Who Wins? | Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

Rav Yisroel Meir Lau told a story about the Talmid, whose Rebbe and the Rebbe’s entire family were murdered in the Holocaust. After the war, the Talmid found out that one of the Rebbe’s daughters had actually survived, but she had turned her back completely on Yiddishkeit. So much so, that she’d enrolled her son in a Catholic school. The Talmid tried to contact the Rebbe’s daughter. She refused to have anything to do with him. She wouldn't speak to him on the phone, nothing. So he flew down to Belgium where she lived. He knocked on the door repeatedly, but she wouldn't open the door. He kept on knocking. Finally she opened the door and said, Go away. I know why you came. I don't want anything to do with you people. I have a new life. I'm not interested. Go away. The Talmid said: Please, just give me some water. I've come so far. She gave him a glass of water. And he started to make a Bracha out loud. ברוך אתה... She screamed: You know what they did to him? You know what they did to your Rebbe? He was wearing his Tallis and Tefillin, and they pulled the Tefillin off his head and they used it to whip him. They smashed his skull with his Tefillin. He was rolling on the floor in his blood. That was the last time I saw your Rebbe, my father. I don't want anything to do with you people. Go away. Okay. I'll leave, he said. But I have one question for you. Who wins? If you put Tefillin on your son, then you won. If you don't put Tefillin on your son and you raise him as a non-Jew, then Hitler won. So many times the Yetzer Hara tricks us. He fools us. He makes us look at something inappropriate, and we think to ourselves, That's it. We lost. No, no, no. Round one is the Yetzer Hara tricking us. Now we have to ask ourselves, Who wins? If we look again, then the Yetzer Hara won. But if we control ourselves, then we won. The first time is the trick. The second time is the battle.