Speaking of Yirat Shamayim
I was once asked to speak before an assemblage of high-class people. These were Jews of the upper crust, loaded with money and property, but devoid of anything spiritual. Only fleeting pleasures interested them and stood at the forefront of their consciousness. After I ended my talk, I wanted to find out if I had made any impression on my listeners. I turned to them individually and asked their opinions about what I had said.
Many stated that my words really spoke to them. Some said that my thoughts on child education impressed them. They averred that education stands at the core of the family. Without sound education, the whole family simply falls apart. Others said they liked other parts of my talk. We continued in this manner for some time.
But there sat a group of listeners who seemed not to have understood my speech at all. This surprised me greatly. Here was a group of seasoned, intelligent businessmen. My divrei Torah were delivered in the spoken language and were customized to their style. But they walked out no different from when they had entered.
What brought them to come and hear my words? They knew in advance that my speech would be on the topic of Judaism and our relationship to G-d. If they had no intention of becoming inspired, why did they attend?
This was the work of the Satan himself. When the Yetzer Hara wants to influence someone to do something wrong, he does not come outright and say, “Let’s transgress this sin.” This will never get a person to sin. The Yetzer Hara is more cunning than that. At first, he convinces a person to listen to a Torah shiur. But he makes sure to go along with him. Throughout the speech, he plants doubts in the person’s mind and twists the words which are being said. The man goes to the lecture hall, but does not derive anything from it.
When a person attends a shiur pushed by the Yetzer Hara, who causes him to go merely out of curiosity and not a desire to become strengthened in mitzvot, he is likely to fall prey to the Yetzer Hara and gain nothing from the shiur. But when a person goes to a shiur in order to hear the word of Hashem, the zechut of the inspiration stands by him to protect him from the machinations of his Inclination.
By the power of “Na’aseh v’nishma” which Bnei Yisrael proclaimed before Matan Torah, a Jew is capable of overcoming his Yetzer Hara and reinforcing his Torah and mitzvah observance.
