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Anger and the Afterlife
Part I. The Gehenom of Anger
Off the Subject
At the end of this week’s sedrah we read the story of the mekallel, who committed one of the worst aveiros of all: וַיִּקֹּב בֶּן הָאִשָּׁה הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִית אֶת ה’ וַיְקַלֵּל – And the son of the Israelite woman cursed the Name of Hashem (Vayikra 24:11). It was a terrible thing, one of the most tragic events that took place in the Midbar – a Jew should curse Hashem?! A very unpleasant story.
If you’re interested you can look in the Chumash and in the mefarshim to see exactly what happened there, what the details were. But for our purposes it’s enough to know that this man was very upset about his station in life, and in his distress and his anger he blamed Hashem for his plight and uttered blasphemous words.
Now, at the end of the story there begins a list of transgressions which seem to have no connection at all to the previous subject of the mekallel. It says there that Hashem told the Bnei Yisroel how to punish someone who ‘curses the Name’. But then, before the story concludes with how they put the mekallel to death, it interrupts with various other sins that seem out of place: bloodshed (ibid. 17) and assault (18) and damaging someone’s property (19) – various aveiros that a person might do. And only then after that list of sins, וַיּוֹצִיאוּ אֶת הַמְּקַלֵּל … וַיִּרְגְּמוּ אֹתוֹ אָבֶן – the Bnei Yisroel took the mekallel out of the camp and stoned him to death.
Now, to us it seems that all these other sins don’t belong here at all. They’re out of place.
The Common Denominator
And the explanation is as follows: The common factor in all of these subjects is the element of anger. How could it be that a person will do something as wild as cursing Hashem, chas veshalom? Because he’s angry. And that’s the lesson here: an angry person is a loose cannon who might do anything!
And so the Torah warns us here: ‘Beware! Every kind of wickedness is on the table for someone unwilling to train himself to curb his anger. He’ll curse Hashem! And even if he won’t get so meshuge, but other things he’ll do; he’ll damage his fellow man’s property or even assault and maim him. He might even shed the blood of a fellow Jew!
Don’t think it’s an exaggeration. We have Orthodox murderers today – and not in far-off places. In this neighborhood not so long ago a man murdered his wife. An Orthodox man who wouldn’t think of eating tarfus, but shefichas domim he did. How could that be? A frum murderer?! It’s because an angry person is bound to do anything.
Kaas is guaranteed to bring a person to very many sins, big and small, because אֲפִלּוּ שְׁכִינָה אֵינָהּ חֲשׁוּבָה כְּנֶגְדּוֹ (Nedarim 22b). He’s too busy fulminating in his frustration and nothing else matters – even the Shechinah means nothing to him now! Hakadosh Baruch Hu can wait – what matters now is that his neighbor is parked in his driveway! And that means he might do anything – he’ll be up to his nose in sins before he finally settles down.
Prepared for Yom Hadin
That’s what Shlomo Halelech said in Mishlei (29:22). בַּעַל חֵמָה – A person of wrath, רַב פֶּשַׁע – has many sins. Rav means he has a majority of sins. A majority! כָּל הַכּוֹעֵס – Anybody who is an angry person, בְּיָדוּעַ שֶׁעֲווֹנוֹתָיו מְרֻבִּין – we know for certain that his sins are more than his merits (ibid. 22a).
It means he doesn’t have to wait for the Yom Hadin of Olam Haba to find out what’s going to be with him. Even though he is a frum man who does mitzvos and gains many merits – and merits certainly are important for a person’s final judgment – but if he’s a baal kaas then he can take it to the bank. He can know for certain that his merits will be outweighed by his sins.
And that’s why the Gemara says that כָּל הַכּוֹעֵס – anyone who gets angry, כָּל מִינֵי גֵּיהִנֹּם שׁוֹלְטִין בּוֹ – all the various treatments of Gehenom will have power over him (Nedarim 22a). Not a treatment or some treatments; kol minei means all the various treatments that they have in Gehenom, the angry man can expect them.
The Treatment Plan
Now, that word ‘treatments’ deserves an explanation and so we should take a few minutes before we start the subject, to talk about what it means. You know, we were not given the opportunity to take a peek into Gehenom. Nobody ever saw it and whatever it is, it’s a thousand times or a million times more than we’re capable of expressing in words anyhow. And therefore, it’s only the teaching of our Sages, their traditions, that open our eyes to the truth of what it is. And they tell us that it’s a place where the neshamah goes in order to be treated, to be remedied.
You know, our greatest expectation, the greatest happiness that we are all looking forward to, is the promise of כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשׁ לָהֶם חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא. We are promised a happiness so great that even Hakadosh Baruch Hu couldn’t give us greater joy.
And yet a person who didn’t prepare himself in this world, he won’t be permitted to go to Gan Eden immediately – he must be processed in the clinic of Gehenom in order to be capable of enjoying the delights of the World to Come.
The Choice is Ours
Of course, if you do teshuvah while you’re still here, you’re a smart man because you’ll avoid those treatments. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble.
It’s the same as in this world; let’s say a man who has ulcers. So there are two kinds of treatments. One way is before it gets to the stage where it’s extreme; he could still change his habits. If he would live a reasonable, temperate life that would help him heal. He could go to sleep early every night instead of sitting up in front of the ‘devil machine’ and ruining his mind. Instead of reading magazines late at night or sitting and gabbing with the family, if he would hit the hay early, that’s one way of healing an ulcer or preventing a future one.
But the other way is surgery. If he waits too long, the end result will be surgery. It’s not the first choice of course because surgery is painful and it’s dangerous too. But finally, the doctor will tell him that it’s inflamed and abscessed and it has to be cut out with a knife.
The Only Alternative
In the Next World however surgery is the only alternative; there it’s always the answer and it’s always painful. And so all of the questions and pleadings won’t do much for you – if you come to the Next World with a cancer that you didn’t treat with teshuvah while you were still in this world then it’s going to require treatment in Gehenom before you can get into Gan Eden. And it’s going to be H-E-L-L.
By the way, it’s good you came here tonight to hear this. You know that in this place we like to talk about happy things, about how to live happy and successful lives. But included in that is knowing the truth. And so even though in other places they won’t talk to you about Gehenom because they want you to keep coming back but I’m not so interested in you coming back. I’m more interested that you should know the truth, that you should become better. And so I’m telling you once and for all what it really is.
The Clinic You Don’t Want to Visit
And so Gehenom is a place of treatments, all types of treatments. If a person comes there with a big ulcer, let’s say, of jealousy, so it’s too late to do anything about it except to operate. And the operation is very long. The surgeons there have all types of tools; everything they have – except anesthesia.
If you come in with a different sin, let’s say, of lashon hara, so you need a different treatment; they have to work on the mouth. It’s not pleasant to have your teeth fixed. They have to be ground and filled, drilled and filled. Maybe some teeth have to be pulled out. They pull with pliers. All types of tools to treat that problem to make you ready for the happiness of Gan Eden.
If he wasn’t careful with what he ate, his stomach has to be treated. If he has lesions of onaas devorim, hurtful words, so it’s a different kind of treatment. You didn’t listen to your mother when she asked you to take out the garbage? A different treatment. There’s no such thing as a sin that’s not going to be treated. Every sin has a specific kind of treatment.
Anger is the All-In-One
And so we come back now to the angry fellow. Anger, the Sages tell us, is something different altogether. If you’re prone to anger, if you have a tendency to flare up, you have to expect a Gehenom where all the treatments will be given to you – כָּל מִינֵי גֵּיהִנֹּם שׁוֹלְטִין בּוֹ. Why so many? Because it’s not one sickness. The ‘angry person is filled with sin’.
That’s what the Torah is telling us here at the end of our sedrah. A person might do the worst things. He might say the worst things. He might damage or maim or hurt or kill. There have been boys and girls who ran away because of kaas and they accepted a cult instead of the Jewish faith; people have bowed down to idols to spite their families because of ka’as!
Talking to Ourselves
But we’re not only talking about those extreme scenarios. We’re talking now about ourselves, about people who learn Torah and perform mitzvos. And still when a person gets angry it brings him to be mean and to say hurtful words. People break other people’s hearts in their anger. People say lashon hara; they slander others and ruin their lives. It brings machlokes. He fights with his neighbors and in-laws. He’s unhappy and frustrated and he blames Hashem. Kaas is not only anger – every middah raah and every sin comes as a result.
And because he’ll be coming to the Next World with all types of sins – all types of cancers and lesions and disorders and ulcers and sores – they all have to be treated before he can get into Gan Eden. The indescribable joy of Gan Eden is waiting for him but first he’ll be treated and readied for that eternal happiness.
Part II. Worse Than Gehenom
Additional Suffering
Now the Gemara, after it tells us all this, it adds something else on to the subject. The Gemara says: not only are all the treatments of Gehenom going to have power over the angry person; וְלֹא עוֹד אֶלָּא שֶׁתַּחְתּוֹנִיּוֹת שׁוֹלְטוֹת בּוֹ – but even more so, he’ll suffer from hemorrhoids.
Hemorrhoids? It seems so anticlimactic. We just got through saying how this angry man is going to be put through the wringer in the Next World and now he comes along and adds something new: He says such a man is even going to suffer the discomfort of hemorrhoids.
Now, I don’t wish hemorrhoids on anyone – well, some people, yes – but it’s not such a terrible disease. Certainly nobody wants it but it’s a discomfort, that’s all. It’s not fatal.
And so it needs an explanation. After telling us the great threat of כָּל מִינֵי גֵּיהִנֹּם שׁוֹלְטִין בּוֹ, which is the worst of all possible things, he comes along and he mentions hemorrhoids? It’s a queer thing.
Worse Than Gehenom
But we are learning now that there’s something worse than suffering; there’s something worse than pain and torture. And that is the loss of the opportunity to utilize one’s life! Worse than suffering is when a person is sentenced to the loss of opportunity for tov; to utilize life in achieving perfection.
Because that is the purpose of life. It’s absolutely clear from many seforim, from many statements in the Torah and Neviim and Kesuvim; wherever we look, if we’ll make a summary, a quintessence, of what we learn, we’ll discover that the purpose of life is to gain perfection. And since we are created and put into this world in order to make out of ourselves the very best that we can, anything that interferes with this purpose, any hindrance to this purpose of life, is to be feared more than Gehenom.
What Comes After Gehenom?
Now, we’ll explain that a little more because it’s so important. We mentioned before that in most cases Gehenom is a purification process; sooner or later it finally comes to an end. Of course people who despise their faith, who turn their backs on their people, who cast away their loyalty to Hashem and intermarry or become atheists, we’re not talking about them; we’re talking now about people who identify with the Am Yisroel.
These loyal Jews, even if they are sinners – and who doesn’t sin sometimes? – they’ll eventually find a way out of Gehenom. Even if a Jew is quite wicked and he’ll have to go to Gehenom to be purified, he’ll finally emerge from there – maybe a little pale, a little weakened, but he’ll totter out of Gehenom and he’ll be admitted to Olam Haba! At last! The great happiness and the great consolation: כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשׁ לָהֶם חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא– All Yisroel have a share in the World to Come.
Achievements Are Forever
However, when he gets to the World to Come his worries are not over. Because it’s not enough to be purified of sin. It’s not enough to be freed of one’s aveiros. Because Olam Haba requires positive merits, acts. You have to do something in order to qualify. It matters what you prepared for yourself in the World to Come.
It’s only the Torah and mitzvos and middos tovos and perfection of the Torah mind that a person achieves in this world, that’s what bestows on him the happiness of Olam Haba. And so it’s not purifying your sins that’s most important; it’s your achievements that matter most. Because even though there’s no end to the reward of Next World, you have to come there with the IOU notes in order to collect on that happiness.
So what do we see? Aveiros are a terrible thing. Every sin is a great misfortune and we should be very afraid of them because there is nothing as terrible as Gehenom. But eventually the sin is going to be removed. Eventually you’re cleaned. The punishment has a limit; it’s not forever.
But a mitzvah is forever. Achievements continue forever and ever. And therefore when a person loses opportunities to accomplish tov in this world it’s worse than the punishment of Gehenom! Because גֵּיהִנֹּם כָּלָה – Gehenom comes to an end (Rosh Hashanah 17a) but achievements never come to an end.
The Hemorrhoid Problem
And now we come to what the Chachomim are telling us here. וְלֹא עוֹד אֶלָּא שֶׁתַּחְתּוֹנִיּוֹת שׁוֹלְטוֹת בּוֹ – Even more than Gehenom he’ll even suffer also from hemorrhoids in this world. It means that not only is there a Gehenom waiting for this angry man but even worse he’ll even be visited with hemorrhoids, with pains of illness while he’s still alive.
Illness? While he’s alive? That’s all? And it’s not even the most serious illness. It doesn’t say that he’ll be a heart patient or he’ll be stricken blind – that could happen too if he lives an angry life but even before that happens he’ll suffer from hemorrhoids.
The answer is that it means that he’ll be harassed frequently. And it’ll be a harassment that makes his mind little – a person is not able to think big when he’s always bothered. And this angry, frustrated fellow, he’ll be punished by being constantly weighed down by his little day-to-day worries. And that’s the worst punishment of all because he won’t be able to soar to the heights of perfection.
When he sits down, he experiences pain. Many times when he lies down the pain still accompanies him. And this constant pain, even though it’s not a terrible thing in life but it grinds away his opportunities. It hampers him.
The Big Little Problems
Hemorrhoids is only an example because if it won’t be that it’ll be something else. That’s why the Gemara quotes a possuk on this: וְנָתַן ה’ לְךָ שָׁם לֵב רַגָּז – Hashem will give you a heart of excitement. It means that the angry person is going to have all kinds of anxieties, וְכִלְיוֹן עֵינַיִם – and your eyes will be worn out, וְדַאֲבוֹן נָפֶשׁ – and aching of the soul (Devarim 28:65).
So the Gemara asks, what is such a thing that wears out the eyes and hurts the soul? And so they say it means hemorrhoids. The constant pains are a drag on life. But it might be anything. He’ll have eye problems or headaches or other discomforts. Poor health, even in a minor matter, is the greatest misfortune that there could be – much worse than Gehenom – because they hamper him from greatness. He is fettered to the small nothings of life because of all the vexations and irritants.
A Distracted Mind
And even if he’s perfectly healthy he’ll always be frustrated because of his middah of anger that he never quashed. He’ll always be racking his brains, thinking why this, why that. Why didn’t she do that? Why did he do such and such? That’s the life of a person who angers easily – he’s frustrated and irritated and annoyed. And a person like that is not able to accomplish all the greatness that life holds for him. And that’s the worst thing that could be; because if there’s anything that discourages a person from the ambition needed for going ahead and accomplishing, that’s worse than any other punishment you can imagine.
Let’s say he could go ahead and daven. He could pray with all his heart. What a big achievement that is! Every man and woman should aspire to become great in tefillah because the perfection in awareness of Hashem, in bitachon, in ahavas Hashem, that comes from davening is something you’ll take with you forever in the Next World.
But if there’s a pain nagging you all the time, even a minor ailment but it bothers you and you’re in a hurry. You want to get out of the shul. You can’t stand Shemoneh Esrei that long because you’re suffering.
Or your mind is somewhere else because of your anger. It’s still back in the kitchen chewing on what your wife said to you this morning. Or it’s at the office angering at your boss for keeping you late in the office again. So you’re losing opportunities which are more precious than anything else.
True Freedom
But davening is only an example. A person who has menuchas hanefesh – nothing angers him, he doesn’t get irritated – that person’s life in this world is wide open for him. His mind is unchained. He can learn Torah. He can make cheshbon hanefesh. He can do teshuvah; he can make amends for his aveiros and save himself a lot of trouble.
He can think about Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He can walk down the avenue and practice that Hashem is looking at Him. An unfettered mind can practice that! He can walk in the street and think about the nissim that Hashem did for us. זִכְרוּ נִפְלְאוֹתָיו אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה – Remember always the miracles that Hashem did for us (Tehillim 105:5). It means it’s a mitzvah to think about Yetzias Mitzrayim. It’s a mitzvah, a perfection, to think about the mann and about Kriyas Yam Suf and other miracles.
But if he suffers from tachtoniyos and other ailments, and everything else that comes along with anger and frustration, so that’s the great misfortune of life. Because he’s too busy with his little irritations to achieve the greatness that this life has to offer him; instead of utilizing the opportunity of life that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives him to collect all the precious coins that are going to be his admission to the World to Come and his happiness forever and ever, he’s busy with his tachtoniyos and everything else.
Part III. Anger Management
Problem Solving
So you’ll say, “Well, Rabbi Miller, you’re good at describing the problem but what are we to do about it? We’re human beings after all. We get frustrated, angry, irritated all the time; so what’s the solution?”
And it’s a good question actually because there’s no magic wand that I can wave over you. It takes work; it takes thinking. But if we had to look for one thing; if you were cornered and had to come up with one solution how to overcome this problem of kaas, frustration, that keeps cropping up, so listen now in the few minutes we have left.
You know, there’s a sefer called Orchos Tzaddikim and the author there talks about middos; about a middah and its opposite. He talks, for example, about gaavah, arrogance, and he talks about the opposite – anavah, humility. And that’s how he goes through all the traits of character, each middah and its opposite.
But when he comes to the quality of kaas, anger, we’re surprised to see that he doesn’t say that the opposite of kaas is to be calm, to control yourself; no, he doesn’t say that. The Orchos Tzaddikim says the opposite of kaas is ratzon, satisfaction. It means to willingly accept, to be satisfied with what happens, that’s the other side of the coin of anger.
Anger Is Opposition
Anger is an emotional-physical response to opposition. It’s a natural process of the body that is intended to be used where it’s needed; it can help you overcome dangerous opponents.
However, our problem is that we have trained our emotions to react even when there’s no danger, no actual opposition. Even imaginary opposition can induce the same effects emotionally and physically.
So here is a man who is angry. But it’s not that he’s fighting against the wicked; there’s no big gentile following him down a dark street. He’s not afraid for his life – he’s angry because he expected when he came home tonight that there should be a fleishige supper and his wife tells him the good news there’s fish tonight. Ooh, right away those glands begin to operate!
Now, it doesn’t mean he’s going to turn red or holler. Sometimes you have a meshugene husband who will do that too but I’m talking now about even healthy people. He’s not going to throw the dish on the floor; he might even say thank you. But still, he senses that his will was thwarted and because he takes his will seriously so his emotions and his physical reactions begin to operate.
Always Opposition
And it’s going to happen always, again and again, because there’s always opposition to your will. Sometimes it’s big opposition so it’s a bigger frustration. Sometimes it’s only the wrong supper so it’s less frustration.
Whatever it is, he’s always being opposed by circumstances. There’s no such thing as everything going smoothly. Maybe his wife asks him to do something and he thinks he’s too busy for that. Or he lost some money because of someone else’s carelessness. Maybe someone embarrassed him or he didn’t get a certain kavod that was coming his way. Whatever it is, there’s some opposition to his will; he’s dissatisfied with the circumstances that are confronting him and so he’s frustrated. Whatever it is, it’s kaas. Frustration is merely a coverup word; it’s a way of covering up your kaas with an English word.
Satisfaction Guaranteed
And so if anger is really dissatisfaction, it makes sense therefore that the opposite of anger is ratzon, satisfaction. It’s a chiddush of the Orchos Tzaddikim, a novel thing that we don’t find in other seforim but it makes a lot of sense: To learn to be satisfied with whatever circumstances come your way is a middah that the frum Jew has to work on in order to overcome kaas.
I’m not saying to be satisfied with wickedness, satisfied with sins that people do; but everyone has to learn to be satisfied with ‘injustices’ that are done to him. You have to be satisfied with insults that are offered to you, satisfied with slights.
You’re satisfied when you don’t get the honor that you would like to get. Not only you don’t complain; it doesn’t even bother you. You accept it b’ratzon. And – and this is the punchline of our whole talk – it’s all based on your understanding that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in control!
The Puppet Show
This world is under control; we are all puppets. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is standing behind the scenes and He’s pulling wires. Even when people do things to us, it’s not them. It’s Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He’s pulling the wire this way and that way, causing the puppets behavior to us.
And therefore we shouldn’t become so excited and flustered. It’s Hakadosh Baruch Hu at the wheel and you can be sure that He’s driving perfectly. You can be satisfied with whatever He does. Very satisfied.
Now, when a person has satisfaction, he is confident in the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu is conducting the world, so therefore he will not so easily fall a victim to kaas. He learns how to be satisfied with Hashem’s ways. He desires what Hashem does; he accepts what Hashem sends.
A Program for Life
Now this doesn’t mean a man shouldn’t try to better his conditions. Go all out! Do whatever is needed! But no matter what the result is, get into the habit of saying, צַדִּיק ה’ בְּכָל דְּרָכָיו – Hashem is righteous in all of His ways, וְחָסִיד בְּכָל מַעֲשָׂיו – and He’s kindly in all of His deeds.
I’m not saying it’s an easy program. I’m talking to myself too. It’s not easy but if you’re serious about it you’ll see results. And that possuk – צַדִּיק ה’ בְּכָל דְּרָכָיו וְחָסִיד בְּכָל מַעֲשָׂיו – if you keep on repeating it, it finally becomes your way in life. It ends up becoming an attitude of satisfaction, of ratzon, with everything.
It doesn’t mean you’ll do it right away: שֶׁבַע יִפּוֹל צַדִּיק וָקָם – Seven times a tzaddik falls but he stands up again (Mishlei 24:16). There’s a certain Rebbe, the Breslover and in one of his seforim he writes as follows. He writes this about himself. He says, “When I was younger, I tried to serve Hashem. I tried and fell, and sometimes I fell down not seven times; sometimes a hundred times I fell down. But each time I got up again and I tried again.” A hundred times he was nichshal. “But I got up,” he says, “and in the end, I remained standing!”
And that’s the career of all good people. They fall and they fall, but in the end, they are going to conquer. They get frustrated, angry, but they remind themselves, “It’s all Hakadosh Baruch Hu! צַדִּיק ה’ בְּכָל דְּרָכָיו וְחָסִיד בְּכָל מַעֲשָׂיו. Even if it bothers me, I’m telling myself that it shouldn’t bother me. And next time, it won’t bother me.” And at the end it will be קָם; at the end you will remain standing.
Kol Minei Gan Eden
Now, we have to know that the more a person practices this, the more he keeps getting up and saying again and again, ‘Hashem is right and just in all of His actions, and He’s kind in all of His ways;’ so he’s going to gain very many good things because of this in the Next World. Because just like in Gehenom there are various treatments for every kind of aveirah and bad middah, the same is in Gan Eden; there are all types of reward.
In the World to Come, a person is rewarded not in a general way, but he’s rewarded for each achievement in a specific way; each mitzvah, each achievement, is a specific kind of reward. The World to Come is composed of various colored gems, different kinds of pleasures, all delights, each one according to the type of deed he did in this world.
Now, because this middah of ratzon is the opposite of kaas, so you have to know that just like kaas brings in Gehenom a great many forms of treatment, so the middah of ratzon, being satisfied with what comes to you, will bring you a great many forms of compensation in Gan Eden; kol minei Gan Eden will be given to him.
There is no end to the good results that will come from this quality of accepting Hashem’s deeds with a heart full of trust in the ways of Hashem. A man who trains himself in that way he is becoming more and more perfect in character. Every time that he replaces the feeling of frustration, of anger, with accepting the Will of Hashem, he’s perfecting his character more and more. He becomes an ish emunah, an ish bitachon, an ish of menuchas hanefesh because he’s aware of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Big Mind, Big Rewards
And that attitude means that his mind is open now to great things. Because he lives with the attitude of , צַדִּיק ה’ בְּכָל דְּרָכָיו – Hashem is righteous in all of His ways, וְחָסִיד בְּכָל מַעֲשָׂיו – and He’s kindly in all of His deeds, he lives with this middah of trusting Hashem, and he’s not bothered by constant consternations and frustrations and therefore his mind is not small; it’s not fettered.
Instead his mind is big; it’s wide open to the great expanse of opportunities and he accomplishes many forms of avodas Hashem in this world. He’s capable of thinking in all of the great ideals that make a Torah Jew great. And so the person who overcomes the frustrations of life and becomes an ish ratzon instead of an ish kaas, he’s capable of achieving all the great accomplishments and attitudes of Torah living, and he achieves so much that on him we say, כָּל מִינֵי גַּן עֵדֶן שׁוֹלְטִין בּוֹ – every form of reward is waiting for him in Gan Eden!
Have a Wonderful Shabbos
This week’s booklet is based on tapes: 301 – Serene Mind | 333 – Satisfaction | 380 – Emunah and Patience | 447 – Anger, Middos and the Afterlife
Rav Miller’s tapes are the property of Yeshivah Gedolah Beis Yisroel and are available through its publishing arm, the Simchas Hachaim Foundation. SimchasHachaim.com | 845-275-3725
Let’s Get Practical
Acquiring Satisfaction
In our sedra, we learn about the grave sin of anger and how it incurs all forms of Gehinnom for the angry person. The opposite of being angry is accepting. When we learn to accept that everything in this world is Hashem’s doing, for our benefit, we go from all forms of Gehinnom to earning all forms of Gan Eden. This week I will bli neder take thirty seconds every morning to review this concept and reflect on how I can apply it in my life. At night, I will take another thirty seconds to review how I did during the day and whether I succeeded in applying this lesson or not.
Very Important!
Rav Volender, the Rov of the Jerusalem Prison, walked out of the prison entrance to see Tzadok “Hatzadik” walking towards him.
“Kavod Harav!” said Tzadok happily. “I have something very important to tell you!”
“Good morning, Tzadok,” Rav Volender said. “How nice to see you on this side of the prison fence. But what happened to your hat? It looks more lumpy than usual.”
“Ah, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about!” Tzadok said.
“You came to talk to me about your hat?” asked Rav Volender, confused.
“Yes!” exclaimed Tzadok excitedly. “Do you want to see a magic trick?”
“Um, I really have to get going,” answered Rav Volender.
“It will only take a second,” insisted Tzadok, carefully removing his hat. “Look!”
With a flourish of his hand, Tzadok reached into his hat and pulled out a very frightened-looking rabbit.
“Tada!” he said.
“Tzadok, I really must get going,” Rav Volender repeated.
“But Rebbe! I need to tell you all about my idea to come and do magic tricks to cheer up the prisoners!”
“That sounds like a nice idea, but we’ll have to discuss it a different time. I have some very important things I need to take care of today.”
“Oooh, important things are very important!” Tzadok said. “I would love to help you!”
Rav Volender looked at Tzadok for a moment before responding.
“You would like to help me?” he asked.
“Oh yes, Rebbe. I love doing important things!”
“Very well, Tzadok. Come with me.”
The two men headed down the street towards a makolet. They walked inside and Rav Volender bought a package of baby diapers, eggs, bread, and a few other items. Tzadok helped carry the bags as they then went to Rav Volender’s house and put the groceries away.
“Come, Tzadok, we’re going to be late,” Rav Volender said, as they headed back outside again.
Tzadok was getting more and more excited. What could be the important things that they were going to do?
A few minutes later they arrived at the post office. Rav Volender mailed a few letters, and off they went again.
The hours of the day passed, as Rav Volender learned with his chavrusa and performed various errands, but Tzadok was still waiting for the “very important things” Rav Volender had mentioned. Maybe he had a meeting with some high-level government officials soon?
After stopping at the bank, picking up Rav Volender’s son from gan, and picking up some prescriptions at the pharmacy, they hurried back to shul to daven Mincha.
After davening, Rav Volender sat down and learned with another chavrusa for an hour. When they left the shul, Tzadok finally said to Rav Volender: “Rebbe, when are we going to get to the exciting stuff?”
“What do you mean?” asked Rav Volender.
“You said we were going to do very important things. But all we’ve done is gone shopping, visited the bank, picked up your son, and other every-day activities. When are we going to get to what you said was so important?”
“I don’t understand,” Rav Volender said. “What we did today wasn’t important?”
“Well,” Tzadok stammered. “Of course it’s important to learn Torah, buy food and take your son home from nursery, but I was looking for action! I want to do exciting things – important things that make a difference!”
“Tzadok,” said Rav Volender. “Did you count sefirah last night?”
“Of course I did,” Tzadok said proudly. “I counted the whole sefirah!”
“The whole sefirah?” asked Rav Volender, alarmed.
“Yes! I always have trouble remembering which day it is so I count every day just in case.”
“Oy, Tzadok, you’re not supposed to do that. You should get a sefirah calendar. Or better yet, daven Maariv in shul so you hear what everyone else is counting.”
“Oh,” Tzadok said. “Maybe I’ll do that.”
“But anyway Tzadok, what are we counting? Sefiras Ha’omer is an important reminder that we need to take advantage of every day that Hashem gives us. Every day that goes by is filled with opportunities. Even if you don’t have something super exciting to do, as Yidden, every action we take is important – if we do them properly.”
“Properly?” asked Tzadok.
“Yes! A person can go to the post office or the bank and it can be a complete waste! But a Yid knows that every action he does is serving Hashem. We need to remember to think that with each thing we do, even the mundane things, we are serving Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And if a Yid does that, then there are no mundane things. Everything is important!”
“So you mean I shouldn’t do magic tricks for the prisoners?” asked Tzadok, reaching under his hat to pet his rabbit.
“Not at all,” said Rav Volender. “Cheering up sad Yidden can also be very important. But it’s not just the exciting things that are important. Every second of our life is an important opportunity to become great!”
Have a Wonderful Shabbos!
Let’s review:
- What did Tzadok think “important” meant?
- What makes every-day tasks so important?