Vayera: “Vayelech Ito Lot”: Growth Through Challenges of the Yetzer HaRa at Every Stage

I want to share ein kurtz Midrash Hanelam in last week's parshah on the pasuk of וילך אברם כאשר דבר אליו ה' וילך אתו לוט. The Me'or Einayim says it says in the Midrash Hanelam that וילך אתו לוט זה היצר הרע. Dehainu that in addition to the pasuk describing an actual historical event that Avraham Avinu and his nephew Lot departed and set out for Eretz Yisrael, there's a second meaning to the pasuk as well that no matter where a person goes in life, no matter how much of a tzaddik he becomes, no matter what ma'alos and madreigos he attains, vayelech ito Lot. The yetzer hara accompanies a person. A person doesn't leave the yetzer hara behind in the dust. Not only that, but as you know Chazal tell us that כל הגדול מחברו יצרו גדול הימנו. Not only can a person, does a person not free himself of the yetzer hara, but as the person grows in stature, spiritual stature, so too the yetzer hara grows. To mention one more ma'amar Chazal before we try to process it a little bit, bezrat Hashem, that יצרו של אדם מתגבר עליו or מתחדש עליו בכל יום ומבקש המיתו. The yetzer hara doesn't become stale. There's always something fresh about the alternative represented by the yetzer hara. So how do we understand this? Again, what the Midrash Hanelam really means is I have no hasagah, but what does it mean to us? Hakadosh Baruch Hu wills that a person attain through the exercise of his bechirah hofshis that a person in some small measure earn the sachar that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives. That he should in some small measure through his own effort attain madreigos. And that's a yesod of all of life. Every accomplishment has to result from the exercise of bechirah. By definition, so bechirah means that there's an alternative. If there are no alternatives, then there's no choice. And every madreigah, that's true for every madreigah. Not just to go from ground level to the first rung, not just to go from the first rung to the second, from the second to the third, and that's why וילך אברם כאשר דבר אליו ה' a person can be doing everything right. And and it still needs to be the case that Vayelech Ito Lot that that Lot personifying the Yetzer Hara accompanies him. What's more as a person grows in in stature as he's moving towards bigger accomplishments higher madregos so then the competition has to keep up so that the bechira is real. Now there are at least two very important implications of of understanding that this is how the Ribono Shel Olam has structured our lives. Well the first is is attitudinal. It's a question of attitude. Kimedume that that often when we encounter difficulty or adversity so we view it as something which is interfering something which is disrupting and because of that our natural tendency is to be frustrated aggravated angered and and that range of emotional reactions. But be-emes is that the bumps in the road are supposed to be there. It's part of the fabric of life. It's part of the fabric of life because if everything were easy it wouldn't really involve exercising bechira and that's the yesod of life. As as the Chayei Adam writes in Tefilla Zaka that a person through tuv bechirosou should should attain madregos that a person through tuv bechirosou should be oveid Hashem that a person in some small measure through tuv bechirosou should should earn the the reward that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is is poised to give. So our attitude is should be that again it's part of the fabric of life and and instead of being something which again we look at as a alien interference or disruption those are our growth opportunities. Additionally understanding this yesod means that we should always be ready and expecting to encounter challenges and and that's crucial and and maybe maybe we can understand it with a very simple mashal. Let's say it's winter weather sub-freezing temperatures and someone tells you that you know the steps going out of your house there's ice. So be careful when when you're walking down the steps. Okay the the ba'al habayis is only being cautioned about the steps of his house so וכל היכא דאתה שומע לאו the impression klali is no once you get out to the sidewalk so then there's not. Convenient ice there. So he walks very carefully down the steps and takeh the there are patches of ice, but since he's expecting to have to navigate that challenge, so he's he's equal to the task. When he gets out to the sidewalk, so there he's not expecting any ice. So he's no longer on guard. There is ice, so he slips and he falls. Often the difference between successfully meeting a challenge or rachmana litzlan being nichshal is whether a person is expecting the challenge. And even if it even if the expectation can't be for the challenge behei hayediah, knowing exactly what the challenge is going to be, what form and shape it's going to take, but a person is expecting to be challenged. If when he had left the house, he would have been given to understand that it's not only the few steps out of his house that that are icy, but no, throughout the throughout the city streets and sidewalks, there are there are patches and and sheets of ice, so then itachen meod that the person wouldn't have stepped and and he wouldn't have fallen. So life is constantly abounding with challenges because of this yesod of וילך אברם כאשר דבר אליו השם וילך אתו לוט. Itachen l'chora this is certainly reflected in the in the meimar chazal אל תאמין בעצמך עד יום מותך. But also in in another meimar chazal that לעולם ירגיז אדם יצר הטוב על יצר הרע. So emes is you have the meimar chazal l'chora provokes a question similar to you have the same quote problem unquote in another meimar chazal

לעולם יעסוק אדם בתורה ומצוות שלא לשמה שמתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה.

What do you mean l'olam? That should be a temporary stage if מתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה, it's not l'olam. So whatever the teretz is in that context, the same question arises here. לעולם ירגיז אדם יצר הטוב על יצר הרע, a person always has to be agitating, stirring up the yetzer hatov to to overcome the yetzer hara. No, at the beginning, but then a person should should be able to move beyond that. So the answer is it's not going to be the same yetzer hara. כל הגדול מחברו יצרו גדול הימנו doesn't mean that people who are gedolim have the same very earthy crude yetzer haras that we have. That doesn't mean that. Whatever the yetzer hara is there, they're they're very different. But the yetzer hara is there. It metamorphoses, it it keeps up with it keeps up with a person's accomplishments, it keeps up with a person's a person's growth and adapts accordingly. And that's what chazal takeh it's takeh l'olam. It's takeh l'olam. The Ramban in this week's sedra says based on on one of two approaches in the midrash that the pshat in nisayon is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives a nisayon להוציא מן הכוח אל הפועל to to give the person the opportunity to realize his potential. That a person rises to to a challenge, that's the way he actualizes potential. And sometimes a person needs that that extraordinary challenge to fully realize his potential, even Avraham Avinu, as much as he realized on his own. Hakadosh Baruch Hu saw that he'd be able to realize even more with nisyonos. So the Ramban is talking about extraordinary nisyonos, and those nisyonos are reserved for tzaddikim whom Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows will pass with flying colors. But ordinary nisyonos constitute for all of us the fabric of life, because it's through the nisyonos that a person has the opportunity to exercise his bechirah. And the more we're attuned to that reality of the life, the more we react appropriately to the opportunity of a challenge as opposed to the interference of a challenge, and the more we're positioned and equipped to meet that challenge and make the most of it.