Rise and Fall and Rise Again

How many of you know what a “cheat day” is? How many of you have taken a “cheat day” such as a “cheat meal” when on a diet? Or watched an episode or two ahead in that show you promised to watch with your partner? Or skipped a day in your exercise regimen because you just need a break? We’re all friends here, nothing to hide. I’ve been there too. It’s okay, sometimes you need the chocolate mousse, sometimes you need that next episode.

I have had days when I put the diet aside. For one day, or one meal, you eat whatever with no thought of calories or points or what have you. Maybe that was some of us at the seder this year. Many nutritionists recommend this, believe it or not. It’s based on human nature. If you know you can have that hamburger or lasagna on Saturday, it’s easier to stay strict and conscientious the rest of the week. The splurges make the sacrifices endurable.

The same goes for exercise regimens. Sometimes, your body needs a pause, maybe you need to catch up on a sleep debt. Maybe you need to take a break because a doctor tells you that you’re pushing too hard. Maybe we listen to our bodies and our doctors and put things on hold for a little bit. The world won’t come to an end if you rest.

Now, what does all of this have to do with parsha Acharei Mot? This week, the Israelites are instructed to push a goat off a cliff for our sins on Yom Kippur. Yes, a literal scapegoat. 

It all has to do with something you might have heard about, the yetzer hara. The evil or wicked urge or inclination. With one exception, the tzaddik gamur, the complete tzaddik, every single Jew has this yetzer hara. 

Like everything else in Judaism, the yetzer hara is complex. Don’t worry—I hear there’s a lovely dinner waiting for us so I will cut to the chase and offer one view, a Chassidic view, of this yetzer hara and how it operates. 

It is a force for impurity that induces sin and transgression, a force of desire in constant need of pleasure. In a way, it is our Id. It comes from a level of our soul which is animalistic, the nefesh behamit. This nefesh is interested in natural and physical results. For example, if our body needs food, we seek food. But the nefesh behamit is also focused on wants. It drives procreation. We need it to live, but we also need to conquer it with the higher part of our soul — the nefesh haelohit. The godly soul. And we do this through Torah learning and mitzvot. 

The yetzer hara won’t disappear no matter how hard we try. The rabbis teach that the more righteous a person is, the more the yetzer hara seeks to trip them up. It’s a constant battle. If you build strong walls to defend against sinful acts or thoughts, it’s like a house with a high fence and big security system. The thief wonders, “what’s so valuable in there that they need all this protection? I need to get in there.” 

Now, if you have no alarm system, no fence, your door is wide open – the thief thinks, “Meh. Probably nothing in there worth taking.” If you’re constantly sinning, it’s not interested, it can get you any time. The stronger the morality of a person, the more intense is his yetzer hara.

The gemara teaches us that the yetzer hara starts us down a path of sinning with a deed as thin as a spider’s web—but over time, the sin becomes as heavy and thick as wagon ropes. No one loses their morality all at once. Bit by bit, act by act, we fail a little here or there. We spiral. Pretty soon we are ensnared in the web…and like a fly, we are trapped. 

We guard against it. We cling to Torah. In the Orthodox world there are prohibitions that may seem ludicrous to us, but they are guardrails to prevent the yezter hara from grabbing hold—warnings about touching or looking at woman’s body. Dressing provocatively. Gossiping. We are supposed to guard our tongues and our eyes. We are commanded to be strict in our mitzvot. Judaism teaches that one sin leads to another. The yetzer hara is always there, lurking, feasting on sins and always ravenous.

So what do we do? Hashem has given us the power of teshuvah – repentance, restoration, and return. 

In Proverbs 24:16 we read the words, “The tzaddik falls down seven times and rises.” Not once, not twice. Seven times. Maybe we say the wrong word in the wrong moment, maybe we ֵare thoughtless about another’s honor, maybe we favor our assumptions in place of their circumstances—in each of these moments, we give in to the yetzer hara. But we cannot—we will not—stay down. 

Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Weinberg of Yeshiva University brings down the words of Rabbi Aharon Yoseif Luria, a twentieth century leader of the Slonim Chassidim in Tiberius, that not only does the tzaddik get up — he actually BECOMES the tzaddik because he fell and got up. 

The Talmud teaches that the repentant baal teshuvah stands where the perfect tzaddik cannot stand. We are CLOSER to God because we fall, repent, and return. 

We reach new heights through our failures. 

So. The scapegoat. What’s the connection?

There is a chassidic story about a man who worked as a courier for a diamond dealer. One night, as he was carrying a case full of diamonds, he realized that he was being followed. He turned left and right, but to no avail. What was he to do? 

He decided that he would drop one diamond deliberately. Why? He reasoned the thieves would be distracted by collecting it. Sure enough, when they saw the diamond shining in the street, they leapt on it, and he was able to run away. 

That’s the goat over the cliff. It’s a distraction to the yetzer hara so it leaves us alone. “Ok, take those sins on this holy day and leave me alone!” we say. 

The problem is, we can plan a goat sacrifice, we can plan a cheat day—but we can’t plan an aveira, a sin. We don’t have that permission. So now what?

Here’s what we can do. Say you mess up. You snap at a spouse or child. You share some juicy gossip. You dishonor someone. We fall, now we rise. Make amends, do teshuvah. Give that “averiah” to the yetzer hara. Give that to the “sitra achra”—the dark side. That’s your cheat day this week. 

One fall doesn’t mean you stay down. One sin doesn’t have to lead to another. One day of rest doesn’t mean you stop exercising or spend week after week in bed. Half a box of Entenmanns today doesn’t mean you can’t get back on track with a salad tomorrow. Trust me, I’m a fan of their raspberry danish!

Feeling defeated doesn’t help. Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t help. Falling into a spiral about these things…that’s right, it doesn’t help. That way misery lies.  

Maya Angelou caught the idea of resilience and inner strength in her poem, I Rise.

It is said that when the tzaddik falls and rises, he lifts the souls of all those around him. May all of us, through our own failings, weaknesses, and foibles, through each of our falls—may we rise higher and higher, ever higher, to the Holy One of Blessing together.