Candy-Coated Diamonds | Mr. Charlie Harary

One of the greatest impediments to success is understanding your challenge. If you don't understand it, it's hard to overcome it. In life, one of our greatest challenges is תאוות, desires. You see, we don't really understand what they are, and we think unholy תאוות is an indication that we are unholy. And that brings its own level of disgust, of ייאוש. But what is תאווה? I want to share with you an insight that changed my life, from a Rav named Rav Itche Meir Morgenstern, in his Sefer בים דרכך. But let me give you an example. Years ago, I read about this drug cartel that was evading the authorities. They didn't know how they had so much money. They blocked every bank account, they watched everything about these guys, but somehow they were so wealthy, they were able to corner the market in drugs. Until they realized what they were doing was they were offering peasant farmers the ability to cross the border, but they weren't feeding them and they got super hungry. And on the vans they would pass out these candies, that these farmers would take and they would eat. They'd cross the border and they'd all get sick, and they’d bring them to these facilities and heal some, some died, and send them on their way. And the authorities realized what they were doing was they were taking diamonds and they were congealing a candy shell around it. And these farmers in their hunger would consume as many as they could, cross the border and got sick from them. And they extracted these diamonds and took them. And that's how they were able to maintain their activities. Rav Itche Meir Morgenstern says, You want to know what תאווה is? Everything in this world is sustained by Divine sparks, ניצוצות. A bit of Hashem, a bit of אור. Everything. Sometimes you can access the אור through positivity, called Mitzvos, but sometimes Hashem puts the אור in a candy shell, in something that is illicit, something that's forbidden. The reason why you want that isn't for the candy, it isn't for the תאווה. You want it because your Neshama wants that ניצוץ, it wants that spiritual pleasure. And so you're drawn towards that thing. But when your eyes see it, when your heart sees it, it says, I know why I want it for. I want the shell, I want the candy. And for so many people, they go for the shell and eat the shell getting spiritually sick. But some people get it. They go: What's the Yetzer Hara giving me all these תאוות? You know what they do? Look at the shell and go: I'm not going for the shell. And by not going for the shell, you know what they do? They unlock it. They unlock the outside, the קליפה, and they release the spark, getting much more pleasure than they ever could have gotten from the outside shell. When you overcome it, You get that spark, and you get deeper pleasure. When you feel תאווה, don't think: I'm unholy. Think: Hashem is going to give me a ניצוץ, a spark. I'm about to be satisfied spiritually. And all I got to do is not take the candy. All I got to do is go for the diamond. Can you imagine if one farmer would have taken a whole bucket of those candies, stuck it in his pocket? He'd been a millionaire. And every day, Hashem says: I'm sending you candies left and right. Don't take them. Resist. And you will get much more than diamonds.