When Your Very Success Becomes the Yetzer ha-Ra's Weapon
Toward the end of his life, David ha-Melech recounts some of the final words spoken to him by Hashem (Sh'muel Bet 23:3): אָמַר אֱלֹקֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לִי דִבֶּר צוּר יִשְׂרָאֵל מוֹשֵׁל בָּאָדָם צַדִּיק מוֹשֵׁל יִרְאַת אֱלֹקִים (The G‑d of Yisrael said, the Rock of Yisrael spoke to me: One who rules over man should be righteous, ruling in the fear of G‑d). Read straightforwardly, the final words of the verse describe how a ruler ought to rule – with righteousness. The one who rules over man should be a righteous man, a tzaddik, who exercises his authority through his fear of G‑d.
Chazal, however, read these words so differently that the Gemara first asks (Mo'ed Katan 16b): מַאי קָאָמַר? (What is it saying?) R' Abahu answers that the pasuk should be understood as Hashem saying: אֲנִי מוֹשֵׁל בָּאָדָם. מִי מוֹשֵׁל בִּי? צַדִּיק, שֶׁאֲנִי גּוֹזֵר גְּזֵרָה וּמְבַטְּלָהּ (I rule over man. Who rules over Me? A tzaddik, for I decree a decree and he annuls it). Rather than reading the pasuk as a description of how a human ruler must exercise rulership over man, i.e. with righteousness, Chazal understand that it is not speaking about the tzaddik ruling over man at all. Rather, Hashem is the One who rules over man. That's one statement; and it's not controversial. However, the next statement is surprising. It states that the tzaddik rules [צַדִּיק מוֹשֵׁל, tzaddik moshel] – even, so to speak, over Hashem. How can this be? Who is ruling? Hashem or the tzaddik? The truth is that this pasuk comes to teach us something completely counterintuitive. Hashem rules over man, but the tzaddik rules over Him! On the surface, it sounds almost heretical, but it's not. Chazal are describing a genuine spiritual power that Hashem has placed in the tzaddik's hands. Hashem may decree a harsh decree, and a tzaddik, through his tefillah, can bring about its annulment. This is the way Hashem set it up, and it is this remarkable principle that Chazal see encoded in this pasuk.
But what happens when the tzaddik himself discovers that he has such power? What happens when he sees that his tefillah has borne fruit, that a decree has changed, and that tzaddik moshel is no longer merely a principle he has learned about in the Gemara, but something he has actually experienced?
Parashat Ki Teitzei opens with the Torah's law concerning a soldier who goes out to war against his enemies (Devarim 21:10): כִּי־תֵצֵא לַמִּלְחָמָה עַל־אֹיְבֶיךָ וּנְתָנוֹ יְיָ אֱלֹקֶיךָ בְּיָדֶךָ וְשָׁבִיתָ שִׁבְיוֹ (When you go out to war against your enemies, and Hashem your G‑d delivers him into your hand, and you take his people captive). On the straightforward level, there is no ambiguity about who is doing the delivering. You go out to war against your enemy, Hashem gives that enemy into your hand, and you take what belonged to him captive. Hashem is the One acting on your behalf; the enemy is the one being handed over. But let's look a little deeper.
In Likutei Moharan 107, R' Nachman begins by identifying who this enemy really is: שֶׁהוּא הַיֵּצֶר הָרָע (It is the Yetzer ha-Ra). But when he reaches the next words, וּנְתָנוֹ יְיָ אֱלֹקֶיךָ בְּיָדֶךָ, he completely reverses the direction of the sentence. As we saw, according to the p'shat, Hashem is the One who delivers the Yetzer ha-Ra into your hand. But R' Nachman reads it in exactly the opposite direction: וּנְתָנוֹ יי אֱלֹקֶיךָ בְּיָדֶיךָ – כְּלוֹמַר הַיֵּצֶר הָרָע יִתֵּן, כְּמוֹ יִמְסֹר, אֶת יי אֱלֹקֶיךָ בְּיָדֶיךָ, עַל דֶּרֶךְ: צַדִּיק מוֹשֵׁל בְּיִרְאַת אֱלֹקִים (The Yetzer ha-Ra will give, meaning deliver, Hashem your G‑d into your hands, along the lines of: 'A tzaddik rules through the fear of G‑d'). The Yetzer ha-Ra becomes the one doing the delivering, and what does he deliver into your hands? Hashem Himself, so to speak. This is an extraordinary inversion. According to the straightforward reading, Hashem delivers the enemy into the hands of the soldier. According to R' Nachman, the enemy delivers Hashem, so to speak, into the hands of the tzaddik.
And R' Nachman immediately tells us what he means by invoking the very principle we just saw in the Gemara: a tzaddik rules. Hashem has granted the tzaddik a genuine spiritual power through which his tefillah can change what has been decreed Above. Yet that very power – Hashem being placed, so to speak, 'into his hands' – becomes something the Yetzer ha-Ra can use against him. But how?
R' Nachman answers that question immediately. Although the Torah's advice is וְשָׁבִיתָ שִׁבְיוֹ [and you take his people captive], R' Nachman reads the repeated root in וְשָׁבִיתָ שִׁבְיוֹ in a deeper way. He explains: עִם מַה שֶּׁהוּא רוֹצֶה לְהִתְגַּבֵּר עָלֶיךָ, הַיְנוּ בְּגַדְלוּת, בָּזֶה תִּתְגַּבֵּר עָלָיו (With that through which he wants to overpower you, namely, through greatness [gadlut], with that you will overpower him). R' Nachman identifies the Yetzer ha-Ra's weapon explicitly: gadlut, arrogance, self-importance. The Yetzer ha-Ra takes the very spiritual power that Hashem has placed into the hands of the tzaddik and turns it into an opportunity to exhibit arrogance: "Look what your tefillah accomplished. Look at the power in your hands. Look how great you are."
Lest we misunderstand, R' Nachman is not telling the tzaddik to deny what happened or to pretend that his tefillah had no effect. Elsewhere, he states the principle of tzaddik moshel even more explicitly (Likutei Moharan 34:2): כִּי הִנֵּה הַכְּלָל, שֶׁהַמֶּמְשָׁלָה בְּיַד הַצַּדִּיק לִפְעֹל פְּעֻלּוֹת כִּרְצוֹנוֹ (For this is the general rule, that the power of rulership is in the hands of the tzaddik to accomplish things according to his will). And what is his will? He continues: וְעִקַּר הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה לְהָאִיר וּלְהִתְעוֹרֵר לִבָּם לַעֲבוֹדַת הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ (The main purpose of this rulership is to illuminate and awaken their hearts to the service of Hashem, may He be blessed). The tzaddik's power is not centered on displaying supernatural ability. Its primary purpose is to awaken the hearts of Yisrael and draw them toward the service of Hashem.
R' Nachman then connects this power directly to the tzaddik's words. He explains that speech itself serves as the vehicle for receiving shefa (Likutei Moharan 34:3): הַדִּבּוּר הוּא כְּלֵי הַשֶּׁפַע, שֶׁבָּהֶם מְקַבְּלִין הַשֶּׁפַע (Speech constitutes the vessels through which the Divine shefa is received). He then describes the special quality of the tzaddik's mouth: הַפֶּה שֶׁל הַצַּדִּיק הוּא מָלֵא מֵאֱלֹקוּת שֶׁל הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ (The mouth of the tzaddik is filled with the G‑dliness of Hashem, may He be blessed). His words are therefore the vessels through which Divine blessing enters the world.
This sharpens the danger that he's explaining in Likutei Moharan 107. The Yetzer ha-Ra does not need to begin with a lie. He can begin with something true. The tzaddik really may have seen that his tefillah accomplished something. He really may have experienced the power of tzaddik moshel. So we see that the danger begins when the Yetzer ha-Ra can hijack a genuine spiritual achievement and use it to produce gadlut. The more real the power is, the more convincing the whisper becomes: "Look what you accomplished."
The Kedushat Levi now gives us the key to understanding this tension. After describing the power of the tzaddik to annul harsh decrees through his tefillah, he writes (Vayigash 1): מי הם הצדיקים שתפילתם עושה פרי אותם הדבקים תמיד בשמו הגדול והם בבחינת אין ויראים ומזדעזעים תמיד מפחד השם ומהדר גאונו ויש להם כח לפעול בתפילתם ויראתם מושל בי צדיק (Who are the tzaddikim whose tefillah bears fruit? Those who are constantly attached to His great Name, who live with a sense of their own nothingness, and who are always filled with awe and trembling from the fear of Hashem and before the majesty of His greatness – they have the power to accomplish through their tefillah, and through their fear of Him: Who rules over Me? A tzaddik). The ones who possess this extraordinary spiritual power are precisely those who live with bitul – a total nullification of the self – together with yirat Hashem and constant deveikut. They do not experience that power as something independent that belongs to them.
And now R' Nachman's argument becomes clear. The tzaddik must tell the Yetzer ha-Ra: אֵיךְ אֲנִי מוֹשֵׁל כְּשֶׁיֵּשׁ לִי גַּאֲוָה, וְאֵין הַקָּדוֹשׁ־בָּרוּךְ־הוּא שׁוֹרֶה עִמִּי (How can I rule when I have arrogance [ga'avah], and Ha-Kadosh, baruch Hu, does not dwell with me?) If the tzaddik accepts the ga'avah that the Yetzer ha-Ra is trying to place in him, he undermines the very condition upon which tzaddik moshel depends. This is וְשָׁבִיתָ שִׁבְיוֹ [and you take his people captive]: the Yetzer ha-Ra tries to use the tzaddik's genuine spiritual success to produce gadlut – "Look at your power!" – but the tzaddik seizes that very weapon and turns it back on the Yetzer ha-Ra, allowing the very power that Hashem placed in his hands to produce greater bitul instead.
There is, however, an opposite danger. The Kedushat Levi explains Noach's failure to pray for his generation in a striking way. Noach was not lacking emunah in Hashem; he was lacking emunah in the spiritual power Hashem had given him. He was, as the Kedushat Levi puts it (Noach 2): נח הגם שהיה צדיק גדול ותמים היה קטן בעיניו מאוד ולא היה לו אמונה בעצמו שהוא צדיק מושל ויכול לבטל הגזירה (Noach, although he was a great and wholehearted tzaddik, was very small in his own eyes, and he did not have emunah in himself that he was a tzaddik moshel and that he could annul the decree). And since he didn't believe in himself that he was a tzaddik moshel, capable of nullifying Hashem's decree to wipe out the world with a flood, he didn't pray for the generation! The Kedushat Levi explains Noach's logic: היה חשוב בעיניו כשאר הדור והיה חושב אם אני אהיה ניצול בתיבה ואני אין צדיק יותר משאר הדור המה גם כן ינצלו לכן לא היה מתפלל על הדור (He considered himself to be like the rest of the generation, and he thought: 'If I will be saved in the ark, and I am no more of a tzaddik than the rest of the generation, then they too will be saved.' Therefore, he did not pray for the generation).
The answer to ga'avah is not to deny the power Hashem has actually granted. The tzaddik must neither appropriate that power as his own greatness nor become so small in his own eyes that he denies it. He must be able to hold both truths at once: Hashem has given real power to the tefillah of a tzaddik, and that power is never his own possession.
Our sources now converge around a very narrow path. On one side is ga'avah: "My tefillah succeeded because I am spiritually great." On the other side is the opposite error: "Who am I that my tefillah could possibly change anything?" Both miss the point. Hashem can place extraordinary spiritual power into the hands of a human being, and that person must recognize the gift sufficiently to use it. But he can never begin to think that this power is his own. The greater the power, the greater the need for bitul. Perhaps this is why spiritual success can become one of the Yetzer ha-Ra's most subtle weapons. Failure naturally humbles a person; success requires him to remain humble while holding something that gives him ample reason to feel otherwise.
R' Nachman ends Likutei Moharan 107 with only two words: וְדַי לַמֵּבִין (And this is sufficient for one who understands). Perhaps that is the appropriate place to stop. The question is not whether the power of tzaddik moshel is real. Chazal have already established that it is. The question is what happens inside the person once he knows that it is real. The Yetzer ha-Ra says, in effect, "This belongs to you." The tzaddik answers: "If I treat it as mine, I lose the very power I was given."
Most of us may never experience the power of tzaddik moshel in the extraordinary sense described by Chazal, but the principle applies to every one of us. Whenever we succeed in our avodat Hashem – whenever a tefillah bears fruit, a weakness is overcome, or we reach a level we had not reached before – that very success can be our test. The challenge is to recognize the accomplishment without turning it into a reason for ga'avah. The greater the gift, the more careful we must be to remember Who gave it to us.
