At the sound of the guard’s whistle, the prisoners slowly started trudging back inside from the yard at the Jerusalem Prison.
“C’mon, hurry up!” the guard barked. “Yuval, Nimrod, let’s see your feet move faster! “Come on, Kobi, I’ve seen snails move faster than that! Wait, where’s Tzadok?”
Rav Volender, the prison rov, happened to be walking by. Peering out into the yard, he saw Tzadok in the distance. “I’d better handle this,” he said to the guard, heading out to where Tzadok was standing alone, banging two rocks against each other.
“Hello, Tzadok,” Rav Volender said. “How are you doing?”
“Yishtabach shemo!” replied Tzadok, still banging the rocks.
“Tzadok, why aren’t you going back inside with all of the other prisoners?” Rav Volender asked.
“Hashem doesn’t want me to go in there,” said Tzadok, wincing as he accidentally hit his thumb with one of the rocks.
“I think Hashem does want you to go in there,” Rav Volender said. “You are supposed to follow the prison rules.”
“Kavod harav,” said Tzadok, pausing his rock-banging and looking seriously at his rebbe. “I must tell you a secret. I know through ruach hakodesh that Hashem doesn’t want me to go inside.”
“You have ruach hakodesh?” Rav Volender asked.
“Oh yes,” said Tzadok. “You see, I was standing out here in the yard and the last thing on my mind was the inside of the prison building. But as soon as the guard blew his whistle, a thought popped into my head that I should stay outside. Where did that thought come from? It must have been ruach hakodesh.”
“Or...,” Rav Volender suggested. “Perhaps there is another reason you don’t want to go inside?”
Tzadok paused. “Well, I really don’t want to go back to my cell with my cellmate Tzachi.”
“Why? Are you two not getting along?” Rav Volender asked.
“It’s just that Tzachi isn’t acting like a very good talmid,” explained Tzadok. “He never listens to what I tell him to do and always questions anything I say.”
“That sounds terrible to have a talmid act like that,” Rav Volender said.
“It is terrible!” said Tzadok, not getting the hint. “Why just yesterday I told Tzachi that if he makes my bed it would be a segulah for him to grow a nice full beard like I have and he just said that I could use that segulah more than him. So I don’t want to go back inside, especially after your shiur this morning.”
“My shiur?” Rav Volender seemed confused.
“Yes, you talked about how important it is to fight our yetzer hara and that we should do things we don’t want to do because that helps us fight our yetzer hara. So when the guard blew his whistle, I thought ‘if I’m not going to go inside, it’s a good time to work on fighting my yetzer. So I looked around the prison yard for something I didn’t want to do. And I saw these rocks and thought, ‘I don’t want to bang these rocks together’. So here I am, banging rocks together to fight my yetzer hara.”
“Tzadok, hand me those rocks,” said Rav Volender.
“Sure, let me show you how to bang them so you don’t bruise your thumb,” Tzadok said, handing Rav Volender the rocks.
“No, I don’t want to bang them! Tzadok, fighting your yetzer hara doesn’t mean looking for some silly activity that you’re not interested in. It means doing something that you should do, especially because you don’t want to. Like for instance, perhaps there’s a Yid whom you don’t feel so much love towards. You might want to run and do a different mitzvah. But to fight your yetzer hara, you should go and talk to that Yid, be nice to him, try to love him.”
“Hmmm,” Tzadok said, thinking out loud. “I should introduce myself to the new prisoners. Maybe there’s someone there I won’t like and I can be nice to him and teach him segulot and how to be moshiach and where to find Eliyahu Hanavi and...”
“TZADOK,” Rav Volender said warningly.
“Oh, you mean Tzachi?” asked Tzadok, disappointed.
“Yes, Tzachi,” said Rav Volender. “You don’t feel so much love towards him and you’d rather not talk to him. So why don’t you go speak to him, be nice to him, and work on your ahavas Yisroel?”
“Okay,” said Tzadok. “I’ll try to think of a new segulah to teach him.”
“Tzadok,” Rav Volender suggested. “Why don’t you just ask him questions about himself? Get to know him. See what he’s interested in.”
“Do I have to?” Tzadok complained. “I don’t want to listen. I want to teach him segulot!”
“Tzadok,” Rav Volender said firmly.
“Oh yeah, fighting my yetzer hara. Why doesn’t the yetzer hara ever want me to do things that I don’t want to do?”
Have a Wonderful Shabbos!
Let’s review:
- Why wasn’t Tzadok fighting his yetzer hara by banging the rocks?
- How do you know what the yetzer hara doesn’t want you to do?
