9.1.08

thirty years to power

Today, the second of the month of Shvat is the 208th* hilullah/yahrtzeit of Rebbe Zusha of Anapoli, and (on a more personal note) the 30th anniversary of the day of my brith milah. (According to the mekubalim of Bet El, the anniversary of the brith milah is celebrated instead of the day of the birth) My wife went to great efforts to throw a wonderful party and my sister spoke beautifully from the Sfat Emeth about the aliyah upon which I was born. (shlishi parashath va'era)

On this special occassion I wanted to share some Torah that would inspire my friends my family and myself to serve HaShem with renewed vigor. The Torah that came to me is as follows:

We think that serving HaShem and performing the mitzwoth, learning Torah, praying authentic Tefillah and giving Tzedaka are things that are almost impossible to attain. We believe the hardest thing in the world is to overcome our Yetzer Hara, our evil urge, and to do good. It isn't so. Serving HaShem is the most natural, easiest, and most rewarding thing in the world. Going against the Will of HaShem, going against his decrees, that is truly impossible. How do we know? It says in Masechet Sotah 3a: אין אדם עובר עבירה אלא אם כן נכנס בו רוח שטות - a person could not transgress [HaShem's Mitzwoth] except that a spirit of folly enters him. From this we learn that it is literally impossible for a person to go against the Will of the Master of the world. The only way it could possibly happen is if an external (divine) force enters a person and causes him to sin.

From this we can learn that when it seems like we couldn't possibly perform HaShem's Will, keep the mitzwoth and be involved in the Torah, we can take comfort in the certain knowledge that since we have transgressed the mitzwoth in our lives, we have evidence that the impossible is within our grasp.

Instead of our sins being a source of difficulty and discouragement, they can be a fountain of strength, if we know we did them, then we can know with absolute certainty that we can and will succeed in the performance of HaShem's mitzwoth. Certainly we will succeed, HaShem Himself, our father, Abba, wants our success.

* note that the 208th yahrtzeit is special to me as the name yitzhak also has gematria 208

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