Parashat Pekudei

Rule number one in battle: know your enemy! The commentaries explain that many times the Torah tells us about different incidents for this very reason. Hashem created a system in which one is always being confronted by public enemy number one; his yetzer hara. If we don’t know anything about how the yetzer hara tries to trap us, we don’t stand a chance against it. Therefore we must look into the Torah and Chazal to gain insight into how to identify the yetzer hara. The Midrash Rabba in this week’s parsha tells us that Moshe Rabeinu took a census of all of the materials used to build the Mishkan because people were accusing him of keeping some of the supplies for himself. Therefore Moshe had to show them that this was not the case at all.

One of the things that we can see from here is that the yetzer hara doesn’t just come one day and make a person physically sin. Rather, it wants to take over one’s mindset. It caused them to misjudge and doubt Moshe, their leader, and think that he cannot be trusted. Once one allows the yetzer hara to enter one of his most precious regions, his mind, it is only natural that his body will soon follow. This will lead him to legitimize many things that are truly wrong.

The solution: fill your mind with Torah! If one fills their mind with Torah this will push out the yetzer hara. The Mishna in Avot D’Rabi Natan teaches us that whoever places the words of Torah in his heart will be absolved from thoughts of the yetzer hara. Hashem has created the yetzer hara, but he also gave us the antidote. Let’s use it!

Shabat Shalom.