Will TeShuva Help Me Quit Smoking? (15 minutes)

1:04It makes it much easier to remove your opinion. Why? Because if you think about your opinion first, then you say, what does Hashem think about it? It becomes a little harder. Why? Because immediately you've opened two giant doors for the yetzer hara to come in. The yetzer hara is going to convince you you're a genius. So, for example, what is it like when... I used to smoke cigarettes for a long time, for 20 years. And... When I started learning Torah, I got to a point where I realized that you're not allowed to smoke. Simply, you're not allowed to smoke. Why? Because it harms your body. You're not allowed to harm your body. So I said, yeah, but you know what? I need to smoke because I'm addicted to it. There's no halacha in the Torah that says if you're addicted to something, you're allowed to do it. Okay, so I can't pass that one. Okay, but listen, I've been smoking for a long time. I'm used to it. It doesn't make a difference. I like it. It doesn't make a difference. Eventually, the Yetzer Hara that I had inside me was Mamash, showed me how much of a genius he is. Eventually, he said, "Listen, every time you smoke a cigarette, it's a mitzvah." How is it a mitzvah? When do you smoke most? When you're learning Torah.

2:26You learn Torah to stay up. Listen, you're reading a book; after a while, you get a little tired and fall asleep. You think Hashem wants you to fall asleep while you're learning Torah? What kind of chutzpah is that? So you smoke. How are you going to stay up at 3 o'clock in the morning when you're learning for the shiur? You can't go to sleep, so you have to smoke. How are you going to learn the Gemara when you don't even understand what it says and it's boring to you in the beginning? You have to smoke. So the Yetzer Hara convinced me my cigarette is actually a mitzvah. And it took a while for me to say, Yetzer Hara, you know what? You're really full of it. You're really full of it. But that's the Yetzer Hara. The biggest kofer in the world is inside you. He's inside you, waiting to give you an excuse to rationalize your own wicked behavior. Listen, you can't stop doing drugs. You're already addicted. You know what's going to happen to your body when you think Hashem wants you to die? You know, people die from going off drugs suddenly. You think Hashem wants you not to yell at your wife? How else is she going to learn? You need to discipline her.

3:48You think Hashem wants you to be unattractive for your husband? What kind of shalom bayit are you going to have if Hashem thinks your husband is not happy with you? So you have to dress immodestly. You have to do this, you have to do that. And your yetzer hara is going to constantly convince you how to be a kofer. Unfortunately, if we let him in, if we let this zvuv, this fly, in, he's not leaving. And as we all know, the fly, right before it lands on our steak, stands on the filth left by street animals. These flies don't frequent cafes for leisurely coffee. Instead, they buzz around garbage heaps. So, the zvuv, the little fly hovering over your heart, drags all this impurity with it. So when he's convincing you, first, that your cigarette is a mitzvah, and that your miniskirt and tank top are a mitzvah, that's just the beginning. That's just the beginning. Slowly but surely, eventually, first, it's just a cigarette. Then it's, listen, Hashem said that learning Torah on Shabbat is worth a thousand times more than learning Torah during the week.

5:16How are you going to learn Torah on Shabbat without smoking a cigarette? Sounds crazy, but that's what the yetzer hara says, and that's what actually happens. So, you let him in the middle of the night on a Monday. He says, "Monday I'm here, coming back Tuesday." He comes back Tuesday. Oh, he feels at home. Wednesday he knows he's coming back. Thursday, Friday, and Friday night come along, and he's not leaving. He already feels at home. As Shabbat comes in, he's like, "Listen, how are you going to leave me? You've been with me the whole week. Are you going to leave me hanging?" He's going to try to work on you the whole Shabbat, to make sure you smoke just a little drag, just a little thing. He'll say, "Stay up, you're doing a mitzvah. It's worth a thousandfold." He's going to convince you with mitzvot, not with aveirot. My mom told me this one story that the Baal Shem Tov said. He said, the yetzer hara comes to you like a poor man, saying, "Please, please, give me a little bit. I don't have any sins. Give me some of your sins. You have so many mitzvot. You're such a tzaddik. You're such a tzaddeikes. You're such a righteous person. Give me a little bit of sins. Not big ones. No, don't be mechalel Shabbat. Don't be immodest. Don't be oved avodah zarah. Give me just a little sin. Eat just something that's not 100% kosher."

6:39Do something that's not 100% kosher. Lie to this one customer. Cheat this one non-Jew. Do something small. It's not a big deal. Watch this TV show. Something small. Why? Does Hashem really care about your TV? Come, give me one small sin. He comes to you like a little homeless person. But once he comes, he doesn't want to leave. What is it like? It's like a poor man that came to a rich man's house, and he said, "Listen, I can't afford to buy this big $10 million house you have, but I've always wanted to have something of yours. You have a big house. Can you give me space just for one nail?" The rich guy says, "What? For a nail? Yeah, just one. I have one nail. All I own is one nail, and I have $1,000. I'm willing to give you $1,000 for you to let me stick the nail anywhere you want in the house." Rich man's house, and he said, "Listen, I can't afford to buy this big $10 million house you have, but I've always wanted to have something. You have a big house. Can you give me space just for one nail?" The rich guy says, "What? For a nail? Yeah, just one. I have one nail. All I own is one nail, and I have $1,000. I'm willing to give you $1,000 for you to let me stick the nail anywhere you want in the house."

7:41The guy has a $10 million house. He likes money. He says, what's the big deal? I have such a big house. I'm probably not even going to notice this nail. Okay, fine. Give me the $1,000. Easy $1,000. Go ahead. Pick a place to put the nail in. He picks a place somewhere in the house. He puts the nail. He observes his nail. Wow, what a nail. Look at this. Look at the house you're surrounded by. He feels at home. It's a beautiful nail. He's admiring his nail. He's admiring the house that the nail is in. And he leaves. The rich guy's like, what a fool, this guy. I just made a thousand bucks for nothing. Later that night, at 2:30 in the morning, someone's knocking on the door. Who's knocking on the door at 2:30 in the morning? He opens the door and sees this poor man again. "What do you want? Do you have another nail?" "What do you want?" "No, no, no, I don't have another nail. And I don't have another thousand dollars." "But I want to put my hat, my hat, on the nail because I'm going to sleep outside. I don't want to ruin my hat, so I'll put the hat on the nail. Because he couldn't come early." The man says, "No, I was working until now. I have to put my hat on the nail." "Okay, put the hat on the nail. Monday. Tuesday."

8:58Two thirty in the morning, he comes back. No, you've already hung the hat on the nail. No, no, I want to put my jacket on the nail and take my hat back. You couldn't come earlier? No, I needed my jacket all day, so I couldn't hang it on the nail. I needed to use it. Okay, no. What's today? Tuesday? No, it's Wednesday. Three o'clock in the morning, got even later. No, what's today? What, the jacket, the hat? What do you want today? He goes, no, no. Today, I actually just wanted to look at my nail to see it's okay. Because yesterday it looked a little shaky. And every day he comes back at 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning. By the end of the week, the rich guy is losing his mind. He says, "Listen, you can't come here anymore." The poor man responds, "What do you mean, I can't come here anymore? I have a contract. I bought the place of the nail. I'm going to take you to court." They go to court. The Dayan (rabbinical judge) says, "He's right. You sold him the place of the nail. You have to let him see the nail." So, the rich guy has to deal with this as the poor man feels at home, and every day he comes throughout the day. Now he's not only coming at 2 o'clock in the morning, but also at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, at 3 o'clock, at 4 o'clock. He's coming every few minutes. Why? Because that's the law. You let him in.

10:12All the way to the point where the rich guy says, you know what? The heck with this house. Take the whole house. Take the nail. Take the hat. Take the jacket. I don't want to live here anymore. Who wants to live in this place every two minutes? The guy comes in. That's the Yetzer Hara. The Yetzer Hara comes to you and says, I'm poor, I'm homeless, I don't have much, you have so many mitzvot, you're a tzaddik, you do teshuva, you keep Shabbat, you learn Torah, you do this, you do that, you're so amazing, you're a proud Jew. Give me one nail. Give me just one nail. And we give him that nail. All this time, you've been letting the Yetzer Hara influence your opinion to the point where the Yetzer Hara has become your opinion. So now, when something different happens, you might say, "Hey, Hashem, why did You do that to me?" Thinking that you were right the whole time. "Look, Hashem, I was smoking at 3 o'clock in the morning for You as a mitzvah. I was learning Torah. Why did You give me cancer? Why did You give me this? Why did You give me that?" What do you mean? Who told you to smoke? Who told you not to smoke? So what was the ultimate decision? The ultimate decision is that I realized that, okay, the Yetzer Hara is full of it, which means I'm full of it.

11:30So I have to find a way to quit. Not because I want to quit. I like smoking. But because it's not ratzon Hashem. It's not the will of Hashem. Hashem didn't put me into this world to smoke. To be a smoker. It's not the will of Hashem. And I started thinking to myself, okay, wait a minute. So what do I do with my hands? What do I do with my hands? Like how do people live without smoking cigarettes? I got to a point, after 20 years of smoking, I didn't understand how anybody stands outside and does nothing. What do you do? Why are you just sitting there? What's wrong with you? Why don't you have something in your hand? To me, my smoking became normal. Their standing there is not normal. It can't be that they're right. Of course, I'm right. You never think anybody else is right. Everyone thinks they're right. Why are you just standing there? You're so weird. And I'm thinking to myself, yes, smoking a cigarette, thinking it's normal. That was one thing. And then the other one was like, okay, so then I'm probably gonna eat too much, then I'm gonna gain weight. So that was another yetzer hara. And you just add more and more and more things. How am I gonna study? How am I gonna stay up? And then I started seeing myself, I tried quitting.

12:45I started seeing myself fall asleep. I say, yes, sir. I told you it keeps me up at night. And you go back and you fight yourself, and you fight yourself. But eventually, you have to get to a point and say, listen, this is not Ratzon Hashem. And when did I finally realize it? I got to a point where I wouldn't smoke next to people. The reason why is because one time I did a shiur early on. It was in my house. A couple of my students went outside. Went outside, and they're all smoking cigarettes. I said, okay, I'll smoke a cigarette with them. I didn't think it was a big deal. They’re smoking, but they're looking at me smoking. They're smokers. Like, it wasn't even a thought in my mind that there's anything wrong with this. So, I lit up a cigarette, and they're all looking at me, like, oh, you smoke? I said, yeah, why? They're like, oh. That's it, they're all like this, oh. And immediately I knew that their level of respect, not just for me, but for everything I just said, had dropped drastically. Why? Because I'm just like them. We officially became the same level. It doesn't matter that I just spoke for two hours, taught Torah, explained what Ratzon Hashem is, and spoke about Emunah—it doesn't make a difference. You and I are the same. You smoke, I smoke.

14:12And what reminded me of this is when I used to see people who pretend to be religious by wearing a costume that resembles chassidut, like the big hat, or any type of hat that makes them look religious. I would see them in casinos or other similar places, and I'd think to myself, wait a minute, I'm not religious, that's why I'm here. But what are you doing here? This gave me the impression that Judaism was somehow insincere. If you're here and I'm here, I prefer my non-religious life to yours. So that simple cigarette, that simple tiny nail that I let the yetzer hara in, like, hey, listen, they're smoking, I'll smoke; what's the big deal? It immediately destroyed the Torah that I taught them and became a chillul Hashem. So then I knew, this has to be the last cigarette; I can never do this again. And that's when I had to quit. But again, it's not easy. I didn't actually want to do it. But sometimes... You have to decide: is your will more important than Hashem's will? If the answer is even remotely yes, you have a lot of work to do. That's when you have to eliminate your opinion. You have to eliminate it as much as possible until it becomes synonymous with Hashem's opinion. That's what real, true life is.