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100 | A New Light
Chapter Four:
The Laws of Life
All of us truly want to change. All of us want to set aside time
to engage in the work of the will. In this chapter, you will learn a
number of spiritual laws upon which the work of the will is based.
First Law: We Require Assistance
The Gemara states, “Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: A person’s
[evil] inclination rises up against him every day and seeks to kill
him. As the verse states, ‘The wicked one looks at the righteous
person and seeks to kill him’ (Psalms 37:32). And if not for the
fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, helps him, he could not
overcome it. As the verse states, ‘Hashem will not abandon him
into its hand and will not condemn him to His judgment’ (ibid. 33)”
(Succah 52b).
The Gemara here states explicitly that a law exists that the Holy
One, blessed be He, created an evil inclination in man and gave it
the power to overcome him, and that a person cannot overcome
the evil inclination by himself, without the help of the Holy One,
blessed be He! The essence of the evil inclination is the penchant
for engaging in forbidden relations. As the holy Zohar teaches,
“The essence of the evil inclination is [the desire for] forbidden
relations.” And Rabbi Nachman states that working on this issue
is the central rectification for whose sake a person was sent into
the world (Sichot Haran 115). Regarding this matter, which is man’s
most difficult challenge, the holy Ohr Hachaim testifies (Leviticus
18):
It is known that all of the mitzvot that Hashem
commanded His holy nation are mitzvot that a person can
successfully keep, bending his will to do them—except
for the mitzvah of separating oneself from forbidden
relations. That is something that a person’s spirit desires
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as are the evil inclinations of greed and the desire for acclaim; and
in addition some people have more specific cravings. Each person
has one and only one solution: to proceed in accordance with this
book and all of the principles stated above, and to engage in a daily
half hour of prayer until he overcomes his craving.
Even if you must invest years in doing this, that makes no
difference. That is your service of Hashem. Do it with joy and with
great enthusiasm, and do not be bewildered by what you undergo
on the way. At the moment that you do your work, you attain
a tremendous level, because you are fulfilling your role and your
mission.
The Old Books
Let us take as an example the craving for eating. This is the most
difficult of the desires, because everyone must eat in order to live,
but a person does not have to eat for the sake of eating. Everyone
knows that there are many harmful types of food, such as sugar,
saturated fats, food colorings and so forth. Secondly, many people
overeat—they are well aware that this is very harmful, yet they
cannot stop their craving for food. They try all sorts of diets and
all sorts of attempts at self-control, but in the end they fail, and
they feel more and more depressed and despondent. They blame
themselves, and as a result they overeat even more. And they
constantly read new books and pay for new devices, but they do
not find relief for their problem.
We must turn expressly to the old books, the books of our holy
rabbis, who knew all of the secrets of creation and the laws of life,
and who taught us that it is not in our power to overcome craving,
that only Hashem can help us. And they taught us that by engaging
in much prayer we change nature, and that when a person has
a strong and forceful will, Hashem will help him and lead him.
Therefore, a person who suffers from the craving for eating must
do the core work every day—i.e., he must engage in a half hour
daily of the work of the will, with great regularity and with much
prayer, until it will have an effect.
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