“You may be asleep, but the yetzer hara is always on the alert.”
RABBEINU BACHYA IN DUTIES OF THE HEART
In November, I took part in what is called a “white elephant gift exchange” at my workplace. The concept is this: Each participant buys and wraps a gift that is within a specified price range. At the time of the gathering, all the gifts are put in the center. All participants draw a number, and that determines the order of play. Participant number one selects a gift from the pile and opens it so all can see. Participant number two then has the option of taking number one’s gift, or of selecting a wrapped gift from the pile. Each subsequent participant can take any of the previously unwrapped gifts or take a wrapped gift. The person from whom a gift is “stolen” has the option of choosing a gift in someone else’s possession or of choosing a new wrapped gift. This process continues until the final gift selection is made.
My number was in the middle. On my turn, I picked a wrapped gift, which contained a bottle of coconutflavored vodka and two cocktail glasses. I was only participating for group spirit, figured no one would claim this, and decided I would give this away to someone else at work later. Surprisingly, someone did claim it. I decided to choose another wrapped gift, and to my amazement got a basket with a selection of Godiva chocolates, all OU or OU D. And no one took this from me. So here I am, keeping my house almost chocolate-free, and then getting chocolate “out of nowhere” – another example of the stunning ability of my yetzer hara to set a trap. Where there is a possible chance to introduce temptation or capitalize on a susceptible moment, due to fatigue or frustration, the yetzer hara is there. It does not sleep. (For the record, I ate only some of them and gave the rest away.)
When Hashem rebukes Cain (Bereishis 4:7), He says “Lapesach chataas rovetz…,” popularly translated by Rav Aryeh Kaplan and others as “Sin crouches at the door.” This translation conjures up an image of a figure ready to pounce as soon as an opportunity presents itself. And this is often the way the temptation to overeat or do other actions seems to operate. One can be in very good control, then start talking on the phone and “unconsciously” start eating; the oversight has weakened for a moment, and the yetzer hara swoops in.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch disagrees with this translation, however. The word rovetz generally means an animal that is resting in a relaxed mode, not an animal ready to spring. Rav Hirsch’s translation is “Sin rests before the door.” (Similarly, the ArtScroll Stone Chumash has “Sin rests at the door.”) As Rav Hirsch says, “G-d has given sensuality an appeal to your senses, not that it should master and direct you but that you should master and direct it, not that you should suppress or kill it, but timshol, regulate it, rule over it, and direct it.”
In other words, the urges of our senses are constant companions, and our goal is not to destroy them as we would an occasional intruder, but rather to coexist with them, oversee them, and utilize them appropriately and to our benefit. This is not an easy task. Sometimes it seems easier just to deny the urge.
One of my sons, aware of my food struggles, once asked me why I don’t just think of not eating at night as though it were Yom Kippur or another fast, when I have no trouble controlling myself. An absolute rejection of a physical urge is easier, in the short term, than is coexisting with the urge and modulating our response to it. But Judaism does not believe in asceticism and deprivation. The urges are part of us, waiting for us to regulate them. Living constantly with this need for regulation can sometimes be a more difficult task than just worrying about episodic “pouncing” of the yetzer hara. But this is what it means to live in this world.
Rabbi Tarfon’s aphorism in Pirkei Avos, “The work is not yours to finish, but you may not desist from it,” appropriately describes what our relationship with urges must be. (See discussion in the article “The Repeating Decimal” in this series.) It is an ongoing awareness that our urges accompany us and that our task is not to deny them but to use them for positive ends.â—†
Janet Sunness is medical director of the Richard E. Hoover Low Vision Rehabilitation Services at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center. Please email her at jsunness@gmail.com to provide feedback on this series. Her Sunday 8 p.m. class at Shomrei Emunah for women is currently studying the Shemoneh Esreh in Rav Schwab on Prayer. © Janet Sunness 2012
