Pushing Off the Wedding | Rabbi Meir Simcha Sperling

Shalom u’Bracha to the entire Vayimaen family. I want to share a fascinating idea that can give us tremendous Chizuk, in helping us overpower the Yetzer Hara. In the story of Rus, we find that Machlon and Kilyon sinned by marrying non-Jewish women. The Alshich points out that Kilyon, who was the younger brother, was completely forgotten, never to be mentioned again. And Machlon, on the other hand, who did the exact same Aveira, same thing, he was zoche not only to be remembered, but that the Malchus of Dovid HaMelech himself, where Moshiach comes from, came to be through his wife, Rus, and really through him, with the Ko’ach of Yibum. Now, if you think about this for a second, you should be wondering why did Machlon receive such a zchus, while Kilyon got nothing. What was the difference? They did the exact same Aveira. And the answer is a דבר נפלא, something so big, that only someone like the Alshich could say such a thing. He says that the Derech of the world is that the older sibling gets married before the younger one. So then it's strange that Kilyon got married before Machlon. He was younger. We see from here, says the Alshich, that although it's true that Machlon also gave in to his Yetzer Hara, he also failed, he also did the Aveira, originally he held himself back. He knew it was an Aveira, he knew he would be doing something wrong, and therefore he pushed it off. And in that time, the younger brother got married first. In other words, he wasn't עובר right away. He originally told his Yetzer Hara, The answer is no. Now it happens to be that when he saw his brother, who didn't wait, and he ended up marrying a non-Jewish woman, so he also ended up copying him and falling to his Yetzer Hara. Now there are many lessons to be learned from this, but there is one thing that's just huge, that I want to share, which is just so empowering and listen well. True, he fell. True, he failed. But he didn't fall right away. He didn't fail right away. He tried to push it off. And because he pushed it off just a little bit, it was through him that Dovid HaMelech, and eventually Moshiach, would come. Do you see the power of pushing something off? Forget about completely overcoming. Just holding back a little bit, look what he was zoche to. Imagine in our battle of Shmiras Einayim, day in and day out. One battle at a time. We look down. We click our clicker. Just think about what we could be zoche to. Who doesn't need Bracha in their lives? Who doesn't need more zchusim? We can gain so much by just getting in control. And we could all do this. You can do this. Rabosai, good luck out there.