Additional material follows the article. As always, please share outside one's echo chamber. We need to reach more people. Chananya
Part one is available here. Part two is available here.
5) The path of least resistance is most likely the wrong path.
Rav Yisrael Isser of Ponovezh, a student of Rav Chaim of Volozhin, shared the following insight in Sefer Menucha U'Kedusha, in his introduction to the second gate of Torah:
הא לך מבחן ברור, אם אתה מתחיל חומרא חדשה בלא עצלות ובלא קנטור היצר, דע שהיא איננה טהורה
Here is a clear test: if you begin a new stringency [that you took upon yourself] without laziness and without resistance of the nature [the evil inclination], know that it is impure.
If that mitzvah you want to take upon yourself, that good deed you wish to perform, is coming too easily, that's the clearest sign that something is seriously wrong. You're being fooled or fooling yourself, and that's why the yetzer hara isn't trying to stop you. It's a trap.
(He adds that even if one struggles several times with his resolution, he should still be wary that there is impurity mixed with his good intentions. The yetzer hara is very subtle.)
This is precious mussar on the personal level, but the same is true on the societal level. Behaviors born of hype, hysteria, social fads, propaganda campaigns, and intense peer pressure are rarely for our personal benefit, let alone spiritually healthy — even when they come cloaked as religious imperatives.
It wasn't long ago that the societal trend was to throw people out of shul, expel children from yeshiva, publicly shame neighbors, report them to police, and otherwise treat them like genocidal terrorists for refusing to obstruct their breathing and take “safe and effective” poison shots. Only the most intellectually dishonest people still cling to the self-serving fantasy that this was justified.
Very few people have had the integrity and class to apologize for such abusive behavior based on such specious grounds, against friends and relatives who proved to be prescient and most responsible, and even braved abuse to try to warn them.
The vast majority of people who still carry these grievous sins refuse to take any responsibility for their wrongdoing. At most they will acknowledge that they were duped, or that they made the best decision with the information that was available to them at the time. If they have learned any lessons from their mistakes, it is hard to see it.
There can be no repentance without acknowledgement, remorse, amends to those who were harmed, and a sincere commitment not to repeat the sin in the future.
A vital component of not repeating the sin in the future is recognizing what led one to commit the sin in the first place. There are many factors at play in the example cited, many character flaws and shortcomings that would make one especially susceptible to failing this test. But there is one principle that would have served as a powerful bulwark:
If that presumed mitzvah you think you are performing by treating your family, friends, neighbors, and random strangers with extreme hostility and abuse is coming far more easily than one would expect from someone who is generally kind, Torah-observant, and God-fearing – beware! It's a trap.
If you were really performing a mitzvah, let alone a supreme mitzvah of saving grandma, your community, and the whole world from sickness and death, the yetzer hara would be doing everything possible to make it difficult for you.
If it were really a mitzvah to ostracize these people and ruin their lives, you would be filled with all kinds of excuses to refrain, including doubt, false modesty, and an overwhelming desire to accommodate them.
It wouldn't be quite so easy.
It wouldn't give you such a satisfying rush of moral superiority as you devastate and destroy people who made well-intentioned medical decisions against the hype and pressure, knowing the price they would pay – decisions you would never have the courage to make.
If it were really such a big mitzvah to turn against your neighbor for all the other reasons the Erev Rav and Amalek – your government, media, and their dutiful social influencers – come up with on a regular basis, it wouldn't be so easy. It wouldn't be so tempting.
It would be incredibly difficult – like all truly pure behavior really is, at least for a while. Being good is hard. Doing extremely good things is extremely hard. If your nature is not putting up any resistance, it's a trap.
If we keep this principle firmly in mind, staying attuned to what our nature makes difficult for us and what it allows us to do without resistance, we will be protected from many evil traps.
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From the most trusted source of mockingbird information.
On that note:
The Intelligence Failure, Hostage, War, Uprooting of Jews Playbook
When have we seen this before?
See the full program here.
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