Child Insurance

Translated from Rabbi Arush’s feature article in the weekly Chut shel Chessed newsletter. The articles focus on his main message: “Loving others as yourself” and emuna.  

This Is Not a Question — It Is the Proof 

Once, when I was a young married man, I happened to speak to an older rabbi who was almost eighty years old, and he confessed to me openly that he has great nisyonot (challenges) in the realm of kedushah (personal holiness). In the course of his work he has to meet with women; this is  very difficult for him to tolerate and it awakens within him much yetzer hara (evil inclination) and unclean thoughts. 

Back then, already, I said to myself: “Look at this! An eighty-year-old man. A Torah scholar. And yet, he cannot control his thoughts when it comes to looking at a woman. If you don’t work on yourself, there is no hope. You must work on yourself and be clean!” 

Unfortunately, we sometimes hear in the media about rabbis who flounder when faced with various matters of kedushah. Of course, those media stations are not trustworthy. It is clear that their goal is to slander rabbis and to distance people from Torah and Judaism. It is forbidden to believe them. But sometimes there are such cases, and many raise the question: “How can that be? He’s a renowned rabbi!” 

But anyone who read last week’s article knows the answer to this question.  Last week, we wrote that there are bad inclinations that arise in everyone, with no exception. And our holy sages state unequivocally that a person cannot cope with them on his own, because the yetzer hara is stronger than him, and the only thing that can save him is the Holy One, Blessed be He Himself. In other words: a person must pray to Hashem for help.  

The yetzer hara affects everyone, young and old, and, on the contrary – “One who is bigger than his fellow, his yetzer is bigger than his”¹. Therefore, the fact that rabbis disappoint us does not pose a question about the Torah. On the contrary, it strengthens us, because this is precisely what the Torah says as it guides us – that everyone is in danger, with no exceptions. Therefore, everyone – male and female – must learn from this that no one is exempt from daily efforts in the matters of kedushah. 

Every Day 

And “daily efforts” means to have a daily prayer time, preferably half an hour every day. 

And as we wrote last week, it is not enough that you prayed yesterday or all of last year, because the yetzer hara renews itself every day. So too, we must renew our prayers against it. There is no other way, as we learned: “If the Holy One, Blessed be He, doesn’t help him, he will not be able to win.”²  There is no other way! 

A person must be aware of his weaknesses and know that if he doesn’t pray to Hashem to help him, he  will be in great danger – an existential danger! 

This idea is appropriate for the mitzvah of Sefirat HaOmer, in which we count the days that pass. We also read about this mitzvah in this week’s parasha, Emor.   

According to the prayer said after counting, the main point of the mitzvah is to sanctify ourselves and cleanse ourselves from all our tumas (impurities). The message of the counting is thus:  The halacha states that the counting must be done every day, and if one misses one day it’s already a problem. So too, anyone who wishes to become holy and pure, must decide that his life’s goal is to be saved from the main tumah, which is the yetzer hara for arayot (forbidden relations), as we brought last week in the name of the holy Zohar.  

Therefore, we are all obligated to work on this daily, pray devoutly day after day without missing a single one. And, as we wrote in the book Ohr Chadash (in English: A New Light): Put efforts into  developing our ratzon (will). 

Fantasizing About Imaginary Things 

According to this, we will explain the beginning of the parasha, which deals with the Cohanim being forbidden to expose themselves to tumat hamet – to be in proximity to a dead body. Tumat met is the most severe form of tumah, and Rabbeinu Hakadosh explains in Likutei Moharan that it expresses itself in adulterous thoughts: “Adulterous thoughts that have the aspect of avi avot hatuma (progenitor of a primary source of tumah) – like a dead body.”³ 

What is the connection between becoming tameh with tumat met and becoming tameh with adulterous thoughts? The dead person himself certainly doesn’t awaken such thoughts. If anything, we would say the opposite: when a person sees the end of life, he is awakened to feel merciful towards himself and distance himself from the folly of adultery. So what is the connection? 

There is a very, very deep message here. All our battles in this world are between life and death. And the yetzer hara and all one’s base urges are built on a person lacking vitality, being something of a “walking dead person.” The battle between the yetzer hatov and the yetzer hara is about where a person will receive his vitality. Will he receive the real vitality of kedushah, which is the Torah, the Torah of life, prayers (“prayer to the G-d of my life”⁴), and emuna (“the righteous man lives on by his faith”⁵)? Or, will he receive the false and imaginary vitality of tumah, which is really death impersonating pleasure and life? 

The height of this false vitality is adulterous thoughts, which are actually fantasies, because the urge itself is in one’s imagination and is false vitality. The thoughts are just simple fantasies, as when one imagines some unreal thing. And the thoughts show that the person is so dead and so lacking in life, that he is trying to get some vitality from imaginary thoughts that kill and murder his neshama (soul). 

That is how I have always explained the Torah commandment of “Choose life”⁶. Is there anyone who would knowingly choose death? But this world misleads us. Sometimes death looks like life and life looks like death. Hashem yitbarach tells us to examine well what is real life and what only looks like life but really is sucking the vitality out of a person. 

What Should One Do? 

So, first of all, the main advice for this situation is as we wrote already: to pray about it every day and to enhance one’s vitality coming from kedushah, Torah, prayer, faith, praising Hashem, joy, mitzvah observance, etc. We have already written about this at length in many places. 

But from our parasha, one can glean an amazing idea that is alluded to in one of the  verses.  The parasha begins with the pasuk: “Hashem said to Moshe, “Speak to the priests, Aharon’s sons. Say: No one of you shall render himself impure for any dead person among his people…”⁷ Rashi says about this: “To warn the adults regarding the children.” According to what we discussed here, that the main warning not to be in close proximity to a dead person is that one should be pure in the matters of  kedushah and mainly in matters of adulterous thoughts; to guard one’s eyes and maintain  tzniut (modesty). What’s the connection between that and children? How does one warn children? 

One can say, in the way of remez (hint), that what influences children most is the parents’  kedushah! There are no mistakes in this world! When you increase kedushah, it will be expressed in your children! If you pray for kedushah and tzniut, you will see both in your children! And if, chalila, the opposite is true – then you will see the opposite! 

Why is this a big piece of advice? Because when you withstand the nisayon of looking versus not looking, think about your children: Is the momentary fantasy worth losing eternal nachat? And it is very possible that your overcoming the temptation right now will protect them from bad friends and from all kinds of bad things that our generation produces. 

It is the same in the matter of tzniut in women, as we have spoken of at length in previous articles. So many sources show the direct connection between a woman’s modesty and the spiritual success of her children. True, you have a yetzer hara to attract attention, but is it worth the great loss? Won’t you be much happier when the Holy One, Blessed be He, will see how you maintain the boundaries of the halachot of tzniut and will protect your children from all sorts of harm, both material and spiritual? 

And even if you are not married – it will still influence the children you will have in the future! 

And we all know the danger we are in ourselves in this generation with all the temptations, so what will our young children, who don’t have enough resolve to cope, do? What will give them strength? 

And the answer is: Your working on maintaining kedusha! Your daily prayer! Your calling out to Hashem: “Abba, help me!” Your life, your shalom bayit, your children’s success in life – everything depends upon this.  

Dear Jews, there is nothing sweeter than a life of holiness. There is no one freer than he who is free of base desires and evil thoughts. Let’s go and ask Hashem daily to help us, and we will save our lives and the lives of our children!

Editor’s Notes: 

¹ Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sukkah:52a 

² Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Kiddushin:30b  

³ Likutei Moharan Part I, Torah 242 

⁴ Tehillim (Psalms) 42:9 

⁵ Habakkuk 2:4 

⁶ Devarim (Deuteronomy) 30:19 

⁷ Vayikra (Leviticus) 21:1