What the Yetzer Hara Abhors
Rav Shmuel himself writes in Divrei Shmuel (Parashas Toldos), “ומברכיך ברוך, and those who bless you will themselves be blessed. Our Torah is giving us good advice for how to be aided in a time of crisis: to love a fellow Yid with all your heart, to rejoice when your fellow is successful, and to bentch him—and then you too will be gebentched with all the blessings. All of this is alluded to in the words ברוך ומברכיך.” HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to every Yid: If you will bentch another Yid, you, too, will be blessed. What does it mean to bentch another Yid? To root for his success and to rejoice in it; to constantly wish for his good and to daven to Hashem, “May Hashem help that this person should have everything good.” Because you love him so much, and you mean it with all your heart—and this is why it will likewise be a source of blessing to you.
The Divrei Shmuel continues: “In many cases, the yetzer hara succeeds in fomenting jealousy and hatred toward another, so that in this way he, too, will be prevented from meriting a yeshuah. This is the work of the yetzer hara (who also functions as the Satan and the Malach HaMaves): That we shouldn’t have it good...to ensure that you will not merit the shefah that is meant to come to you. How does he accomplish this? By implanting jealousy into a person’s heart... even if he doesn’t say anything... this will cause the shefah to be blocked, R”l”
Often, it happens that a person carries a grudge against another person. He doesn’t carry on any overt machlokes... but he is bitter... “I have to carry around all my tzaros, while he has wonderful children, a great business, he is well-liked, etc.” It hurts him, and with this he is preventing the yeshuah from coming to him, because he has separated himself from another Yid and he doesn’t wish him well.
