A Gettable Object | Rabbi Yisroel Besser

One of the most well known, one of the most famous generals in US military history is General Grant, Ulysses S. Grant. And he was famous not only for his military success, but also for his military strategy, and was predicated on a single concept. His idea, his technique was, In every war, he said, there’s a Gettable Object. You could look at a map and you could see the tower, and you could see the land, and you could say: How am I ever going to conquer that? This is way too big. He says: But there's always a Gettable Object. Maybe I could blow up a train station. Maybe I could take over a weapons depot. Maybe there's just an area of a few tents that I can attack. Take the Gettable Object. It doesn't have to be a big one. As long as it's a win, as long as you got something, then you're successful. That was General Grant's idea. Really this is a pasuk. Because at the most famous and dramatic fight in history, Yaakov and the Angel of Eisav wrestling, the Torah tells us: Who's the winner of that fight? Yaakov. Why? His name was changed to Yisroel. For you have wrestled with God and with men, and you prevailed, and you won. Now, really? If you look in the Torah and you look in Rashi, it seems the opposite. The angel went off to sing praise, the angel of Eisav, that seems like a win to me. And Yaakov walked away, limping, limping on his thigh. So where do you see the win? If you understand the idea of a Gettable Object, then you understand what it means to win. The Chovos Halevavos says in Shaar Yichud Hamaaseh, that the Yetzer Hara tries to get you, and if he sees he can't win, he gets you even over the smallest of things, on the smallest thing in the world. He'll get you on the littlest thing in the world. Now, what does he gain? What does the Yetzer Hara gain from getting you to do? Let’s say, he wanted you to look at something. You decided not to look at something. So you won. He's going to get you to do something, maybe on the next corner. Normally, you take off your glasses. Now you won't. Okay, he won that. Even if you're not going to look, what does he gain? So I heard from my Rebbi, he said that the idea is, It's not that the Yetzer Hara needs you to do a sin. He just wants you to look at yourself with a little less respect. If he can get you to change your own self-perception, as somebody who is not such a big winner, then that's already a win. So even the smallest thing he gets you to do, is already enough for that. The Yetzer Hara understands the Gettable Object. But so do we. We’re the children of Yaakov Avinu, Yaakov Avinu looked at the angel of Eisav, and the angel said, Let me go, for the dawn has broken. I need to go. And Yaakov said: I'm not letting you go. So he said: I have to go sing praise. Yaakov said: Okay, when you give me a blessing, then you'll go. Yaakov said: The Gettable Object right here, is the blessing. I'm going to win. I'm going to leave this encounter getting a blessing for my children, because that's the only thing that counts. The only thing here is the future. You know who's the winner? The one who got something. Yaakov got something. We’re the children of Yaakov. As long as we're getting, that means maybe you're going on a trip that's five hours, now maybe there's going to be challenges in Shmiras Einayim or Lashon Hara or in a million other things the entire way. But take it five minutes at a time. You can do five minutes? Go for one block without your glasses. That's something you could do? Close your eyes at that intersection. That's something you could do? Win the Gettable Objects like General Grant did, and you’ll be a winner.