Showing posts with label Shelach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shelach. Show all posts
Sunday, May 26, 2013
SHELACH - PRAYING AGAINST THE YETSER HARA
The incident of the spies is one of the most well-known stories in the Torah and there is much discussion as to how such great men could commit such a terrible sin. Another very important aspect of this maaseh is the actions of the righteous men in their attempts to withstand joining in the sin. The Torah tells us that after sending the spies to Eretz Yisroel, Moshe renamed his closest student . Up till this point he was known as ‘Hoshea‘, but now Moshe added a ’yud’ to make the name ‘Yehoshua’. Rashi explains that Moshe davenned that Yehoshua would be saved from the nisayon posed by being with the meraglim - this tefilla manifested itself in adding a yud to his name. A few passukim later the Torah alludes to the fact that whilst in Eretz Yisroel, another of the spies, Kalev, separated from the group and went to Chevron to daven to be protected from the plan of the meraglim .
The Ben Ish Chai and Maskil leDavid both ask that these tefillas seem to contradict a well-known axiom, that ‘everything is in the hands of heaven except for fear of heaven.’ This means that the one thing that is completely in the control of man is the ability to choose between right and wrong. Davenning for things beyond our control, such as health and parnasa, can be highly beneficial because those things are totally dependent on Divine Providence. However, davenning to not sin would seem to have no benefit because Hashem does not determine whether we sin - that is completely in our hands. Consequently, it is very hard to understand why Moshe davenned for Yehoshua and why Kalev davenned for himself.to avoid sinning - whether they would sin or not was not dependent on Hashem, it was dependent on their own free will!
The Ben Ish Chai explains that there are two different ways by which a person can come to commit a sin. One is where he has total clarity that a certain act is forbidden but he nonetheless decides to do it with a clear recognition that he is sinning. The second is where his yetser hara clouds his judgment and persuades him that this act is permissible, enabling him to rationalize that he is not sinning at all. The principle that fear of heaven is completely in our own hands only applies to the first form of sinning, where a person is absolutely clear that acting in such a way constitutes a sin. In this area there is no benefit for a person to pray for Hashem to stop him committing this sin, it is purely in his own hands and Hashem cannot, so-to-speak, change his free will decision. However, this is not the case with regard to the second form of nisayon where a person may genuinely believe that he is not sinning. The main factor that causes him to sin in such a case is lack of clarity as to the correct course of action. This it not completely within one‘s free will. When a person wants to do the right thing but is at risk of being seduced by his yetser hara he can turn to Hashem to help him not be clouded by its rationalizations. Therefore, in this situation it is beneficial to pray to Hashem.
The Ben Ish Chai continues by explaining that Yehoshua and Kalev faced the second form of nisayon where tefilla can help. The meraglim were great people and did not deliberately speak badly about the land without justifying their behavior. The Ben Ish Chai offers a novel explanation of their motivations; they felt that if they would tell the Jewish people about the great prosperity of Eretz Yisroel then they would enter with impure motives of physical gain rather than purely as a result of following Hashem’s command. Consequently, they decided to speak badly about the land with the hope that the Jewish people would nevertheless want to enter the land, leshem shamayim and would thus gain far greater reward. However, in truth, this reasoning was really the work of the yetser hara’s attempts to prevent the people from entering the land at all, as indeed occurred. Moshe davenned for Yehoshua that he would be protected from such rationalizations that would make him believe that it was a mitzva to speak badly about the land ! Similarly, Kalev prayed that he should maintain the clarity that would prevent him from falling into the clutches of the yetser hara.
We have seen that there are two ways in which a person can come to sin; either by knowingly sinning or by being duped by the yetser hara that he is not sinning at all. It seems that by far the more prevalent challenge is posed by the threat of being tricked into thinking that one is not sinning at all. The Nefesh HaChaim writes that a lack of clarity as to whether we are doing a mitzva or aveiro originates with the chet of Adam Harishon. Before the sin, Adam had total clarity as to what was good and evil, in his eyes, committing an aveira was as clearly damaging as putting one’s hand in fire. When he ate from the tree of knowledge of tov ve’ra he brought into himself a mix of good and evil. The consequence of this was that he lost that great clarity about the nature of evil, to the point that now, his yetser hara could now confuse him as to what is right and wrong. This is also the meaning behind that Gemara that states that when a person commits the same sin twice it becomes permissible in his eyes. Rav Yisroel Salanter was said to have commented that when he commits the sin a third time it becomes a mitzva in his eyes!
We have noted in the past the observation of the Baal HaTania that pertains to this point. He writes that if one were to offer a Torah observant Jew money to blatantly commit a sin, he will not do so because he intellectually understands that the spiritual damage done by the sin will outweigh any material gain. And yet a person sins without any monetary gain because he convinces himself that he is not actually sinning.
We learn from the explanation of the Ben Ish Chai that, with regard to the challenge of being tricked by the yetser hara, tefilla is a highly beneficial and necessary weapon. The yetser hara is constantly striving to deceive us into sinning and we must maintain a constant vigilance of being caught in the trap of rationalizations. As well as a consistent method of cheshbon hanefesh, the key tool to gaining clarity is to daven that Hashem help us open our eyes and enable us to follow the true path of Avodas Hashem.
SHELACH – SPYING AFTER OUR HEARTS
“And they will be tzitzis for you, and you shall see it and you shall remember all the commandments of HaShem, and perform them; and you shall not spy (loh sasuroo) after your heart and after your eyes after which you stray.” Parshas Shelach ends with the third paragraph of the Shema. That paragraph discusses the Mitzvo of Tzitzit and continues with another fundamental Mitzvo – not to follow our hearts and eyes. The Sifri elaborates on the meaning of these words. It explains that following one’s heart refers to meenus (herecy), whereas following one’s eyes refers to immorality. The simple understanding of the Sifri with regards to following one’s heart, is that this is the source for the prohibition against espousing beliefs that are antithetical to Torah.
My Rebbe, Rav Yitzchak Berkovits Shlita, points out that there is a great difficulty with this understanding. Without the Mitzvo of ‘loh sassuroo’, there are a number of Mitzvos in the Torah that prohibit heretical beliefs: In the first of the Ten Commandments, the Torah commands us to believe that HaShem is the only G-d, who is all-powerful, created and sustains the whole universe, and has no beginning or end. The next Mitzvo exhorts us not to follow any other gods, which means that we cannot attribute any independent power to any force in the world. In the Mitzvo of ‘Shema’, the Torah further commands us to believe in the oneness of HaShem. The attitudes that the Torah forbids in these Mitzvos are the main beliefs that represent herecy. Accordingly, it would seem that the Torah has already sufficiently instructed us to avoid heretical beliefs. What is the Mitzvo of loh sassuroo coming to add?
Rav Berkovits answers that the other Mitzvos are instructing us to have basic philosophical ideas on an intellectual level; for example, a person must believe intellectually that there is one G-d who created the world. However, an intellectual realization is not always sufficient to ensure that a person will adhere to the fundamental tenets of Jewish thought. A person may intellectually recognize these truths, however, his emotions or his physical desires (taivas) may cause him to act in conflict with his beliefs. In this vein, Chazal tell us that a person only sins when a ruach shtus (spirit of irrationality) enters into him. This means that his actions contradict what he rationally knows to be true. The Mitzvo of ‘loh sasuroo’ commands us to avoid this pitfall. By telling us not to go after our hearts, the Torah is instructing us not to allow our emotions to cause us to act against what we intellectually know to be true. This is not to say that the Torah views emotions in a negative light. This is certainly not the case and there is great room for expression of emotions in Torah. However, when emotions are not channeled through intellect, the consequences can be disastrous. The Torah is the vessel through which we are supposed to mold our intellect and filter our emotions through a prism of the Torah outlook.
The incident of the spies provides us with examples of the correct and incorrect approaches with regard to following one’s heart. Here too, the root word, ‘lasur’, (to spy) is utilized by the Torah. HaShem instructed Moshe to send people to spy out the land. Moshe instructed the spies about which features to look for in the land. Included amongst his instructions he told them to observe the produce of the land, in order to see whether it was fruitful or not. He further instructed them to take note if there was a righteous man in the land, whose merit could protect the people there. With these directives, Moshe was alluding to the spies that they should observe the land with a certain disposition, one that was based on Torah hashkafa. He was telling them to view everything that they saw with spiritual eyes, so that large fruit would be viewed in a positive light, and that the significance of tzaddikim there was an important factor.
Sadly, the majority of the spies did not heed Moshe’s instructions. They did indeed see large fruit, however they chose to interpret it in a negative fashion, and conveyed the message that this demonstrated that the land was strange in that it produced oversized fruits. They were guilty of a further misinterpretation when they saw a large number of funerals taking place in the land. They used this to show that the land destroyed its inhabitants, when, in truth HaShem caused large numbers of deaths so that the people would be busy with funerals and not notice the spies. What was the cause of their skewed attitude? They fell prey to the pitfall of following their emotions. They lacked trust in HaShem, and therefore felt fear at the prospect of having to enter Eretz Yisroel. Because of this flawed attitude they viewed everything they saw through a distorted vision. The only spies who overcame this test were Kalev and Yehoshua. They viewed everything they saw in a positive fashion because they were strong in their trust in HaShem – this prevented them from allowing any fear they may have had, to overcome what they knew to be true.
We have seen how the Torah connects the lesson of the spies to the Mitzvo of ‘loh sasuroo’. The ten spies who sinned provide us with the example of how going after one’s heart leads to sin and ultimately herecy. The Torah imparts a further lesson as to how to avoid the pitfall of interpreting what we see in a detrimental fashion. In the very same verse in which the Torah tells us, ‘loh sasuroo’, it discusses the Mitzvo of tzitzis. “And they will be for you tzitzis, and you shall see it and you shall remember all the commandments of HaShem and perform them; and you shall not spy after your heart and after your eyes after which you stray.” The verse tells us that tzitzis will somehow remind us of the Mitzvos and this in turn will enable us to avoid following our heart and eyes. What is the connection between tzitzis and ‘loh sasuroo’? Rashi points out that Tzitzis remind us of the 613 Mitzvos because the gematria of ‘tzitzis’ is 600; in addition, there are eight strings and five knots – the total of these three figures is 613. In this way, by looking at tzitzis a person is supposed to go through this sequence of thought that will bring him to connect the tzitzis with the 613 Mitzvos. The obvious problem with this is that most people will see tzitzis and fail to make the connection that the Torah seems to expect they should make. It would have seemed to be more effective to command that tzitzis say a big ‘613’ on them, so that everyone will automatically be reminded of the 613 Mitzvos when they see it! The answer is that the Torah is teaching us that one must strive to be the kind of person who sees the world in such a way that a mundane item of clothing such as tzitzis will lead him to a sequence of thought that will remind him of the 613 Mitzvos. When a person brings himself to this level, then, as a consequence he will be able to observe the Mitzvo of ‘loh sasuroo’ because he will not see the world in a skewed manner based on his emotions, rather he will see it with spiritual eyes.
We have seen that a constant theme of the Parsha is that the way a person thinks, will play a decisive role in how he interprets what he sees. It is no easy task to become the kind of person who sees everything with spiritual eyes, however the first stage is to strive to make one’s intellect and emotions in line with the Torah’s directives. The more saturated a person is with the Torah’s teachings, the more he will be able to emulate Kalev and Yehoshua. May we all merit to guide our emotions to bring us closer to Torah.
Monday, June 13, 2011
PRAYING AGAINST THE YETSER HARA - SHELACH
The incident of the spies is one of the most well-known stories in the Torah and there is much discussion as to how such great men could commit such a terrible sin. Another very important aspect of this maaseh is the actions of the righteous men in their attempts to withstand joining in the sin. The Torah tells us that after sending the spies to Eretz Yisroel, Moshe renamed his closest student . Up till this point he was known as ‘Hoshea‘, but now Moshe added a ’yud’ to make the name ‘Yehoshua’. Rashi explains that Moshe davenned that Yehoshua would be saved from the nisayon posed by being with the meraglim - this tefilla manifested itself in adding a yud to his name. A few passukim later the Torah alludes to the fact that whilst in Eretz Yisroel, another of the spies, Kalev, separated from the group and went to Chevron to daven to be protected from the plan of the meraglim .
The Ben Ish Chai and Maskil leDavid both ask that these tefillas seem to contradict a well-known axiom, that ‘everything is in the hands of heaven except for fear of heaven.’ This means that the one thing that is completely in the control of man is the ability to choose between right and wrong. Davenning for things beyond our control, such as health and parnasa, can be highly beneficial because those things are totally dependent on Divine Providence. However, davenning to not sin would seem to have no benefit because Hashem does not determine whether we sin - that is completely in our hands. Consequently, it is very hard to understand why Moshe davenned for Yehoshua and why Kalev davenned for himself.to avoid sinning - whether they would sin or not was not dependent on Hashem, it was dependent on their own free will!
The Ben Ish Chai explains that there are two different ways by which a person can come to commit a sin. One is where he has total clarity that a certain act is forbidden but he nonetheless decides to do it with a clear recognition that he is sinning. The second is where his yetser hara clouds his judgment and persuades him that this act is permissible, enabling him to rationalize that he is not sinning at all. The principle that fear of heaven is completely our own hands only applies to the first form of sinning, where a person is absolutely clear that acting in such a way constitutes a sin. In this area there is no benefit for a person to pray for Hashem to stop him committing this sin, it is purely in his own hands and Hashem cannot, so-to-speak, change his free will decision. However, this is not the case with regard to the second form of nisayon where a person may genuinely believe that he is not sinning. The main factor that causes him to sin in such a case is lack of clarity as to the correct course of action. This it not completely within one‘s free will. When a person wants to do the right thing but is at risk of being seduced by his yetser hara he can turn to Hashem to help him not be clouded by its rationalizations. Therefore, in this situation it is beneficial to pray to Hashem.
The Ben Ish Chai continues by explaining Yehoshua and Kalev faced the second form of nisayon where tefilla can help. The meraglim were great people and did not deliberately speak badly about the land without justifying their behavior. The Ben Ish Chai offers a novel explanation of their motivations; they felt that if they would tell the Jewish people about the great prosperity of Eretz Yisroel then they would enter with impure motives of physical gain rather than purely as a result of following Hashem’s command. Consequently, they decided to speak badly about the land with the hope that the Jewish people would nevertheless want to enter the land, leshem shamayim and would thus gain far greater reward. However, in truth, this reasoning was really the work of the yetser hara’s attempts to prevent the people from entering the land at all, as indeed occurred. Moshe davenned for Yehoshua that he would be protected from such types of rationalizations that would make him believe that it was a mitzva to speak badly about the land ! Similarly, Kalev prayed that he should maintain the clarity that would prevent him from falling into the clutches of the yetser hara.
We have seen that there are two ways in which a person can come to sin; either by knowingly sinning or by begin duped by the yetser hara that he is not sinning at all. It seems that by far the more prevalent challenge is posed by the threat of being tricked into thinking that one is not sinning at all. The Nefesh HaChaim writes that a lack of clarity as to whether we are doing a mitzva or aveiro originates with the chet of Adam Harishon. Before the sin, Adam had total clarity as to what was good and evil, in his eyes, committing an aveira was as clearly damaging as putting one’s hand in fire. When he ate from the tree of knowledge of tov ve’ra he brought into himself a mix of good and evil. The consequence of this was that he lost that great clarity about the nature of evil, to the point that now, his yetser hara could now confuse him as to what is right and wrong. This is also the meaning behind that Gemara that states that when a person commits the same sin twice it becomes permissible in his eyes. Rav Yisroel Salanter was said to have commented that when he commits the sin a third time it becomes a mitzva in his eyes!
We have noted in the past the observation of the Baal HaTania that pertains to this point. He writes that if one were to offer a Torah observant Jew money to blatantly commit a sin, he will not do so because he intellectually understands that the spiritual damage done by the sin will outweigh any material gain. And yet a person sins without any monetary gain because he convinces himself that he is not actually sinning.
We learn from the explanation of the Ben Ish Chai that whilst we cannot request of Hashem to stop us sinning, with regard to the challenge of being tricked by the yetser hara, tefilla is a highly beneficial and necessary weapon. The yetser hara is constantly striving to deceive us into sinning and we must maintain a constant vigilance of being caught in the trap of rationalizations. As well as a consistent method of cheshbon hanefesh, the key tool to gaining clarity is to daven that Hashem help us open our eyes and enable us to follow the true path of Avodas Hashem.
The Ben Ish Chai and Maskil leDavid both ask that these tefillas seem to contradict a well-known axiom, that ‘everything is in the hands of heaven except for fear of heaven.’ This means that the one thing that is completely in the control of man is the ability to choose between right and wrong. Davenning for things beyond our control, such as health and parnasa, can be highly beneficial because those things are totally dependent on Divine Providence. However, davenning to not sin would seem to have no benefit because Hashem does not determine whether we sin - that is completely in our hands. Consequently, it is very hard to understand why Moshe davenned for Yehoshua and why Kalev davenned for himself.to avoid sinning - whether they would sin or not was not dependent on Hashem, it was dependent on their own free will!
The Ben Ish Chai explains that there are two different ways by which a person can come to commit a sin. One is where he has total clarity that a certain act is forbidden but he nonetheless decides to do it with a clear recognition that he is sinning. The second is where his yetser hara clouds his judgment and persuades him that this act is permissible, enabling him to rationalize that he is not sinning at all. The principle that fear of heaven is completely our own hands only applies to the first form of sinning, where a person is absolutely clear that acting in such a way constitutes a sin. In this area there is no benefit for a person to pray for Hashem to stop him committing this sin, it is purely in his own hands and Hashem cannot, so-to-speak, change his free will decision. However, this is not the case with regard to the second form of nisayon where a person may genuinely believe that he is not sinning. The main factor that causes him to sin in such a case is lack of clarity as to the correct course of action. This it not completely within one‘s free will. When a person wants to do the right thing but is at risk of being seduced by his yetser hara he can turn to Hashem to help him not be clouded by its rationalizations. Therefore, in this situation it is beneficial to pray to Hashem.
The Ben Ish Chai continues by explaining Yehoshua and Kalev faced the second form of nisayon where tefilla can help. The meraglim were great people and did not deliberately speak badly about the land without justifying their behavior. The Ben Ish Chai offers a novel explanation of their motivations; they felt that if they would tell the Jewish people about the great prosperity of Eretz Yisroel then they would enter with impure motives of physical gain rather than purely as a result of following Hashem’s command. Consequently, they decided to speak badly about the land with the hope that the Jewish people would nevertheless want to enter the land, leshem shamayim and would thus gain far greater reward. However, in truth, this reasoning was really the work of the yetser hara’s attempts to prevent the people from entering the land at all, as indeed occurred. Moshe davenned for Yehoshua that he would be protected from such types of rationalizations that would make him believe that it was a mitzva to speak badly about the land ! Similarly, Kalev prayed that he should maintain the clarity that would prevent him from falling into the clutches of the yetser hara.
We have seen that there are two ways in which a person can come to sin; either by knowingly sinning or by begin duped by the yetser hara that he is not sinning at all. It seems that by far the more prevalent challenge is posed by the threat of being tricked into thinking that one is not sinning at all. The Nefesh HaChaim writes that a lack of clarity as to whether we are doing a mitzva or aveiro originates with the chet of Adam Harishon. Before the sin, Adam had total clarity as to what was good and evil, in his eyes, committing an aveira was as clearly damaging as putting one’s hand in fire. When he ate from the tree of knowledge of tov ve’ra he brought into himself a mix of good and evil. The consequence of this was that he lost that great clarity about the nature of evil, to the point that now, his yetser hara could now confuse him as to what is right and wrong. This is also the meaning behind that Gemara that states that when a person commits the same sin twice it becomes permissible in his eyes. Rav Yisroel Salanter was said to have commented that when he commits the sin a third time it becomes a mitzva in his eyes!
We have noted in the past the observation of the Baal HaTania that pertains to this point. He writes that if one were to offer a Torah observant Jew money to blatantly commit a sin, he will not do so because he intellectually understands that the spiritual damage done by the sin will outweigh any material gain. And yet a person sins without any monetary gain because he convinces himself that he is not actually sinning.
We learn from the explanation of the Ben Ish Chai that whilst we cannot request of Hashem to stop us sinning, with regard to the challenge of being tricked by the yetser hara, tefilla is a highly beneficial and necessary weapon. The yetser hara is constantly striving to deceive us into sinning and we must maintain a constant vigilance of being caught in the trap of rationalizations. As well as a consistent method of cheshbon hanefesh, the key tool to gaining clarity is to daven that Hashem help us open our eyes and enable us to follow the true path of Avodas Hashem.
SPYING AFTER OUR HEARTS - SHELACH
And they will be tzitzis for you, and you shall see it and you shall remember all the commandments of HaShem, and perform them; and you shall not spy (loh sasuroo) after your heart and after your eyes after which you stray.”
Parshas Shelach ends with the third paragraph of the Shema. That paragraph discusses the Mitzvo of Tzitzit and continues with another fundamental Mitzvo – not to follow our hearts and eyes. The Sifri elaborates on the meaning of these words. It explains that following one’s heart refers to meenus (herecy), whereas following one’s eyes refers to immorality. The simple understanding of the Sifri with regards to following one’s heart, is that this is the source for the prohibition against espousing beliefs that are antithetical to Torah.
My Rebbe, Rav Yitzchak Berkovits Shlita, points out that there is a great difficulty with this understanding. Without the Mitzvo of ‘loh sassuroo’, there are a number of Mitzvos in the Torah that prohibit heretical beliefs: In the first of the Ten Commandments, The Torah commands us to believe that HaShem is the only G-d, who is all-powerful, created and sustains the whole universe, and has no beginning or end. The next Mitzvo exhorts us not to follow any other gods, which means that we cannot attribute any independent power to any force in the world. In the Mitzvo of ‘Shema’, the Torah further commands us to believe in the oneness of HaShem. The attitudes that the Torah forbids in these Mitzvos are the main beliefs that represent herecy. Accordingly, it would seem that the Torah has already sufficiently instructed us to avoid heretical beliefs. What is the Mitzvo of loh sassuroo coming to add?
Rav Berkovits answers that the other Mitzvos are instructing us to have basic philosophical ideas on an intellectual level; for example, a person must believe intellectually that there is one G-d who created the world. However, an intellectual realization is not always sufficient to ensure that a person will adhere to the fundamental tenets of Jewish thought. A person may intellectually recognize these truths, however, his emotions or his physical desires (taivas) may cause him to act in conflict with his beliefs. In this vein, Chazal tell us that a person only sins when a ruach shtus (spirit of irrationality) enters into him. This means that his actions contradict what he rationally knows to be true. The Mitzvo of ‘loh sasuroo’ commands us to avoid this pitfall. By telling us not to go after our hearts, the Torah is instructing us not to allow our emotions to cause us to act against what we intellectually know to be true.
This is not to say that the Torah views emotions in a negative light. This is certainly not the case and there is great room for expression of emotions in Torah. However, when emotions are not channeled through intellect, the consequences can be disastrous. The Torah is the vessel through which we are supposed to mold our intellect and filter our emotions through a prism of the Torah outlook.
The incident of the spies provides us with examples of the correct and incorrect approaches with regard to following one’s heart. Here too, the root word, ‘lasur’, (to spy) is utilized by the Torah. HaShem instructed Moshe to send people to spy out the land. Moshe instructed the spies about which features to look for in the land. Included amongst his instructions he told them to observe the produce of the land, in order to see whether it was fruitful or not. He further instructed them to take note if there was a righteous man in the land, whose merit could protect the people there. With these directives, Moshe was alluding to the spies that they should observe the land with a certain disposition, one that was based on Torah hashkafa. He was telling them to view everything that they saw with spiritual eyes, so that large fruit would be viewed in a positive light, and that the significance of tzaddikim there was an important factor.
Sadly, the majority of the spies did not heed Moshe’s instructions. They did indeed see large fruit, however they chose to interpret it in a negative fashion, and conveyed the message that this demonstrated that the land was strange in that it produced oversized fruits. They were guilty of a further misinterpretation when they saw a large number of funerals taking place in the land. They used this to show that the land destroyed its inhabitants, when, in truth HaShem caused large numbers of deaths so that the people would be busy with funerals and not notice the spies. What was the cause of their skewed attitude? They fell prey to the pitfall of following their emotions. They lacked trust in HaShem, and therefore felt fear at the prospect of having to enter Eretz Yisroel. Because of this flawed attitude they viewed everything they saw through a distorted vision. The only spies who overcame this test were Kalev and Yehoshua. They viewed everything they saw in a positive fashion because they were strong in their trust in HaShem – this prevented them from allowing any fear they may have had, to overcome what they knew to be true.
We have seen how the Torah connects the lesson of the spies to the Mitzvo of ‘loh sasuroo’. The ten spies who sinned provide us with the example of how going after one’s heart leads to sin and ultimately herecy. The Torah imparts a further lesson as to how to avoid the pitfall of interpreting what we see in a detrimental fashion. In the very same verse in which the Torah tells us, ‘loh sasuroo’, it discusses the Mitzvo of tzitzis. “And they will be for you tzitzis, and you shall see it and you shall remember all the commandments of HaShem and perform them; and you shall not spy after your heart and after your eyes after which you stray.” The verse tells us that tzitzis will somehow remind us of the Mitzvos and this in turn will enable us to avoid following our heart and eyes. What is the connection between tzitzis and ‘loh sasuroo’? Rashi points out that Tzitzis remind us of the 613 Mitzvos because the gematria of ‘tzitzis’ is 600; in addition, there are eight strings and five knots – the total of these three figures is 613. In this way, by looking at tzitzis a person is supposed to go through this sequence of thought that will bring him to connect the tzitzis with the 613 Mitzvos. The obvious problem with this is that most people will see tzitzis and fail to make the connection that the Torah seems to expect they should make. It would have seemed to be more effective to command that tzitzis say a big ‘613’ on them, so that everyone will automatically be reminded of the 613 Mitzvos when they see it! The answer is that the Torah is teaching us that one must strive to be the kind of person who sees the world in such a way that a mundane item of clothing such as tzitzis will lead him to a sequence of thought that will remind him of the 613 Mitzvos. When a person brings himself to this level, then, as a consequence he will be able to observe the Mitzvo of ‘loh sasuroo’ because he will not see the world in a skewed manner based on his emotions, rather he will see it with spiritual eyes.
We have seen that a constant theme of the Parsha is that the way a person thinks, will play a decisive role in how he interprets what he sees. It is no easy task to become the kind of person who sees everything with spiritual eyes, however the first stage is to strive to make one’s intellect and emotions in line with the Torah’s directives. The more saturated a person is with the Torah’s teachings, the more he will be able to emulate Kalev and Yehoshua. May we all merit to guide our emotions to bring us closer to Torah.
Parshas Shelach ends with the third paragraph of the Shema. That paragraph discusses the Mitzvo of Tzitzit and continues with another fundamental Mitzvo – not to follow our hearts and eyes. The Sifri elaborates on the meaning of these words. It explains that following one’s heart refers to meenus (herecy), whereas following one’s eyes refers to immorality. The simple understanding of the Sifri with regards to following one’s heart, is that this is the source for the prohibition against espousing beliefs that are antithetical to Torah.
My Rebbe, Rav Yitzchak Berkovits Shlita, points out that there is a great difficulty with this understanding. Without the Mitzvo of ‘loh sassuroo’, there are a number of Mitzvos in the Torah that prohibit heretical beliefs: In the first of the Ten Commandments, The Torah commands us to believe that HaShem is the only G-d, who is all-powerful, created and sustains the whole universe, and has no beginning or end. The next Mitzvo exhorts us not to follow any other gods, which means that we cannot attribute any independent power to any force in the world. In the Mitzvo of ‘Shema’, the Torah further commands us to believe in the oneness of HaShem. The attitudes that the Torah forbids in these Mitzvos are the main beliefs that represent herecy. Accordingly, it would seem that the Torah has already sufficiently instructed us to avoid heretical beliefs. What is the Mitzvo of loh sassuroo coming to add?
Rav Berkovits answers that the other Mitzvos are instructing us to have basic philosophical ideas on an intellectual level; for example, a person must believe intellectually that there is one G-d who created the world. However, an intellectual realization is not always sufficient to ensure that a person will adhere to the fundamental tenets of Jewish thought. A person may intellectually recognize these truths, however, his emotions or his physical desires (taivas) may cause him to act in conflict with his beliefs. In this vein, Chazal tell us that a person only sins when a ruach shtus (spirit of irrationality) enters into him. This means that his actions contradict what he rationally knows to be true. The Mitzvo of ‘loh sasuroo’ commands us to avoid this pitfall. By telling us not to go after our hearts, the Torah is instructing us not to allow our emotions to cause us to act against what we intellectually know to be true.
This is not to say that the Torah views emotions in a negative light. This is certainly not the case and there is great room for expression of emotions in Torah. However, when emotions are not channeled through intellect, the consequences can be disastrous. The Torah is the vessel through which we are supposed to mold our intellect and filter our emotions through a prism of the Torah outlook.
The incident of the spies provides us with examples of the correct and incorrect approaches with regard to following one’s heart. Here too, the root word, ‘lasur’, (to spy) is utilized by the Torah. HaShem instructed Moshe to send people to spy out the land. Moshe instructed the spies about which features to look for in the land. Included amongst his instructions he told them to observe the produce of the land, in order to see whether it was fruitful or not. He further instructed them to take note if there was a righteous man in the land, whose merit could protect the people there. With these directives, Moshe was alluding to the spies that they should observe the land with a certain disposition, one that was based on Torah hashkafa. He was telling them to view everything that they saw with spiritual eyes, so that large fruit would be viewed in a positive light, and that the significance of tzaddikim there was an important factor.
Sadly, the majority of the spies did not heed Moshe’s instructions. They did indeed see large fruit, however they chose to interpret it in a negative fashion, and conveyed the message that this demonstrated that the land was strange in that it produced oversized fruits. They were guilty of a further misinterpretation when they saw a large number of funerals taking place in the land. They used this to show that the land destroyed its inhabitants, when, in truth HaShem caused large numbers of deaths so that the people would be busy with funerals and not notice the spies. What was the cause of their skewed attitude? They fell prey to the pitfall of following their emotions. They lacked trust in HaShem, and therefore felt fear at the prospect of having to enter Eretz Yisroel. Because of this flawed attitude they viewed everything they saw through a distorted vision. The only spies who overcame this test were Kalev and Yehoshua. They viewed everything they saw in a positive fashion because they were strong in their trust in HaShem – this prevented them from allowing any fear they may have had, to overcome what they knew to be true.
We have seen how the Torah connects the lesson of the spies to the Mitzvo of ‘loh sasuroo’. The ten spies who sinned provide us with the example of how going after one’s heart leads to sin and ultimately herecy. The Torah imparts a further lesson as to how to avoid the pitfall of interpreting what we see in a detrimental fashion. In the very same verse in which the Torah tells us, ‘loh sasuroo’, it discusses the Mitzvo of tzitzis. “And they will be for you tzitzis, and you shall see it and you shall remember all the commandments of HaShem and perform them; and you shall not spy after your heart and after your eyes after which you stray.” The verse tells us that tzitzis will somehow remind us of the Mitzvos and this in turn will enable us to avoid following our heart and eyes. What is the connection between tzitzis and ‘loh sasuroo’? Rashi points out that Tzitzis remind us of the 613 Mitzvos because the gematria of ‘tzitzis’ is 600; in addition, there are eight strings and five knots – the total of these three figures is 613. In this way, by looking at tzitzis a person is supposed to go through this sequence of thought that will bring him to connect the tzitzis with the 613 Mitzvos. The obvious problem with this is that most people will see tzitzis and fail to make the connection that the Torah seems to expect they should make. It would have seemed to be more effective to command that tzitzis say a big ‘613’ on them, so that everyone will automatically be reminded of the 613 Mitzvos when they see it! The answer is that the Torah is teaching us that one must strive to be the kind of person who sees the world in such a way that a mundane item of clothing such as tzitzis will lead him to a sequence of thought that will remind him of the 613 Mitzvos. When a person brings himself to this level, then, as a consequence he will be able to observe the Mitzvo of ‘loh sasuroo’ because he will not see the world in a skewed manner based on his emotions, rather he will see it with spiritual eyes.
We have seen that a constant theme of the Parsha is that the way a person thinks, will play a decisive role in how he interprets what he sees. It is no easy task to become the kind of person who sees everything with spiritual eyes, however the first stage is to strive to make one’s intellect and emotions in line with the Torah’s directives. The more saturated a person is with the Torah’s teachings, the more he will be able to emulate Kalev and Yehoshua. May we all merit to guide our emotions to bring us closer to Torah.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
PRAYING AGAINST THE YETSER HARA - SHELACH
The incident of the spies is one of the most well-known stories in the Torah and there is much discussion as to how such great men could commit such a terrible sin. Another very important aspect of this maaseh is the actions of the righteous men in their attempts to withstand joining in the sin. The Torah tells us that after sending the spies to Eretz Yisroel, Moshe renamed his closest student[1]. Up till this point he was known as ‘Hoshea‘, but now Moshe added a ’yud’ to make the name ‘Yehoshua’. Rashi explains that Moshe davenned that Yehoshua would be saved from the nisayon posed by being with the meraglim - this tefilla manifested itself in adding a yud to his name. A few passukim later the Torah alludes to the fact that whilst in Eretz Yisroel, another of the spies, Kalev, separated from the group and went to Chevron to daven to be protected from the plan of the meraglim[2].
The Ben Ish Chai[3] and Maskil leDavid[4] both ask that these tefillas seem to contradict a well-known axiom, that ‘everything is in the hands of heaven except for fear of heaven.’ This means that the one thing that is completely in the control of man is the ability to choose between right and wrong. Davenning for things beyond our control, such as health and parnasa, can be highly beneficial because those things are totally dependent on Divine Providence. However, davenning to not sin would seem to have no benefit because Hashem does not determine whether we sin - that is completely in our hands. Consequently, it is very hard to understand why Moshe davenned for Yehoshua and why Kalev davenned for himself.to avoid sinning - whether they would sin or not was not dependent on Hashem, it was dependent on their own free will!
The Ben Ish Chai explains that there are two different ways by which a person can come to commit a sin. One is where he has total clarity that a certain act is forbidden but he nonetheless decides to do it with a clear recognition that he is sinning. The second is where his yetser hara clouds his judgment and persuades him that this act is permissible, enabling him to rationalize that he is not sinning at all. The principle that fear of heaven is completely in our own hands only applies to the first form of sinning, where a person is absolutely clear that acting in such a way constitutes a sin. In this area there is no benefit for a person to pray for Hashem to stop him committing this sin, it is purely in his own hands and Hashem cannot, so-to-speak, change his free will decision. However, this is not the case with regard to the second form of nisayon where a person may genuinely believe that he is not sinning. The main factor that causes him to sin in such a case is lack of clarity as to the correct course of action. This it not completely within one‘s free will. When a person wants to do the right thing but is at risk of being seduced by his yetser hara he can turn to Hashem to help him not be clouded by its rationalizations. Therefore, in this situation it is beneficial to pray to Hashem.
The Ben Ish Chai continues by explaining that Yehoshua and Kalev faced the second form of nisayon where tefilla can help. The meraglim were great people and did not deliberately speak badly about the land without justifying their behavior. The Ben Ish Chai offers a novel explanation of their motivations; they felt that if they would tell the Jewish people about the great prosperity of Eretz Yisroel then they would enter with impure motives of physical gain rather than purely as a result of following Hashem’s command. Consequently, they decided to speak badly about the land with the hope that the Jewish people would nevertheless want to enter the land, leshem shamayim and would thus gain far greater reward. However, in truth, this reasoning was really the work of the yetser hara’s attempts to prevent the people from entering the land at all, as indeed occurred. Moshe davenned for Yehoshua that he would be protected from such rationalizations that would make him believe that it was a mitzva to speak badly about the land[5]! Similarly, Kalev prayed that he should maintain the clarity that would prevent him from falling into the clutches of the yetser hara.
We have seen that there are two ways in which a person can come to sin; either by knowingly sinning or by being duped by the yetser hara that he is not sinning at all. It seems that by far the more prevalent challenge is posed by the threat of being tricked into thinking that one is not sinning at all. The Nefesh HaChaim writes that a lack of clarity as to whether we are doing a mitzva or aveiro originates with the chet of Adam Harishon. Before the sin, Adam had total clarity as to what was good and evil, in his eyes, committing an aveira was as clearly damaging as putting one’s hand in fire. When he ate from the tree of knowledge of tov ve’ra he brought into himself a mix of good and evil. The consequence of this was that he lost that great clarity about the nature of evil, to the point that now, his yetser hara could now confuse him as to what is right and wrong. This is also the meaning behind that Gemara that states that when a person commits the same sin twice it becomes permissible in his eyes. Rav Yisroel Salanter was said to have commented that when he commits the sin a third time it becomes a mitzva in his eyes!
We have noted in the past the observation of the Baal HaTania that pertains to this point. He writes that if one were to offer a Torah observant Jew money to blatantly commit a sin, he will not do so because he intellectually understands that the spiritual damage done by the sin will outweigh any material gain. And yet a person sins without any monetary gain because he convinces himself that he is not actually sinning.
We learn from the explanation of the Ben Ish Chai that, with regard to the challenge of being tricked by the yetser hara, tefilla is a highly beneficial and necessary weapon. The yetser hara is constantly striving to deceive us into sinning and we must maintain a constant vigilance of being caught in the trap of rationalizations. As well as a consistent method of cheshbon hanefesh, the key tool to gaining clarity is to daven that Hashem help us open our eyes and enable us to follow the true path of Avodas Hashem.
[1] Shelach, 13:16.
[2] Rashi, 13:22.
[3] Ben Yehoyada, Sotah, 34b.
[4] Shelach, ibid. He is one of the main super-commentaries on Rashi.
[5] There are numerous other explanations as to the reasoning of the spies in speaking badly about the land (see Ramban and Sfas Emes) but it seems clear that whatever their reasoning they did somehow justify their actions and believe that they were not committing an aveiro.
The Ben Ish Chai[3] and Maskil leDavid[4] both ask that these tefillas seem to contradict a well-known axiom, that ‘everything is in the hands of heaven except for fear of heaven.’ This means that the one thing that is completely in the control of man is the ability to choose between right and wrong. Davenning for things beyond our control, such as health and parnasa, can be highly beneficial because those things are totally dependent on Divine Providence. However, davenning to not sin would seem to have no benefit because Hashem does not determine whether we sin - that is completely in our hands. Consequently, it is very hard to understand why Moshe davenned for Yehoshua and why Kalev davenned for himself.to avoid sinning - whether they would sin or not was not dependent on Hashem, it was dependent on their own free will!
The Ben Ish Chai explains that there are two different ways by which a person can come to commit a sin. One is where he has total clarity that a certain act is forbidden but he nonetheless decides to do it with a clear recognition that he is sinning. The second is where his yetser hara clouds his judgment and persuades him that this act is permissible, enabling him to rationalize that he is not sinning at all. The principle that fear of heaven is completely in our own hands only applies to the first form of sinning, where a person is absolutely clear that acting in such a way constitutes a sin. In this area there is no benefit for a person to pray for Hashem to stop him committing this sin, it is purely in his own hands and Hashem cannot, so-to-speak, change his free will decision. However, this is not the case with regard to the second form of nisayon where a person may genuinely believe that he is not sinning. The main factor that causes him to sin in such a case is lack of clarity as to the correct course of action. This it not completely within one‘s free will. When a person wants to do the right thing but is at risk of being seduced by his yetser hara he can turn to Hashem to help him not be clouded by its rationalizations. Therefore, in this situation it is beneficial to pray to Hashem.
The Ben Ish Chai continues by explaining that Yehoshua and Kalev faced the second form of nisayon where tefilla can help. The meraglim were great people and did not deliberately speak badly about the land without justifying their behavior. The Ben Ish Chai offers a novel explanation of their motivations; they felt that if they would tell the Jewish people about the great prosperity of Eretz Yisroel then they would enter with impure motives of physical gain rather than purely as a result of following Hashem’s command. Consequently, they decided to speak badly about the land with the hope that the Jewish people would nevertheless want to enter the land, leshem shamayim and would thus gain far greater reward. However, in truth, this reasoning was really the work of the yetser hara’s attempts to prevent the people from entering the land at all, as indeed occurred. Moshe davenned for Yehoshua that he would be protected from such rationalizations that would make him believe that it was a mitzva to speak badly about the land[5]! Similarly, Kalev prayed that he should maintain the clarity that would prevent him from falling into the clutches of the yetser hara.
We have seen that there are two ways in which a person can come to sin; either by knowingly sinning or by being duped by the yetser hara that he is not sinning at all. It seems that by far the more prevalent challenge is posed by the threat of being tricked into thinking that one is not sinning at all. The Nefesh HaChaim writes that a lack of clarity as to whether we are doing a mitzva or aveiro originates with the chet of Adam Harishon. Before the sin, Adam had total clarity as to what was good and evil, in his eyes, committing an aveira was as clearly damaging as putting one’s hand in fire. When he ate from the tree of knowledge of tov ve’ra he brought into himself a mix of good and evil. The consequence of this was that he lost that great clarity about the nature of evil, to the point that now, his yetser hara could now confuse him as to what is right and wrong. This is also the meaning behind that Gemara that states that when a person commits the same sin twice it becomes permissible in his eyes. Rav Yisroel Salanter was said to have commented that when he commits the sin a third time it becomes a mitzva in his eyes!
We have noted in the past the observation of the Baal HaTania that pertains to this point. He writes that if one were to offer a Torah observant Jew money to blatantly commit a sin, he will not do so because he intellectually understands that the spiritual damage done by the sin will outweigh any material gain. And yet a person sins without any monetary gain because he convinces himself that he is not actually sinning.
We learn from the explanation of the Ben Ish Chai that, with regard to the challenge of being tricked by the yetser hara, tefilla is a highly beneficial and necessary weapon. The yetser hara is constantly striving to deceive us into sinning and we must maintain a constant vigilance of being caught in the trap of rationalizations. As well as a consistent method of cheshbon hanefesh, the key tool to gaining clarity is to daven that Hashem help us open our eyes and enable us to follow the true path of Avodas Hashem.
[1] Shelach, 13:16.
[2] Rashi, 13:22.
[3] Ben Yehoyada, Sotah, 34b.
[4] Shelach, ibid. He is one of the main super-commentaries on Rashi.
[5] There are numerous other explanations as to the reasoning of the spies in speaking badly about the land (see Ramban and Sfas Emes) but it seems clear that whatever their reasoning they did somehow justify their actions and believe that they were not committing an aveiro.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
PRAYING AGAINST THE YETSER HARA - SHELACH
The incident of the spies is one of the most well-known stories in the Torah and there is much discussion as to how such great men could commit such a terrible sin. Another very important aspect of this maaseh is the actions of the righteous men in their attempts to withstand joining in the sin. The Torah tells us that after sending the spies to Eretz Yisroel, Moshe renamed his closest student. Up till this point he was known as ‘Hoshea‘, but now Moshe added a ’yud’ to make the name ‘Yehoshua’. Rashi explains that Moshe davenned that Yehoshua would be saved from the nisayon posed by being with the meraglim - this tefilla manifested itself in adding a yud to his name. A few passukim later the Torah alludes to the fact that whilst in Eretz Yisroel, another of the spies, Kalev, separated from the group and went to Chevron to daven to be protected from the plan of the meraglim.
The Ben Ish Chai and Maskil leDavid both ask that these tefillas seem to contradict a well-known axiom, that ‘everything is in the hands of heaven except for fear of heaven.’ This means that the one thing that is completely in the control of man is the ability to choose between right and wrong. Davenning for things beyond our control, such as health and parnasa, can be highly beneficial because those things are totally dependent on Divine Providence. However, davenning to not sin would seem to have no benefit because Hashem does not determine whether we sin - that is completely in our hands. Consequently, it is very hard to understand why Moshe davenned for Yehoshua and why Kalev davenned for himself.to avoid sinning - whether they would sin or not was not dependent on Hashem, it was dependent on their own free will!
The Ben Ish Chai explains that there are two different ways by which a person can come to commit a sin. One is where he has total clarity that a certain act is forbidden but he nonetheless decides to do it with a clear recognition that he is sinning. The second is where his yetser hara clouds his judgment and persuades him that this act is permissible, enabling him to rationalize that he is not sinning at all. The principle that fear of heaven is completely in our own hands only applies to the first form of sinning, where a person is absolutely clear that acting in such a way constitutes a sin. In this area there is no benefit for a person to pray for Hashem to stop him committing this sin, it is purely in his own hands and Hashem cannot, so-to-speak, change his free will decision. However, this is not the case with regard to the second form of nisayon where a person may genuinely believe that he is not sinning. The main factor that causes him to sin in such a case is lack of clarity as to the correct course of action. This it not completely within one‘s free will. When a person wants to do the right thing but is at risk of being seduced by his yetser hara he can turn to Hashem to help him not be clouded by its rationalizations. Therefore, in this situation it is beneficial to pray to Hashem.
The Ben Ish Chai continues by explaining that Yehoshua and Kalev faced the second form of nisayon where tefilla can help. The meraglim were great people and did not deliberately speak badly about the land without justifying their behavior. The Ben Ish Chai offers a novel explanation of their motivations; they felt that if they would tell the Jewish people about the great prosperity of Eretz Yisroel then they would enter with impure motives of physical gain rather than purely as a result of following Hashem’s command. Consequently, they decided to speak badly about the land with the hope that the Jewish people would nevertheless want to enter the land, leshem shamayim and would thus gain far greater reward. However, in truth, this reasoning was really the work of the yetser hara’s attempts to prevent the people from entering the land at all, as indeed occurred. Moshe davenned for Yehoshua that he would be protected from such rationalizations that would make him believe that it was a mitzva to speak badly about the land! Similarly, Kalev prayed that he should maintain the clarity that would prevent him from falling into the clutches of the yetser hara.
We have seen that there are two ways in which a person can come to sin; either by knowingly sinning or by being duped by the yetser hara that he is not sinning at all. It seems that by far the more prevalent challenge is posed by the threat of being tricked into thinking that one is not sinning at all. The Nefesh HaChaim writes that a lack of clarity as to whether we are doing a mitzva or aveiro originates with the chet of Adam Harishon. Before the sin, Adam had total clarity as to what was good and evil, in his eyes, committing an aveira was as clearly damaging as putting one’s hand in fire. When he ate from the tree of knowledge of tov ve’ra he brought into himself a mix of good and evil. The consequence of this was that he lost that great clarity about the nature of evil, to the point that now, his yetser hara could now confuse him as to what is right and wrong. This is also the meaning behind that Gemara that states that when a person commits the same sin twice it becomes permissible in his eyes. Rav Yisroel Salanter was said to have commented that when he commits the sin a third time it becomes a mitzva in his eyes!
We have noted in the past the observation of the Baal HaTania that pertains to this point. He writes that if one were to offer a Torah observant Jew money to blatantly commit a sin, he will not do so because he intellectually understands that the spiritual damage done by the sin will outweigh any material gain. And yet a person sins without any monetary gain because he convinces himself that he is not actually sinning.
We learn from the explanation of the Ben Ish Chai that, with regard to the challenge of being tricked by the yetser hara, tefilla is a highly beneficial and necessary weapon. The yetser hara is constantly striving to deceive us into sinning and we must maintain a constant vigilance of being caught in the trap of rationalizations. As well as a consistent method of cheshbon hanefesh, the key tool to gaining clarity is to daven that Hashem help us open our eyes and enable us to follow the true path of Avodas Hashem.
The Ben Ish Chai and Maskil leDavid both ask that these tefillas seem to contradict a well-known axiom, that ‘everything is in the hands of heaven except for fear of heaven.’ This means that the one thing that is completely in the control of man is the ability to choose between right and wrong. Davenning for things beyond our control, such as health and parnasa, can be highly beneficial because those things are totally dependent on Divine Providence. However, davenning to not sin would seem to have no benefit because Hashem does not determine whether we sin - that is completely in our hands. Consequently, it is very hard to understand why Moshe davenned for Yehoshua and why Kalev davenned for himself.to avoid sinning - whether they would sin or not was not dependent on Hashem, it was dependent on their own free will!
The Ben Ish Chai explains that there are two different ways by which a person can come to commit a sin. One is where he has total clarity that a certain act is forbidden but he nonetheless decides to do it with a clear recognition that he is sinning. The second is where his yetser hara clouds his judgment and persuades him that this act is permissible, enabling him to rationalize that he is not sinning at all. The principle that fear of heaven is completely in our own hands only applies to the first form of sinning, where a person is absolutely clear that acting in such a way constitutes a sin. In this area there is no benefit for a person to pray for Hashem to stop him committing this sin, it is purely in his own hands and Hashem cannot, so-to-speak, change his free will decision. However, this is not the case with regard to the second form of nisayon where a person may genuinely believe that he is not sinning. The main factor that causes him to sin in such a case is lack of clarity as to the correct course of action. This it not completely within one‘s free will. When a person wants to do the right thing but is at risk of being seduced by his yetser hara he can turn to Hashem to help him not be clouded by its rationalizations. Therefore, in this situation it is beneficial to pray to Hashem.
The Ben Ish Chai continues by explaining that Yehoshua and Kalev faced the second form of nisayon where tefilla can help. The meraglim were great people and did not deliberately speak badly about the land without justifying their behavior. The Ben Ish Chai offers a novel explanation of their motivations; they felt that if they would tell the Jewish people about the great prosperity of Eretz Yisroel then they would enter with impure motives of physical gain rather than purely as a result of following Hashem’s command. Consequently, they decided to speak badly about the land with the hope that the Jewish people would nevertheless want to enter the land, leshem shamayim and would thus gain far greater reward. However, in truth, this reasoning was really the work of the yetser hara’s attempts to prevent the people from entering the land at all, as indeed occurred. Moshe davenned for Yehoshua that he would be protected from such rationalizations that would make him believe that it was a mitzva to speak badly about the land! Similarly, Kalev prayed that he should maintain the clarity that would prevent him from falling into the clutches of the yetser hara.
We have seen that there are two ways in which a person can come to sin; either by knowingly sinning or by being duped by the yetser hara that he is not sinning at all. It seems that by far the more prevalent challenge is posed by the threat of being tricked into thinking that one is not sinning at all. The Nefesh HaChaim writes that a lack of clarity as to whether we are doing a mitzva or aveiro originates with the chet of Adam Harishon. Before the sin, Adam had total clarity as to what was good and evil, in his eyes, committing an aveira was as clearly damaging as putting one’s hand in fire. When he ate from the tree of knowledge of tov ve’ra he brought into himself a mix of good and evil. The consequence of this was that he lost that great clarity about the nature of evil, to the point that now, his yetser hara could now confuse him as to what is right and wrong. This is also the meaning behind that Gemara that states that when a person commits the same sin twice it becomes permissible in his eyes. Rav Yisroel Salanter was said to have commented that when he commits the sin a third time it becomes a mitzva in his eyes!
We have noted in the past the observation of the Baal HaTania that pertains to this point. He writes that if one were to offer a Torah observant Jew money to blatantly commit a sin, he will not do so because he intellectually understands that the spiritual damage done by the sin will outweigh any material gain. And yet a person sins without any monetary gain because he convinces himself that he is not actually sinning.
We learn from the explanation of the Ben Ish Chai that, with regard to the challenge of being tricked by the yetser hara, tefilla is a highly beneficial and necessary weapon. The yetser hara is constantly striving to deceive us into sinning and we must maintain a constant vigilance of being caught in the trap of rationalizations. As well as a consistent method of cheshbon hanefesh, the key tool to gaining clarity is to daven that Hashem help us open our eyes and enable us to follow the true path of Avodas Hashem.
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