A Yid Has to Feel Like an Ongoing Winner and His Yetzer Hara Is Afraid of Him!

In fact, our great people are only great because they tried hard and were soldiers. At the beginning of Sefer Yehoshua, Moshe is described again and again as an Eved Hashem. This is his entire main greatness; being an Eved and a soldier and just trying.

וּמוֹרַאֲכֶם וְחִתְּכֶם means that you cast fear. A Yid has to feel like an ongoing winner and his Yetzer Hara is afraid of him! I’m boss! Look at “Avram” (an exalted father) and Sara (S’rara, nobility) because they both lorded over their Yetzer Hara. So we should give ourselves a permanent Shtempel “the winner”! Rav Hutner Zatzal made a song out of the words in Tanach: אַל תִּשְׂמְחִי אֹיַבְתִּי לִי כִּי נָפַלְתִּי קָמְתִּי (מיכה ז ח), “Don’t be so happy, Yetzer Hara (if I fall), because pretty soon I’m taking over”.

A Yid has to develop a Geshmak in K’vishas HaYetzer and feel like a million dollars for every tiny effort, and his very heart-breaking, and frustrating Tefila (“Hashem, please save me from this terrible shameful Kin’ah, Ta’ava, and Kavod”) is a gesture of K’vishas HaYetzer, since: רַחֲמָנָא לִבָּא בָּעֵי, your heart’s desire is the main part of what Hashem looks at. In Novardok they made a big party when a Bachur did a major Pe’ula against his Yetzer.

From now on, I’m a scary and powerful Tzelem Elokim who is out to conquer all my base passions, and slowly but surely I’ll destroy them without Rachmanus. No matter what! Nothing scares me! I’ll scare you!

TRUE STORY

A person made a big fool of himself “blowing off his handle” and screaming at someone in public. He didn’t know how to deal with it. He felt like such a fool and such a Rasha. I told him that he should Davka be Shtoltz, and realize his rights to make the most horrific mistakes and to have Cha’rata. “I have a right to occasionally be the worst bum and apologize for it. I’m only human!”

But to do something like this? Unheard of! Us Novardokers are never Nis’pael. The worse the Chet is, the biggest Mitzva it turns into when you do Teshuva! (PS. But from now on, put extra effort in Mussar on Inyanei Ka’as, etc. so it shouldn’t happen again!) So what! I was young and stupid then, and now I’m a completely different person.

By the way, Novardokers would apologize with soft Anava and Hachna’a; but this isn’t for everyone.