To throw the dish on the floor; he might even say thank you. But still, he senses that his will was thwarted and because he takes his will seriously so his emotions and his physical reactions begin to operate.
Always Opposition
And it’s going to happen always, again and again, because there’s always opposition to your will. Sometimes it’s big opposition so it’s a bigger frustration. Sometimes it’s only the wrong supper so it’s less frustration.
Whatever it is, he’s always being opposed by circumstances. There’s no such thing as everything going smoothly. Maybe his wife asks him to do something and he thinks he’s too busy for that. Or he lost some money because of someone else’s carelessness. Maybe someone embarrassed him or he didn’t get a certain kavod that was coming his way. Whatever it is, there’s some opposition to his will; he's dissatisfied with the circumstances that are confronting him and so he’s frustrated. Whatever it is, it’s kaas. Frustration is merely a coverup word; it’s a way of covering up your kaas with an English word.
Satisfaction Guaranteed
And so if anger is really dissatisfaction, it makes sense therefore that the opposite of anger is ratzon, satisfaction. It’s a chiddush of the Orchos Tzaddikim, a novel thing that we don’t find in other seforim but it makes a lot of sense: To learn to be satisfied with whatever circumstances come your way is a middah that the frum Jew has to work on in order to overcome kaas.
I’m not saying to be satisfied with wickedness, satisfied with sins that people do; but everyone has to learn to be satisfied with ‘injustices’ that are done to him. You have to be satisfied with insults that are offered to you, satisfied with slights.
You’re satisfied when you don’t get the honor that you would like to get. Not only you don’t complain; it doesn’t even bother you. You accept it b’ratzon. And – and this is the punchline of our whole talk – it’s all based on your understanding that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in control!
The Puppet Show
This world is under control; we are all puppets. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is standing behind the scenes and He’s pulling wires. Even when people do things to us, it’s not them. It’s Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He’s pulling the wire this way and that way, causing the puppets behavior to us.
And therefore we shouldn’t become so excited and flustered. It’s Hakadosh Baruch Hu at the wheel and you can be sure that He’s driving perfectly. You can be satisfied with whatever He does. Very satisfied.
Now, when a person has satisfaction, he is confident in the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu is conducting the world, so therefore he will not so easily fall a victim to kaas. He learns how to be satisfied with Hashem’s ways. He desires what Hashem does; he accepts what Hashem sends.
A Program for Life
Now this doesn’t mean a man shouldn’t try to better his conditions. Go all out! Do whatever is needed! But no matter what the result is, get into the habit of saying, ְ רָ כָיו
ּ
ְכָל ד
ּ
ִ יק ה' ב
ּ
צַד – Hashem is righteous in all of His ways, ְכָל מַעֲ שָׂ יו
ּ
וְחָ סִ יד ב – and He’s kindly in all of His deeds.
I’m not saying it’s an easy program. I’m talking to myself too. It’s not easy but if you’re serious about it you’ll see results. And that possuk – ְכָל מַעֲ שָׂ יו
ּ
ְ רָ כָיו וְחָ סִ יד ב
ּ
ְכָל ד
ּ
ִ יק ה' ב
ּ
צַד – if you keep on repeating it, it finally becomes your way in life. It ends up becoming an attitude of satisfaction, of ratzon, with everything.
It doesn’t mean you’ll do it right away: שׁ ֶ בַ ע
ִ יק וָקָם
ּ
יִפּ וֹל צַד – Seven times a tzaddik falls but he stands up again (Mishlei 24:16). There’s a certain Rebbe, the Breslover and in one of his seforim he writes as follows. He writes this about himself. He says, “When I was younger, I tried to serve Hashem. I tried and fell, and sometimes I fell down not seven times; sometimes a hundred times I fell down. But each time I got up again and I tried again.” A hundred times he was nichshal. “But I got up,” he says, “and in the end, I remained standing!”
And that’s the career of all good people. They fall and they fall, but in the end, they are going to conquer. They get frustrated, angry, but they remind themselves, “It’s all Hakadosh Baruch Hu! ְכָל מַעֲ שָׂ יו
ּ
ְ רָ כָיו וְחָ סִ יד ב
ּ
ְכָל ד
ּ
ִ יק ה' ב
ּ
צַד. Even if it bothers me, I’m telling myself that it shouldn’t bother me. And next time, it won’t bother me.” And at the end it will be קָ ם; at the end you will remain standing.
Kol Minei Gan Eden
Now, we have to know that the more a person practices this, the more he keeps getting up and saying again and again, ‘Hashem is right and just in all of His actions, and He’s kind in all of His ways;’ so he’s going to gain very many good things because of this in the Next World.
Because just like in Gehenom there are various treatments for every kind of aveirah and bad middah, the same is in Gan Eden; there are all types of reward.
In the World to Come, a person is rewarded not in a general way, but he’s rewarded for each achievement in a specific way; each mitzvah, each achievement, is a specific kind of reward. The World to Come is composed of various colored gems, different kinds of pleasures, all delights, each one according to the type of deed he did in this world.
Now, because this middah of ratzon is the opposite of kaas, so you have to know that just like kaas brings in Gehenom a great many forms of treatment, so the middah of ratzon, being satisfied with what comes to you, will bring you a great many forms of compensation in Gan Eden; kol minei Gan Eden will be given to him.
There is no end to the good results that will come from this quality of accepting Hashem’s deeds with a heart full of trust in the ways of Hashem. A man who trains himself in that way he is becoming more and more perfect in character. Every time that he replaces the feeling of frustration, of anger, with accepting the Will of Hashem, he’s perfecting his character more and more. He becomes an ish emunah, an ish bitachon, an ish of menuchas hanefesh because he’s aware of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Big Mind, Big Rewards
And that attitude means that his mind is open now to great things. Because he lives with the attitude of , ְ רָ כָיו
ּ
ְכָל ד
ּ
ִ יק ה' ב
ּ
צַד – Hashem is righteous in all of His ways, ְכָל מַ עֲ שָׂ יו
ּ
וְחָ סִ יד ב – and He’s kindly in all of His deeds, he lives with this middah of trusting Hashem, and he’s not bothered by constant consternations and frustrations and therefore his mind is not small; it’s not fettered.
Instead his mind is big; it’s wide open to the great expanse of opportunities and he accomplishes many forms of avodas Hashem in this world. He’s capable of thinking in all of the great ideals that make a Torah Jew great. And so the person who overcomes the frustrations of life and becomes an ish ratzon instead of an ish kaas, he’s capable of achieving all the great accomplishments and attitudes of Torah living, and he achieves so much that on him we say, ָל
ּ
כ
וֹ
ּ
ַן עֵדֶ ן שׁ וֹלְטִ ין ב
ּ
מִינֵי ג – every form of reward is waiting for him in Gan Eden!
Have a Wonderful Shabbos
Let’s Get Practical
Acquiring Satisfaction
In our sedra, we learn about the grave sin of anger and how it incurs all forms of Gehinnom for the angry person. The opposite of being angry is accepting. When we learn to accept that everything in this world is Hashem’s doing, for our benefit, we go from all forms of Gehinnom to earning all forms of Gan Eden. This week I will bli neder take thirty seconds every morning to review this concept and reflect on how I can apply it in my life. At night, I will take another thirty seconds to review how I did during the day and whether I succeeded in applying this lesson or not.
This week’s booklet is based on tapes:
301 - Serene Mind | 333 - Satisfaction
380 - Emunah and Patience | 447 - Anger, Middos and the Afterlife
Listen: 718.289.0899
Press 1 for English and 2 for Thursday Night Lectures
Rav Miller’s tapes are the property of Yeshivah Gedolah Beis Yisroel and are available through its publishing arm, the Simchas Hachaim Foundation.
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