Yetzer Hara Uses True Lies

1:14For you to generate seed as a man to generate seed so you can bring kids to the world. If there was no purpose for procreation, to bring children to the world, Hashem would not give your body simply. Put, there is no other useful use for your body, which means that the natural inclination of a male body is to generate seed. And the yetzer hara (evil inclination) says, "Don't just generate it, waste it," and... You don't need a woman. If you need a woman, it doesn't make a difference. You don't want the child; you just want the woman. Waste it, waste it, do what you want. You're only convincing yourself that it's good for you. There are even people with PhDs after their names telling you it's healthy. So the Satan keeps convincing you of all the things that are against what's truly in your best interest. So, Ben Zoma is telling you, if you're able to take the Torah, apply Yirat Shamayim, and apply the Mussar that helps you achieve this Yirat Shamayim in your life, and get yourself to stop—not because you don't want to, since you're still going to have the physical desire, but because you're scared to.

2:44There is honor in being scared—so much honor that the wisest man of all time, Shlomo HaMelech, says that the first sign that you have any measure of wisdom, to even claim that you could possibly attain wisdom, is that you must first have yirat Hashem (fear of God). you're not afraid of Hashem. You cannot even consider yourself in the same sentence, paragraph, or even book as someone that is wise. You can know anything you want to know; it doesn't make a difference. You have no wisdom whatsoever. Why? You're not afraid of the only thing you should be afraid of. Therefore, if you could take the Torah and apply it to your life to such an extent that... We say, "I'm going to stop wasting seed. I'm going to stop stealing. I'm going to stop driving on Shabbat. I'm going to stop doing things that I want to do. Your natural inclination wants to do it. And the Rambam even confirms this; he says, some of these things you want to do, and that's what you were made for. So it's going against your animalistic nature. Why? I'm scared."

4:05Purely simple bottom line, beginning, middle, end. I am scared. That's the first reason. Anyone that says they started doing any of these things for a different reason is a liar. You don't do any of those things for an extended period of time for a different reason. You could potentially get to a point of not wasting seed, keeping Shabbat, and doing all the mitzvot because you love Hashem—you can get there. Starting there is impossible. Why? Because, in order to love Hashem, first, you have to fear Him. You can't love something if you don't know what it is, and if you know even a small inclination of what God is, of course you're going to fear Him. You can't know what God is without fearing Him. So the Rambam is telling you, first and foremost, understand the depth of what wisdom is. Understand the depth of what... Real strength is overcoming your physical desires, your natural desires, the things that made sense to you your whole life. All of a sudden, you realize they're wrong. It's wrong to be involved in inappropriate relationships. It's wrong to do prohibited activities on Shabbat. It's wrong to steal. It's wrong to engage in unethical behavior. You know, every thief doesn't view himself as a thief. That's a bad guy.

5:30every criminal doesn't wake up in the morning and say, "I can't wait to be a bad person." Everyone views themselves as good. Even Hitler viewed himself as good. He thought he was doing Hashem a favor. He thought he was doing mankind a favor by destroying this "insect" called Jews. That's what he thought he was doing. He thought he was doing everyone a favor. The thief, that he's doing the store a favor because he's going to take money from them. They're going to be able to claim money from the insurance, which is probably more than he stole. So they're going to be profitable in the end. He's rationalizing in his head how he's doing them a favor. The car that he stole, oh, now the insurance company will give this guy a new car. So look, I did him a favor. I took his old car, and now he has a new car. You should thank me, if anything, he should pay me for it.

6:33Yetzer hara will always convince you that your evil is good. Ben Zoma says you take the yetzer hara, you punch him in the face. You tell him, "Whatever you're telling me, I know it's a lie." A person wakes up in the morning and needs to go to beit knesset, to tefillat minyan. Yetzer hara says, "No, go to sleep. What are you doing? Six o'clock in the morning, go to sleep, wake up, go to minyan at eight." Why are you getting up at 6 o'clock? It's so early. You worked so hard yesterday. You didn't go to sleep until 2 o'clock in the morning. Who do you think you are? Go to sleep. You're a human being. Relax. Next week you can get up at 6. It's the yetzer hara convincing you. Someone who applies the Torah to their life, like Ben Zoma says, what do you answer him? Say, wait a minute. Let's think about it. It's the yetzer hara. It's six o'clock in the morning. You're right. It's very, very early. But what are you doing up? Are you working? What are you working on? Who do you work for? You work for Hashem. What's your job? Your job is to weaken me, to distance me. Why? Because that's the test. So if you're already working, leave me alone. Let me work, too. I go work at the Knesset, and you take the Torah.

8:01Use it as a tool to apply to your life. You're never going to want to wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning. You're never going to not want to go to the beach where everyone's not dressed modestly; never. Physically, you're always going to want to have intimate relations with somebody, you know. Your body will always want it, and... Torah will purify it over time to the point where you're not even looking in that direction. People ask me all the time. Again, this is only for the purpose of education; don't think of anything or anything. I just know my yetzer hara, so I try to protect myself. You want to learn Torah, you have to protect your eyes. Unfortunately, we've reached a point where today it's virtually impossible. Virtually impossible to walk around the street without seeing people immodestly dressed. It's impossible now. "Naked" doesn't necessarily always mean fully unclothed; it means that pretty much they're wearing what is akin to underwear. That's considered naked. You have two choices: one choice is to look on the floor all the time. This is difficult and takes a little training, but it's not impossible. When I go to Eretz Yisrael, for the most part, that's what I do.

9:25America, same thing. But it's tough to do it over an extended period of time simply because you just don't know where you're going or how you're doing. It just makes the whole trip miserable. So there's a second solution: don't leave the house. That's the solution, that's it. Don't leave the house. So people ask me all the time, "Oh, how's Boca? How's Boca, do you like it?" Near the end, anytime I go to a new shiur or the beit midrash, people say, "Yeah, you live in Boca Raton," and I'm like, "Yeah, like how is it?" I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? How long have you lived there? Three years. So how is it? I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? I don't go anywhere. The biggest trip that I take is to my shiur Torah. That's it. Other than that, once, maybe every month or two, my wife has to send me to Winn-Dixie or Publix to get some groceries because she can't do it or someone else can't do it. Then I have to go. Other than that, I don't leave the house. Why? I don't want to look. That is the way. How's Boca? I have no idea. How is the next neighborhood going to be that I'm going to move to? I don't know. And I won't know, b'ezrat Hashem. Why? It's the only way. It's the only way. It's the only way. I know that looking on the floor, I can do it. But over an extended period of time, it becomes miserable. I'd rather just go sit, study, do my thing, and, you know, go to a lecture. That's it. What do I need to go outside for? I'm not going to malls.

10:56What's the ideal situation? Stay in the house, go give a lecture, go back home, give another lecture, go back home. What do I need? To look at my wife, my kids—the beginning, middle, and end. That's it, finished. That's how you protect your eyes. The other option is to look at the floor all day. The problem is many guys don't want to stay home; obviously, they want to see the world, and whatever, fine, I don't blame you for wanting to see the world. At your own risk. The problem is that along the way of seeing the world, you're also going to see a bunch of people. If you want to inherit Torah, you can't see it. You can't look at women who are half-dressed and think it's okay. It's not okay. Why? Because it damages your neshama. Every time you see an immodest woman, it damages your neshama. Now, one of the questions we asked is about the significance of a sin, and... Now we saw in the beginning, we used an analogy. A little boy, you ask him, "How big is the star? How big is the sun?" He says it's a quarter. You, as an adult, know it's not a quarter. It's not even a ball. It's thousands and thousands of times larger than the size of Earth.

12:11Really, no human being can comprehend the true size of Earth because we're still human. We can see it in pictures, we can see it on a screen, but to comprehend the size of just the ocean, to comprehend just the size of your city, is impossible for a human being. Because it's so much bigger than you, to comprehend a sun that's 90 million miles away, it's impossible. That's our sin. When you ask yourself how big your sin is, that's your sin. A guy looks at a girl that's half-naked, that's not his wife, that's not appropriate, that's the sin. That's the significance of the sin. And Chazal say, the biggest Gehinnom of a person, the biggest Gehinnom, the Gehinnom that there's no size for, there's no measurement for it, is when a person shows up to the Bet Din shel Shamayim. He discovers the size of his sin. Forget about the fire; forget all that stuff. The embarrassment and shame that he has at that moment when he discovers the size of his sin, versus what he thought when he was still in flesh and blood, no Gehinnom can withstand it.

13:40Because his whole life he thought it was a quarter, maybe a ball. It was beyond his comprehension to think it's a son. Without Torah, you can never arrive at that; with Torah, you have a chance. So when you're talking about the significance of sin, only the Torah is going to give you that. Now, as far as suffering... Different levels of suffering, different types of sins. When a person connects to Hashem, Hashem would want to give him gifts. Sometimes those gifts are suffering. How do you know whether you're close to Hashem in truth or not? When you eventually arrive at a point where you start seeing that even your suffering is good for you, it's a transformative moment. This understanding is profoundly rooted in our emunah (faith) and bitachon (trust) in HaKadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, Blessed be He). The lessons from our Gedolim (Torah giants) consistently teach us that every challenge is an opportunity for growth. Remember, in the journey of life, the Torah illuminates our path, guiding us through both joy and hardship with a sense of purpose and divine assurance.