Q:
How do you overcome atzlus and bushah?
A:
Bushah, don’t overcome. Bushah is a gift. If you’re a bashful fellow, be happy. You don’t realize how many good things happen because you’re bashful.
And don’t worry about it. Someday when you’ll be a rosh yeshiva, when you’ll want to say a shiur, don’t worry. It’ll be your last worry then. You won’t be bashful at all.
Atzlus however is a big problem; laziness. And in order to overcome laziness, my rebbe once told in a shmuess – I heard this about almost sixty years ago – he says to succeed in learning, it’s like pulling a heavy wagon up a hill. Learning is not easy. You have to pull a heavy wagon up the hill. But suppose you see a team of horses pulling a heavy wagon anyhow, so attach your wagon to their wagon. Let the horses pull your wagon too.
What are the horses? The horses is the yetzer hara. Harness the yetzer hara, the ambition to become somebody. Shelo lishma! לעולם יעסק אדם בתורה ובמצוות שלא לשמה – learn Torah shelo lishmah (Pesachim 50a); learn because you want to become famous or you want to become a lamdan in your congregation; people will honor you because you’re a Torah scholar.
Is that good? On the contrary, it’s not a very good thing to do. אל תעשה קרדם לחפר בה – Don’t make the Torah a pickaxe to dig with it for the sake of finding glory (Avos 4:5).
Never mind that. First of all, we have to overcome that great battle against laziness, and that battle is such a serious battle that we have to harness all the horses we can; the horses of ambition.
So try to become a big lamdan. Say, “I’m going to get married someday and I want a good shidduch. Maybe my kallah’s father will give me a lot of money if I’ll be a big lamdan. Maybe I’ll get a good job. Maybe I’ll be famous in the world.”
Is that a decent way? That’s not a decent way to think. Never mind about decency. Right now you have to overcome a bigger yetzer hara. Laziness is the worst thing in life. The worst thing is laziness. So after you become a big lamdan, then you start worrying about the yetzer hara of ambition shelo lishmah. So the first thing is to engender within yourself a burning ambition to become somebody.
(May 1989)
