The Test of Life, Part 5: Why We Pray to Avoid Life’s Tests

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. I have a question. If this is the ikar, if this is what we're here for, so I have a question. So how come every morning we say, Al tevienu lo lidei... nu? V'lo lidei? Well, maybe that's what you're here for. But that's what you're here for. I don't say, I got a person, pray, Hashem, please give me that I shouldn't have the reason why I'm here. Imagine a person says to the doctor, Please do me a favor. Please make sure that my heart doesn't work. I mean, honestly, you came to the doctor, the heart should work. You came here to this world, l'lamod b'nisayon. So many mefarshim say, the Gemara says that a person should not ask for nisyonos. The Gemara says in Sanhedrin, daf kuf zayin amud aleph, Le'olam al yavi adam atzmo lidei nisayon. You shouldn't come and make yourself have a nisayon. I think there's a very big difference between davening that Hashem shouldn't give it to me and asking that Hashem should give me, right? I'm not—you're right. Does it say anywhere, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, na ten li refuah shleimah, na ten li nisyonot? You're right. That I hear. We don't ask. But how can we daven? How can we pray that what? Not to give me nisayon. But that's the whole תכלית הבריאה, תכלית החיים. So how can you say לא לידי ניסיון? Ah, see, he knows one answer. That's the famous answer. It has to be the comma. You always have to pay attention to where the comma is. ולא לידי ניסיון, ולא לידי ביזיון. The bizayon of not being עומד בניסיון. If you're עומד בניסיון, great. If you go in the streets of Manhattan and you're not עומד בניסיון, it's a ביזיון, it's a shame. Hashem ישמור. Hashem ישמור, איך שאדם נראה כשהוא כמו גוי ברחוב. The problem with this is, it doesn't really fit into the words. It should have said, ולא לידי ניסיון וביזיון. Seems like it's two things. ולא לידי ניסיון, ולא לידי ביזיון. It seems like it's two things, right? So I saw Reb Chaim Kanievsky gives a beautiful teretz, beautiful teretz. Says Reb Chaim that there's two types of nisyonos. There's nisyonos which are out of the norm, פרשיות בחיים which are difficult situations which are not normal. That we ask, לא לידי ניסיון. But on the daily basis of nisayon testing me, if I'm מקיים תורה ומצוות, זה ודאי חיובי, ולכן באנו לעולם. איזה תירוץ יפה, אשרי שזכינו לגור לדור כזה, שאיזה תירוץ הוא נתן. Yeah, the teretz. It's everything I spoke to you about. To come and say I learned Torah and it's easy? Somebody have to go, stand in your mother. You know what? Go back to your mother's stomach for that. תכל'ס, לא למה באה בשביל זה. שגם שם לומדים תורה. פה עולם של הפרעה, שמפריע. It's testing, it's challenging. Remember the words I teach you: challenge. A challenge of every day keeping Torah, mitzvahs. ולא על ידי ניסיון, ניסיון גדול. We ask Hashem, don't give us something which we can't. But the normal, everyday difficulties and challenges for limud haTorah, for kiyum hamitzvot, for טהרת העיניים, שמירת העיניים. That's life. That's what we're here for. We're here for that. We're here for that. So we can't ask for that. This, rabosai, I believe, is the lessons. Parnassah is normal nisyonot. All the nisyonot that Avraham Avinu went through, then life.

Chayim. I know you all like a nice Kabbalistic word. What's the root, the shoresh of the word chayim? Maybe it's chai, or maybe it's the two yuds in the middle. Maybe it's the Hashem that's in the chayim. Life, if it's with Hashem in it, that's life. A person thinks, Chayim. You ever see a guy that does nothing all day? You know what you ask him? What's a chayim? He's making, What's a chayim? What's a chayim? You know what happens to that chayim? Not very happy about it. Doesn't bring very much happiness. Harotzeh lachyot, yamit atzmo, the Gemara says in Masechet Taanit. You know, one of the most difficult things is to be able to live every day, to be inspired, bitlahavut, and not be miyu'ash, not to be negative. These are big nisyonot. People think nisyonot and big diseases. You don't need big diseases for nisyonot. Nisyonot is daily nisyonot, daily, daily, daily. I woke up, I'm not in the mood. I meet this guy, he's mean to me. I go to this wedding. They speak lashon hara. That's a nisayon. Those are very big nisyonot, and that's what we mean by the chayim is nisayon. Rav Hutner, zichrono tzaddik livracha, once said something very inspiring. He says all the books of the Gedolei Yisrael that they write, he does not like. He doesn't like them. Why? So some always say, because the stories are exaggerated. He didn't say that. He said something very unique. He said the storybooks show you how the tzaddik, at the end of his life, had this attribute and had that attribute, but little do they show you growing up, the nisyonot, the difficulties that they had to achieve those things. He said, does the books write about the Chafetz Chaim that when he was 20 years old, he went to a wedding of a friend, he sat at a table, and everyone was speaking lashon hara. And the Chafetz Chaim, because he was pure, said, You know what? I don't want to hear that, and he turned around and he didn't want to listen. And what do the other people at the table do? Look at that little... Frummy, he's this, right? He's the anti-social. Yeah. His wife screamed at him, You came home from synagogue half hour late. What are you coming home half hour late for? All the difficulties, the hisnagdut, to doing what you have to do, that's chayim. That's nisyonot hachayim. That the books don't teach you. It's an unbelievable thing. We think the Chofetz Chaim was born the Chofetz Chaim, but the truth is, he was. That's the truth. Rav Naftali Trop, zecher tzaddik livracha, said about the Chofetz Chaim, a difference between him and other kedoshim and tzaddikim, he was kadosh me'rechem. This is what he was, kadosh me'rechem. But what does kadosh me'rechem mean? You think he didn't have difficulty? You think they didn't have problems? We don't see the problems. We just see what? The end result. I'd like to give you a word of chizuk, all right? If life is about nisyonos, amad. What does the word amad b'kulam mean? What does amad b'kulam? You know what amad means? Withstood. The Sfat Emes says, amidah is always a lashon of tefillah. El hamakom asher amad. Avraham went back to the place where he was standing. Chazal say, amad. What does amad mean?

He like went back to prayer. Amad b'kulan, he prayed. He davened to Hashem. You know how you survive yisurim, nisyonot, difficulty? You daven to Hashem. You daven to Hashem. You daven to Hashem. Amad, asarah nisyonot nisnaseh Avraham Avinu. Reb Chaim Volozhin explains, nisnaseh Avraham Avinu. Avraham is our father, as the father of Klal Yisrael. He had these nisyonot, and he instilled in us on how to live through them. As an av, he tibia. He was matbia. He put it into our genes on how to be omed b'nisayon. Reb Chaim Volozhin says in another place, many Yidden, many Jews, went al kiddush Hashem. They went into flames of Auschwitz and other shemad inquisition, and we don't make them into Akeidas Yitzchak like Avraham and Yitzchak. Why is Avraham and Yitzchak so special? They went on the Akeidah. How many Jews Akeidah sacrificed their children? Reb Chaim Volozhin says, of course Jews are able to do it. That's because Avraham Avinu, he instilled it in Klal Yisrael. He instilled it within us. We can be omed b'nisayon, no matter how difficult it is. We're able to do it. We're able to do it. Because we have good genes, you know. In English they have an expression, He, he has good genes. Rabosai, we have good genes. Asarah nisyonos nisnaseh Avraham Avinu, Avinu, Avinu. As Avinu, he went through it, and he instilled in Klal Yisrael the kochos to be able to go through a nisayon. And what are the lessons that have to be taken from him? Vaya'amin baShem, he had emunah in Hashem, the pasuk says. A lot of emunah. Amad, Sfas Emes says, amad, tefillah, hamidah, to daven to Hashem. One of the pshatim that the mefarshim explain, V'lo lidei nisayon. What's lidei? Lo l'nisayon. Don't bring me to a nisayon. What's lidei? That I fall into the hands of the nisayon. Don't put me into the hands, that I should fall in his hands of the nisayon. I should overcome the nisayon, and not the nisayon should overcome me. And we daven to Hashem for that. That's one of the pshatim. V'lo lidei. Don't put me in the hands of the nisayon. Don't put me in the hands of the nisayon, which means it shouldn't have a grab. It shouldn't take hold of me. I should take hold of it. I should have shlita, shlita over it, and not that it should be sholet over me. And that's also tefillah. So we have here Vaya'amin, emunah. We have over here the lesson of Omed b'nisayon, tefillah. Now I'm going to teach you another lesson which I saw in the Chida. Something beautiful, beautiful. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.