watching and she’s taking her hands like this – she puts her hands up like this. That’s the girl to whom he had once said, “Harei at mekudeshes li.” And now he’s saying “Harei zeh giteich”. What a tragedy, what a heartbreak that is.
Now, how could it be such a thing? He was a maamin, a real believer. He came here at night and he learned Torah too. So what happened? What happened is that he never considered the real opponent; the test of envy and jealousy and kavod and gaavah and impatience and laziness and many other things. And that opponent, the yeast in the dough, that’s an even more bitter test than all the tests of emunah.
The Bigger Job
So even though you’re a frum Jew; let’s say you’re a baal teshuvah and you threw away all the avodah zarah and you moved to Williamsburg. You put on a nice beard and peyos and a black hat and now you look like you were born into a family where even the mother had a beard and peyos.
You have no connection anymore with the old foolishness that you once upon a time looked up to and honored. No television! No newspapers! Even a radio you don’t bring into your house. You look down on all of that! You’re a changed man! Very good! That’s the right way to do! But you have to know inside there's still a big job ahead of you. Now begins the great problem of being a mentch.
Just Like Korach
Now that’s a very big problem because more or less that is a description of all of us. A man reads the Torah in shul and he’s surprised at what Korach did. He looks down at him. How could such a good man do such a foolish thing? What meshugas got into his head? That’s what he’s thinking.
Meanwhile, he himself can’t get along with his friend in the synagogue. He’s upset at the gabbai for something else. The rav? Not even a question. He talks about him behind his back. He has machlokes with a neighbor on his block too. “Not all of my neighbors,” he tells me, “Just this one because he’s a blankety-blank.” Well, Korach got along with many people too.
And so wherever you go you can’t run away from this one opponent, the middos bubbling inside you. You’re complaining about something. You’re angry, impatient, jealous. You’re selfish. Whatever it is, you’re struggling against the same opponent that was the downfall of Korach.
Study Yourself
And that’s why Hashem says, לְ בַ בְ כֶ ם עַ ל שִׂ ימו רְ כֵ יכֶ ם ד – You must put your mind on your path in life. You must think about yourself. How much? Each person according to his nature, but you must have some time to think about yourself. And if נַ חְ פּ ְ שָׂ ה, if you search, וְ נַ חְ ק ֹ רָ ה, and you search even deeper, then you’ll discover. But you have to search greatly. You have to go mining within the depths of your character to discover what is it that’s making you think and act in certain ways.
You want to be great in the Next World? You want to raise yourself up forever by means of this nisayon? Take an inventory every night before you go to sleep. Spend five minutes thinking. Five minutes is a very good start! You should know that there were wise men even among the gentiles who gave this avodah much more than five minutes. There was one wise goy, a true story, who every Saturday night he told his family that he was going into a room by himself; “Please don’t disturb me” he said. Every Saturday night he spent time reflecting on his life. A true story – in recent history. A goy!
The Middos Are in Control
If you give five minutes a day to this opponent I guarantee you’ll become great. Five minutes to look back on the day and see, how did I behave toward my fellowman?
How did I speak to my wife in the morning? It depends on your middos. How did I speak to my children when I got up? It depends on your middos. In the synagogue, how did I deal with people? How did I deal with this or that problem? Do I recall what I said or how I looked at someone, with what expression on my face? When I went to my place of business, what did I say? What expression did I have? What were my attitudes towards people that I met? And so on.
It doesn’t mean that a person must spend his entire life in introspection, but if he never made an attempt to examine himself, he is going to continue all his life walking in darkness. He won’t begin to realize how evil he is! You know, there are evil Orthodox Jews. Of course, there are many more evil non-Orthodox Jews but even amongst shomrei mitzvos, there are plenty of reshaim gemurim. People who are constantly earning the biggest sins by saying the wrong words, by getting into machlokes, by mistreating others because of the שְׂ אוֹר שֶׁ בָּעִסָּה.
And so if you’ll just ignore it and go your merry way, the yeast bubbles and makes trouble; it festers. You have to get busy healing yourself! If your only contact with yiddishkeit is coming to shul and performing mitzvos, living like an Orthodox Jew – which is very good, ashreichem – nevertheless you should know that your chances of changing your character are almost nothing.
Draining the Infected Soul
If somebody is lazy and he doesn't search out the middos ra’os that he possesses, so nothing is going to help. The Vilna Gaon says it’s like a wound that is not healed; it’s covered up but it’s festering. It’s infecting the body.
Suppose there's an operation and the surgeon is in a hurry to get rid of you and to collect his bill. So he sews you up immediately without draining the wound. It takes time to drain out the excess fluid; it takes time – sometimes it takes weeks or treatments – but he’s a busy man! He doesn't have time to waste on you.
And you find even a couple of months later that you're not finished. He left something inside; not only a roll of gauze. There’s fluid there still that’s ripe for infection.
Sue Yourself
So about the doctor, you’ll complain. You’ll be very angry. You’ll want to sue him. But what about yourself? If the makah of bad character is not healed inside, it’s a wound that will cause you much more trouble than that. All you're doing is sewing it up on the outside and imagining it’s all good. It’s very foolish.
Spend as much time as you can on this. It's never too much time when you're trying to cleanse yourself because the health of your soul is much more important than any other form of endeavor for one's health. And when you succeed – to whatever degree you succeed – that’s a greatness. It’s the primary accomplishment that you came into this world to achieve.
The Biggest Battle
Even the best of us – and you people who come here are the best; you’re excellent people. We sit together and we fortify ourselves in emunah. Among us there’s no lack of conviction in the truthfulness of all the Torah principles; we believe in Olam Haba and in Torah min haShomayim and in all the miracles. And yet, af al pi kein, we have one big opponent that we have to overcome – the same one that felled Korach.
It’s a lifetime struggle to be able to conquer the inclinations of impatience and selfishness and arrogance and laziness and so much else – so many qualities you have to fight against in order to overcome this greatest of all opponents. It’s not easy. But that’s the nisayon that makes you great. By means of battling all our lives against the opponent within us, that’s how we achieve greater and greater perfection. And that’s how we best prepare ourselves לְ הִ כָּנֵס לַ קְ לִ ין ט, to enter into the banquet hall of the Next World!
Have a Wonderful Shabbos
