission to pick up goods there and bring it back. So he took your big truck and he drove all the way there and finally he came back to Brooklyn.
You wait and wait. A few weeks pass by and finally he shows up.
“Boss, I’m back.”
“Shalom aleichem! Good to see you. How’d it go?”
“You’ll have to congratulate me,” he says. “I had a very successful trip. I didn't get one traffic ticket! No accidents, no breakdowns. A perfect trip.”
So you say, “Great! Let’s see the merchandise.”
“Ooops! I forgot to pick it up.”
Every Jew on Shlichus
And so, Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent you to this world. It's a successful trip. You didn't kill anybody. You didn't even hit anybody. You didn't even speak lashon hara on anybody.
“Oh no,” Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, “I sent you to this world merely that you shouldn't get any tickets or accidents, that you shouldn't do any sins? Not to do sins, you could have remained in the other world. I sent you to achieve! To do mitzvos, to learn Torah, to become wiser, to gain Torah ideology, to gain Awareness of Me, to learn da'as and emunah. To do ma'asim tovim in this world. That's why I sent you—to accomplish! Otherwise you lost out.”
The First Cheit
Now, the list of achievements that we are in this world to accomplish is long. Torah, mitzvos, maasim tovim; it’s a big job. But one of the most neglected achievements is Torah attitudes—acquiring attitudes of the mind.
It’s a very big subject—it’s a lifetime of achieving—but for now we’ll talk about one of the biggest chato’im, one of the most important attitudes that people fail to achieve. And it’s right away in the beginning of the Torah: ‡¿רַ יַו „ֹ‡¿מ בֹטו ה≈ּנƒה¿ו הָׂ ָ̆ﬠ ר∆ׁ ֲ̆‡ לָּכ ̇∆‡ יםƒ ̃ ל¡‡ – And Hashem saw all that He had made and ‘behold, it is very good’ (ibid. 1:31). What is He talking about? Olam Haba? No! It’s talking about what it says there in the Chumash; the sky and the clouds and the wind and the water. It’s talking about the soil, about plants, animals, fish, birds, and apples and plums, and everything. That’s tov me’od. Not tov; not just good. It’s very good.
Now, why did Hakadosh Baruch Hu have to say that? If He made it, of course it’s good! He knew what He was doing.
An Epidemic of Blindness
The answer is, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu said those words for a purpose—He is telling us information that we should never forget. He said it because He wants us to say the same words; that all our lives, we should say tov me’od. “Ribono Shel Olam, we congratulate You! You did a good job! Tov me’od!”
Now, if people don’t think about it, it’s not my fault. But if you look everywhere, you’ll see that it’s repeated again and again that לֹ כַל 'ה בֹטו – Hashem is good to everybody (Tehillim 145:9). Only what? It’s a pity that most people don’t see it at all.
The Chovos Halevovos says that. He says “יםƒר עו¿ כ םָ ב רו¿ו לֹ כַל 'ה בֹטו – ‘Hashem is good to everyone’ but most people are blind from recognizing this.” And he wasn’t talking about Reform Jews, liberals; he was talking about Jews in his days, all frum Jews.
And today, certainly it’s true. Most frum Jews are blind to this great truth that it’s a good world! And it’s an open possuk: ‘Everthing is very good’. You can’t argue with a possuk—that’s how we’re expected to see the world. And if we don’t, it means we are not accomplishing this fundamental function of why we came here.
The Beggar Wants a Raise
Now I have to explain something to you, why this is so that we’re blinded to the great reality.
Let’s say you’re a yeshiva bachur and you daven Mincha in the yeshiva; as you walk out of the beis hamedrash there’s a poor man standing there with a cup. He’s collecting tzedaka. And so you drop in a quarter. Every day he comes to collect and every day you give him a quarter.
After a while—let’s say you’ve been giving him quarters every day for a year’s time—so he starts complaining. “Only a quarter?” He grumbles under his breath, “Only a quarter?! What about a raise?”
So we see that even though the person is getting a benefit from you, if he keeps on getting the same benefit he gets tired of it. And he thinks it’s nothing. He won’t spend time congratulating himself that he gets a quarter. No! He’s spending time criticizing you for not giving more than a quarter.
Bored With Happiness
So Hakadosh Baruch Hu is giving us all the good things; and we’re tired of it! We don’t notice it anymore. People ask, “What are You giving us already?” A yeshiva man, he takes walks with me sometimes. So he asks me, “Why should I thank Hashem? What’s there to thank for?”
Now, I look at him. He’s a healthy man. No crutches. He looks well fed too. He has a house where he lives. Probably a bed and a pillow too. Why should he thank Hashem?!
The answer is that he’s bored of that. He doesn’t think about it and so he wants excitement in the world. He wants thrills, entertainment. What he has, he doesn’t appreciate and so he gets bored of it.
“Oh,” Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, “That’s chatas. You’re missing out.”
Missing Out on Love
Now what are you missing out on? Well, number one is you’re missing out on the fun of life. You’re missing out on a tremendous amount of happiness! Why should life be a bowl of sour grapes when it could be a big happy bowl of cherries? You’re missing out on good times!
And even more important is, you’re missing out on your service of Hashem. Because when you are happy with life, you’re happy with Hashem and you love Him. All the madreigos of avodah go one on top of the other but the top of the ladder is ahavas Hashem, to love Hashem. And when you see the things that He gives you for pleasure, for happiness, for joy, then your love has no limits. If you're a capable, thinking, person then happiness in Olam Hazeh is the ticket to Olam Haba.
And therefore, in order that you should get the benefit of Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s gifts, you must understand how great these gifts are; you have to study them—you have to investigate and appreciate the pleasures of this world.
Are you happy with your legs? Your legs are a Cadillac, providing you with twenty four hour, ever-ready transportation. They’re available at all times, on a second’s notice, to take you wherever you want to go. And when you arrive at your destination, you don’t have to look for a parking space. Your feet tuck conveniently under you if you want to sit, and they will lock into place should you desire to remain standing. If your legs don’t make you happy, you’re blinded by habit. And so, we have to open our minds and throw off the trammels of habit that blind us and don’t allow us to see the truth: that most of our lives are spent in happiness!
Torah Spectacles
And so, we have to learn how to put on a pair of glasses—Torah glasses. You know, when you look at the world through gloomy glasses, you’ll have a gloomy world all your life. But when you look at the world through rosy glasses, you see a rosy world, a beautiful world. So the life that you’re going to have depends on how you look at the world.
And Hakadosh Baruch Hu starts out from the very beginning and He gives you a pair of eyeglasses right at the beginning. He says, “„ֹ‡¿מ בֹטו ה≈ּנƒה¿ו – It’s a very good world!” It means, “I want you to get busy looking for the goodness of this world and you’ll start understanding what I meant that it’s tov me’od.”
