Fighting is Living | Rabbi Uren Reich

Very often, when a person feels an ongoing battle from the Yetzer Hara, a relentless struggle, he sometimes feels so weary from the struggle, that he says: Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I wish you would take this Yetzer Hara away from me, and I would be a person who doesn't have to battle every day with this Yetzer Hara. I want to share with you, Rabosai, a very interesting Gemara in Erchin 32. We all know that the Gemara says that the Yetzer Hara of Avoda Zara, which is unfathomable to us, was incredibly powerful. In fact, in Sefer Devarim this is כמעט the main bulk of what Moshe Rabeinu talks about, is the draw of Yetzer Hara, when Yidden come to Eretz Yisroel. And what happened? At the beginning of Bais Sheni, Ezra, the אנשי כנסת הגדולה, they broke the Yetzer Hara of Avoda Zara, and the Gemara says, based on a Pasuk in Nechemya, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is upset with Yehoshua, that hundreds of years earlier, when he came into Eretz Yisroel, and he could have broken the Yetzer Hara, he didn't do so. Why didn't he do so? Yehoshua felt, if I take away the Yetzer Hara of Avoda Zara, people will not become greater, they’ll become smaller. The Chazon Ish says such telling words, נטל היצר הוא נטל החיים. A person who is bereft of a Yetzer Hara, is bereft of life, because without the Yetzer Hara to overcome, to just be a zombie who does without any temptation, to be a spiritual robot, for that, we could be a מלאך בשמי שמים. It's overcoming the Yetzer Hara that makes us greater. Yehoshua said it's worth having the temptation of Avoda Zara so that Klal Yisroel, if they overcome it, will become greater. I don't want to take away this opportunity for growth. The Gemara says, It was a miscalculation, because it was an overwhelming Yetzer Hara that they couldn't deal with. But for us, the growth that we can come to if we struggle. And as much as we're successful, and as many times as we're successful, we're growing in ways that we can't even fathom. And Hashem Yisborach should give us the strength to realize how much we gain and how much we profit by מלחמת היצר.