"Be exceedingly, exceedingly humble in spirit, for the hope of man is the worm" - Parshat HaShavua 'Bereishit' - by the Gaon and Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a

BS"D

"Be exceedingly, exceedingly humble in spirit, for the hope of man is the worm" (Pirkei Avot 4:4)

Parshat HaShavua 'Bereishit' - by the Gaon and Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a:

"And you shall be like God" (Genesis 3:5). The sin of the Tree of Knowledge is essentially "And you shall be like God." A person thinks he is already God, that the world is in his hands, that he controls the world. Why is a person ill? Why does he have no children? Why are there issues with parnassah (livelihood)? Why can he not find his shidduch (marriage match)? It is all because of arrogance. With every thought of arrogance, he loses his spiritual and material abundance. Every thought of arrogance pushes away the feet of the Shechinah (Divine Presence), as it is written, "I and he cannot dwell together." Through a thought of arrogance, the Shechinah disconnects from the person more than through any other transgression. Sometimes a person stumbles in a sin, so he is broken... he does teshuvah (repentance). But a person who is immersed in arrogance has no broken heart at all, because arrogance is the opposite of a broken heart, and therefore he does not do teshuvah. When a person is arrogant, he cannot tolerate any other person in the world. He thinks, "Who can reach my level?", "Who is equal to me?" A person walks around with the thought that he is the wisest, the most understanding, and the cleverest. If a person feels that he has done some [good] deed—"Look, I prayed with intention, I cried out in prayer, I got up for Vatikin (sunrise prayer), and he thinks to himself, 'I am better than that one who is sleeping in bed right now'"—then everything is lost. That person lying in bed right now—perhaps he is a weak person? And perhaps right now he is praying with his tallit and shedding rivers of tears? What do you know? True, he got up at 8:00 and said Kriat Shema, but afterwards he cries for a whole hour—what does a person know? The moment you have a thought of arrogance because you got up for Vatikin or behaved with abstinence—you have some specific conduct, and therefore you are already better than the other—at that very moment, everything goes to the Sitra Achra (the Other Side/impure forces). Unless a person identifies his arrogance and does teshuvah for every thought of arrogance; then he rectifies everything and elevates everything to holiness. A person must know one fundamental principle: Arrogance and lusts do not belong to a Jew. This is not the essence of a Jew; it is only an external garment. Because the moment Adam HaRishon sinned, the holy Zohar says that he received a garment called "the leprosy of the snake's skin" (mishcha d'chivya). Hashem gave him a punishment to receive the body of the snake, which is what is called "garments of skin" (kotnot ohr with the letter Ayin) and not "garments of light" (kotnot ohr with the letter Aleph) as it was in the beginning. And so, every person, the moment they are born, receives this external garment, the "leprosy of the skin" of the snake, which is arrogance and lusts. One must fight against this and know, "This is not me," "This is not what I want," "This is not my true will." A person thinks that lusts are his true will, his essence, but this is not true; it only seems that way to him. Some physical desire, some foreign craving has stuck to him, but this is not the nature of the person. This comes from the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. When Adam HaRishon ate from the Tree of Knowledge, there was a certain poison there, and he ate this poison and poisoned all of humanity. But we need to exit this poison. We must not become addicted to this poison. We must not let this poison pull us. A person needs to strip off his "snake body," his mishcha d'chivya, because his body is actually the body of the S"M (the prime force of evil). Hashem created "garments of skin" for him—garments of the S"M (arrogance and lusts). Truly, the real Tzaddikim merited to nullify this snake body through their holy service. Therefore, Rebbe Nachman says (Torah 10) that the advised counsel to nullify arrogance is drawing close to Tzaddikim. Because the moment a person draws close to the true Tzaddik, he immediately sees where he stands regarding the rectification of his character traits, and he begins to hate his evil, to hate the lusts. He will not want it anymore. At the very least, he will not make "a way of life" out of the lusts. He will be ashamed of himself, cry about it, and do teshuvah. Not like the people who make "a way of life" out of lusts; instead of being ashamed of it, on the contrary, they boast about it and attribute importance to it. If people believed in Tzaddikim, drew close to them, and listened to their voice, then they would merit to exit all their evil and all the lusts, and become completely purified.

(From the leaflet Tzam'ah Nafshi 052-763-9126)