Daily Chidush: How to deal with evil people?

0:00Hello, dear brothers. I hope you had an amazing Purim. Tomorrow is Shabbat, the Holy Shabbat. I wanted to give a last chiddush on the Megillat Esther. It's one of the best mussar books I've ever read, with lessons we can learn and apply to our lives. Today we're going to learn from the Torah and from the Megillah how to deal with evil people, because unfortunately in today's world, sometimes we encounter evil, wicked people.

1:26Esther, listen, I didn't know you were Jewish. If I knew you were Jewish, then I wouldn't have killed all of them. He couldn't use that argument because then he just told Achashverosh that the Jewish people are so evil they have to be extinct. They're so wicked. They're so against them. You have to destroy them. So how could you say what? She's one. You're going against what you told me and what you're willing to pay $384,000. million dollars in today's money is what he paid in order to do this, so you can't speak out of both sides of your mouth, and that's usually the act of evil people. The evil people usually tell you one thing and do something else, or they tell both sides things they want to hear and, in reality, just go with the winning horse. Because the only side they care about is their own. So here, Hashem put Haman HaRasha found himself in a situation where he couldn't extricate himself from this predicament. This is reminiscent of how Hashem Himself has dealt with evil individuals throughout history. How far back do we go? All the way to the creation. We look back to the creation where Adam and Chava unfortunately committed the first sin of mankind, eating from the Tree of Knowledge. After they consumed from the Tree of Knowledge...

2:51Hashem comes to them and He says, "You know, what happened? What happened, Adam? How did you make the sin?" So Adam says, "The woman You gave to me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." Meaning it's not our fault. Go blame her. You're the one that gave me this woman, and she's the one that made me sin. A little bit of kefiyat tovah, a little bit of ungratefulness here from Adam HaRishon. Chazal say that before Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai died, Adam HaRishon came to him in his dream and he says, "No one knows the real sin that I made except you, so please, when you come to Gan Eden, do not embarrass me and tell everyone my sin. Because until now, everyone thinks I sinned because of the tree of knowledge, but in reality, they don't know the real sin and the real story of what happened." Died Adam HaRishon came to him in his dream and he says no one knows the real sin that I made except you, so please, when you come to Gan Eden, do not embarrass me and tell everyone my sin, because until now everyone thinks I sinned because of the Tree of Knowledge, but in reality, they don't know the real sin and the real story of what happened. Maybe this is the sin, the ungratefulness. The Gemara says that Hashem hates ungratefulness. This could potentially be the sin, but this is just my personal take on it, not necessarily what Chazal says. Chazal does say it's ungratefulness, but I don't know if this is necessarily the sin. But back to the story, Adam HaRishon blames it on the woman. So Hashem says to the woman, "What is this that you have done?"

4:10And the woman says, meaning Chava, "The serpent, the snake, he deceived me. So I ate. It's not my fault. It's the snake's fault. He's the one that fooled me. He said, 'Look, you're touching the tree and Hashem is not killing you.' In reality, he fooled her. He twisted her words. And this is actually part of her own fault because she added words to what Hashem said. Hashem said, 'Do not eat from the tree.' She said, 'Don't touch and don't eat from the tree.'" So, as soon as he heard that she made a mistake, the serpent knew that she made a mistake. He pushed her against the tree, and she touched it. She said, "See, you're alive! Hashem didn't kill you. If you could touch it, then that means you could eat it." So he fooled her. She's saying to Hashem, "Listen, he deceived me, so I ate." And then the interesting part: Verse 14, Chapter 3 in Sefer Bereishit, "And Hashem God said to the serpent..." Because you have done this, accursed are you beyond all the cattle and beyond all beasts of the field. Upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life. And on and on and on with the curse that he gives to the serpent. We learn from here...

5:33Arur, by the way, is the worst possible curse you can get in the entire Torah. If we go to Parashat Bechukotai, later on this year, we will see that there are certain sins that mankind can commit, and they're labeled as arur. Arur is not something you want to mess with. And the snake, the serpent, receives the worst possible curse. But that's not the point. We all knew this. We all read Sefer Bereishit. What's the chidush? The chidush here is, if you noticed, he asked Adam... What did you do? Adam answered. He asked Chava, Eve, what did you do? She said what she did. She said she blamed the snake. But with the snake, with the serpent, he didn't ask anything. He just immediately said, Arur ata. He said, you are cursed. Didn't even give him a chance to speak. Why didn't Hashem give him a chance to speak? because he says, "I created him as evil and his job is evil, and if I ask him why did you do what you did, he'll actually have an excuse. Even though he knows what he did is wrong, he brought death to the world, and to give him an excuse and a way to get out of it is not justice. So he didn't even give him an opportunity to speak and punished them immediately."

6:55Originally, the serpent was supposed to be the king of all the animals. He was beautiful, his most beautiful creation, a creature other than mankind, other than Adam HaRishon. He actually had arms and legs and walked like a human being. But now, we see something very different. The point here is that Hashem knew His creation and was not going to be fooled, just as Hashem was not going to let Haman HaRasha fool the king, Ahashverosh. fool the king, Achashverosh, even though Achashverosh was wicked, he still was not allowed to do certain things that Hashem would not let him do. He wouldn't let him fool anyone. And that's why He put him in a situation, in a hole that he couldn't get himself out of. This is something that we have to learn from a lot of Mussar haskel because sometimes we have people in our life that are energy drainers. There are people that just suck our energy dry and they're full of evil and wickedness, and we have to stay away from them. The best way to stay away from somebody like that is to completely shut them out. Don't answer phone calls, don't answer emails, don't respond to anything. And little by little, you'll see how the mask they've put on, the "Mr. Nice Guy" or the "Mrs. Nice Lady," the Tzaddik or Tzaddikah...

8:23That she looks like a tzaddeket. Or the tzaddik that looks like a tzaddik. But obviously, you saw something's wrong here because that's the point of shutting them out in the first place. You don't just shut people out for no reason. Somebody did something, and it's completely off character. One day, they're saying they're the biggest tzaddik in the world, and the next day you're seeing the guy cheating people in business and putting a kosher sign on it. One day you're seeing a woman saying she's a Tzadeket, but the next thing you know, the only thing she does is spread Lashon Hara and create a Satan between people. People like that, you have to cut out. You can't fix it. You're not going to fix it. Your friend's not going to fix it. No one's going to fix it. Why? Because they have to fix themselves if they want to fix themselves. Even Hashem was not willing to fix them. Even Hashem was not willing to fix Haman. Even Hashem was not willing to fix the serpent. So you think you're going to fix these evil people? No. You have to stay away from them. The best thing to do is to shut them out. How do you shut them out? Make them expose themselves by completely disconnecting. You will see they are going to send you more messages and more phone calls. Each time, they become more and more desperate, and each time, they say more things. Each time, they incriminate themselves and show their true colors. Then, each time you receive it, you realize how much of an amazing thing you've done by maintaining your integrity and holding on to the values of the Torah.

9:44decision you made by listening to the Torah, by listening to the opinion of the Torah, the opinion of Hashem Himself, and what He did. That's what our purpose in this world is: to emulate the middot, the characteristics of Hashem. May Hashem bless you and keep you away from these people and not bring any of these people into your life. If they ever do come into your life, now you know how to deal with them. Thank you for learning with me. And may Hashem continue to bless you. Kol tuv.