Reb Aharon Gradya zt”l asked his rebbe, the Maggid of Mezritz zt”l, “Under your influence, I have Baruch Hashem done teshuvah sheleimah. But the yetzer hara comes back to me and tells me to perform aveiros as I would do in the past. What can I do to silence the yetzer hara?”
The Maggid replied with a mashal: A man owned a tavern. The town’s drunks frequented his establishment, and he earned a nice profit. The problem was that due to his clients’ crass behaviors, fights and brawls were a nightly occurrence in the tavern, causing much damage to the tavern. So, one day, he closed the tavern and started a fabric business in the same place. People making suits or dresses would come to him, and he sold them the fabric. But the drunks were used to coming to his store. They came howling and banging on his door in the middle of the night, requesting drinks. He would holler from his upstairs window, “You came to the wrong address. The tavern isn’t here anymore. This is now a fabric store.”
The Maggid concluded, “Tell the yetzer hara that you are no longer the Aharon of your youth. Tell the yetzer hara that he came to the wrong address and should go elsewhere.”
A bachur from Sweden, raised in an irreligious home, became religious and studied in Yeshivas Be’er Yaakov in Eretz Yisrael. When he first arrived, he was the weakest bachur in the yeshiva, but within a short time, the bachurim in the yeshiva were surprised at the quick strides he was making. They asked the rosh yeshiva, “How does he do it? How does he grow so rapidly, while we slowly crawl along our spiritual path?” The rosh yeshiva advised them to ask the bachur directly. They asked, and the bachur answered, “We are all in captivity. My prison was my non-religious home. Your captivity is melumadahkeit (doing mitzvos by rote, without much thought). It seems that it is easier for me to leave my imprisonment than for you to leave yours.”
