Parshas Eikev
By Rabbi Dovid Zauderer
Do you often find yourself putting important things in your life aside until later … and then maybe not doing them at all?
Well, guess what? You are not alone!
Read on for a great insight from the Chafetz Chaim about “putting things off†– based on a verse in the weekly Torah portion … or you can always read it later!
The Midrash in Bereishis Rabbah (21:6) states: “Wherever the Torah says: ‘And now’, it is always referring to Teshuvah (repentance), as it is stated: ‘And now, Israel, what does the L-rd, your G-d, ask of you…’†(Deuteronomy 10:12).
The Chafetz Chaim in his classic work Ahavas Chesed (2:11) asks how the concept of Teshuvah is reflected in the words ‘And now’?
He answers that the main strength of the Yetzer Hara (“The Evil Urgeâ€) is to fool man by saying to him that today there’s no time to study Torah and do Mitzvos.
Better to wait until tomorrow when he will have more free time to do the important things - just not now.
And so tomorrow comes and he again pushes off what he has to do, and the same on the next day, and the next day, until tragically… it’s too late, and he can no longer accomplish what he wanted to in life.
The Chafetz Chaim quotes a brilliant Torah scholar who once said that a person should always imagine about himself three things and he will be successful in life: (1) that he only has one more day to live; (2) that he only has to learn one more page of Talmud or do just one more mitzvah; (3) that he is the only Jew left on the planet, and the entire world is standing in his merit.
Thinking about himself that he has only one more day to live will cause him to do Teshuvah and good deeds now, and he will not push anything off till the next day.
Imagining that he only has a little left to accomplish in life – one more page of Talmud, one more act of charity, etc. – he will find the strength to fight off the Yetzer Hara who is trying to convince him that there is too much left to do, so he might as well give up now.
And by seeing himself as the “last Jew standingâ€, he won’t be fooled by the Yetzer Hara into thinking that his own Torah study and mitzvah observance are insignificant and unimportant.
With this – explains the Chafetz Chaim – we can now understand the Midrash about the connection between the words “And now†and Teshuvah that was quoted earlier.
The words “And now, Israel, what does the L-rd, your G-d, ask of you…†are there to warn us not to follow the evil advice of the Yetzer Hara who is forever trying to have us push off Torah study and good deeds for tomorrow or the next day – or maybe forever, G-d forbid.
Rather, before deciding what to do at a given moment, we should ask ourselves, “And nowâ€, i.e. what would G-d want us to do now? – instead of pushing it off until later and doing something else instead.
And if we live our lives this way, and always ask ourselves that question before we do anything, we will definitely be able to rise above our Yetzer Hara and his evil ways – and we will merit to do a complete Teshuvah.
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=626