ALWAYS ON GUARD
A person must always be wary of the yetzer hara, for even when he forgets about it, the yetzer hara does not forget about the person. He acts like a friend but in reality, is trying to destroy him completely.
A righteous person once met a troop of soldiers returning from a victorious battle, their arms loaded high with spoils. The man told them, “Now be prepared for the real war.” Surprised, they asked him to explain. “That’s the war the yetzer hara will fight when you celebrate with the spoils,” he clarified.
(חובת הלבבות שער יחוד המעשה פ"ה)
Reb Meir of Premishlan once related: “One wintry day, while traveling with my Rebbe, Reb Mordechai of Kreminitz, our wagon reached an incline. It seemed the carriage would topple over at any moment. Full of youthful courage, I prepared to quickly jump out, but my Rebbe held onto me with his hand and said, ‘Sit down calmly; no harm will befall you.’ So it was. The wagon passed the incline safely.
“After some time had elapsed, and I had already forgotten about my desire to jump out, the carriage, driving on flat land, turned over, and we all fell out unto the snow. Reb Mordechai laughed: ‘Nu, you see?’ But I did not understand to what he was referring.
“Quite a while later, I realized he had been intimating a lesson in avodas HaShem: Sometimes a Yid is worried that he will chas veshalom fall into the clutches of the yetzer hara, who is constantly out to ensnare him, and HaShem helps him stay safe. However, when a Yid is confidently going along his path, and does not even realize that the yetzer hara is ready to pounce, specifically then he is likely to fall into his clutches...”
(תפארת צדיקים)
Chazal warn us that throughout one’s entire life, one should not rely on his righteousness, for Yochanan Kohen Gadol served eighty years in the Beis HaMikdosh and then strayed and became a tzedoki.
(ברכות כ"ט ע"א)
The yetzer hara does not suddenly try to tempt a person to commit severe aveiros; he works stage by stage. At first he convinces him about something small, then he pushes further, until eventually he tries talking the person into serving avoda zara.
The Frierdiker Rebbe explains that the yetzer hara may even begin by giving his approval to the mitzvos being done (“aseh kach”), but he rationalizes and limits the extent of their fulfillment. For example, he encourages a person to take it easy and watch his health, to be “normal”, to find favor in the eyes of others, and he brings proofs and explanations for all his claims. This cools a person down and enables the yetzer hara to push him further into actually committing aveiros.
(שבת ק"ה ע"ב, סה"מ קונטרסים א' ע' ל"ז ע"א)
KNOWING HIS TRICKS
At yechidus, the Rebbe Maharash once told the Rebbe Rashab: “The yetzer hara, though called an ‘animal’, can at times act slyly, and clothe itself in the guise of a straightforward, humble tzaddik, so that one really has to be clever enough to uncover its tricks. The yetzer hara manifests itself in each individual according to his nature. One person may suddenly feel a powerful desire to learn Chassidus [at a particular time], yet that desire is coming from the yetzer hara, who is trying to prevent him from davening at length, or the like.”
The Rebbe Maharash concluded, “Take this as a general rule and remember it always. If something actually leads to active avoda (in refining one’s middos) and is met up with opposition, then that opposition, even the noblest, is coming from the yetzer hara.”
Relating this episode, the Rebbe Rashab added, “When I left that yechidus, I changed my avoda completely. Until then, I had assumed that the yetzer hara could only encourage a person to do negative things, and it is therefore necessary for one to be cautious only concerning those matters. I had never imagined that there could be a frum yetzer hara, let alone a chassidishe yetzer hara, who is there just to restrain a person from being involved in his true avoda.”
(היום יום כ"ג סיון, אג"ק מהוריי"צ ח"ד ע' סז)
Concerning those pious folk who, out of humility, abstain from avoda, the Frierdiker Rebbe said: “Even before becoming Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek would farbreng with the chassidim for Simchas Beis HaSho’eiva, discussing Chassidus and avodas HaShem. At one such farbrengen he said, ‘My grandfather the Alter Rebbe and my father-in-law the Mitteler Rebbe have made chassidim canny (klug), so that they should know how to recognize the nefesh habahamis in all his false costumes and clever antics.”
(סה"ש ת"ש ע' 87)
The Frierdiker Rebbe related: “When I was a child, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, taught me Tanya, explaining in depth how a chassidishe child must work to change himself. At that time we learned the letter of the Alter Rebbe, in which he strongly warns his chassidim not to scorn those Yidden who had fought with them, nor to regard themselves as being superior to them. My father explained, ‘The nefesh habahamis convinces a person that such behavior comes from the good middos of kedusha. His pride in his avodas HaShem then fools him into regressing further and further.’ “
(לקוטי דיבורים ח"א ע' כ')
The Rebbe would often quote the Rebbe Maharash: “To fool HaShem, you surely can’t; others, you also won’t be able to fool. Who then will you fool? Yourself! Is it a kuntz to fool a fool?!”
(תו"מ ח"ג ע' 130 ועוד, וראה סה"ש תרפ"ד ע' 79 בהערה)
CONSIDER
Why does HaShem make our struggle even more difficult by disguising the yetzer hara?
How does one differentiate between the cleverness of chassidim and the chassidishe yetzer hara?
