Does Good Always Win? Power of the Mind.

Here's a question that you probably haven't heard so much asked, but who's stronger, the or the evil inclination or the good inclination? Which inclination do you feel is more powerful, more subduing, able to conquer? As I think almost everybody would ask, and probably maybe everyone, unless you're a big sadic, everyone would say, obviously the mash the goof, the power of the goof, which we call the neph, the neph of the behema, which pulls us and strains us. We always feel a very strong intense pull, an absolute drive to be able to do it. We feel it almost from within us. It's from within our kishkas. We can almost restrain from it sometimes as opposed to when we speak about the power of the it seems a little bit sometimes efil. It's a little bit of a delicate what we call type of pull. It almost seems from outside not from within. When we describe the ani the the person himself or what I describe my zik is what I am. Many times we will identify with what we call the we'll identify with something that we call the power of the goof the power of the drive of the body which is not the body it's obviously the nephesh the bah what we call the physical animalistic part that gives us life within us that that seems to have a much stronger pull and the fight doesn't seem any anywhere to be anywhere in comparison doesn't seem to be an even pull what they call in Hebrew kot there's no kot there it's not an even it's not an even fight he's a heavyweight and he's a lightweight you, you know, even in boxing, you have to you have to have categorizations to make it a fair fight. And how is it that you can go ahead and tie it on a person and say, you know, go ahead and conquer it, overdo it. It just doesn't seem like we're going to win. That's a real strong question. And I saw one time bring a beautiful mushel to this idea which I wanted to bring out here. And that is a seipur, a story to listen. If we go to some empty area in the middle of the African jungle over there, we have an open area which is uh stripped away from trees and suddenly you find within the landscape over there a very very large elephant. You see an incredible large elephant weighs at least four tons over 15,000 lbs. The it's it's as heavy as a bus if you will. And even with his trunk himself, he's able to pick up over 300 kilos, 300 kilograms of of wood and able to to transport it from place to place. This thing is a mammoth. It's a monster. It's nowhere that you want to get next to nothing. As long as he's around, you you got to stay away. Some people who take these trips to South Africa says the most dangerous things are not the lions, it's the elephants. Cuz if they step on you, you're finished. And they don't even realize when they do it. Even lions don't try to approach him except in a horrifically desperate situation. No one tries to mess as they say with a with a peel with an elephant. However, you look beyond a little bit more into the landscape over there as this tourist is sitting there inside of his jeep and he suddenly witnesses a young African child, a young African child, 10 or 11 years old at most. And he's standing there face to face against this horrific elephant and his mouth opens up and he goes, "Oh no, this is not going to be pretty." The the child seems to approach and get closer and closer to the elephant and the and and suddenly waves his hand. Suddenly you see the elephant approaching the child and you're like, "This is not going to be pretty. Holy mackerel. There's no equal challenge over here. This is not an equal thing with his just with his uh just with his uh trunk. He can go ahead and toss him over and turn him into a pile of bones. If he kind of just missteps, he doesn't even have to kick him. He can just step on him. The kid is finished. He will be handicapped for life. What is he trying to do? Suddenly each one is getting closer to the next and suddenly realizes this is the moment of truth. He's in a point of absolute despair. He's in fear and trepidation. the one sitting inside of the jeep and looking saying, "What can I do?" He's trying to call for help. His mouth is gapping, gapping open, and he just wants to scream, but he can't even let out the vocal cord. It won't even go. He doesn't know what to do. Suddenly, he sees the child wave his hand again. And the elephant takes his trunk, bends over, and lifts up a bunch of wood, a pile of wood, and suddenly starts approaching the child. The child waves his hand once more and the elephant goes ahead and moves it to another spot. And he does this once and again and again until he gets a nice pile of wood in a specific spot which he was looking for. Incredible. The person didn't know what was going on. He was sitting there in absolute desperation. But of course, we know we're not tourists. We're all so familiar. We've watched the BBC thing. We know that it doesn't work like that. We know that this elephant is completely trained and he's been trained. I don't know if it's by this kid or by his father. It doesn't make a difference. But by using a few sweets, he was able to slowly but surely teach him how to follow his lead. The elephant ended up being completely subdued to a young little child, which was no match for him at all. You know why? Because competition is not always won only by might, but many times by the mind instead. By the way, you are your intelligence is the way that you're able to overconquer. as opposed to the idea of Darwinism which was Hitler's follow who followed suit to this ridiculous concept of survival of the fittest that everything only works by co it's not ridiculous obviously that's how it works many times in the jungle but as we see in real life that most animals here outdo us animals are all animals most animals are stronger than us way all the whole cat family from lions down to to jaguars and tigers they can outdo us in seconds. That's not a question. The the might and the hu humongousness of elephants and whales and others that are around. And of course, we know the speed of most of these animals, including deer, and and like I said, jaguars, cheetahs, and others. They outdo us. They outdo us everywhere. Birds can fly over our heads from left to right. Why is mankind the king of all the animal kingdom? Why do we rule over the animal kingdom? Because we have one tool that they don't have, and that's the power of the mind. the capability of being able to think, to calculate, to make a, as they say, and to make the right decision, and to put them in our pocket as opposed to the other way around. We're the ones with the zoos. They're not the ones who put us in the zoo. And it's because we have the power of the mind to overdo it. We're able to fly using our intelligence. We're able to go faster than animals because of our intelligence. We're able to use it because of the power of intelligence. I unfortunately learned this from an Arab believe it or not of all people to learn at one time many a couple decades ago I was going onto the onto the onto my ride to be able to get to yeshiva and I was going on I was going walking onto the van and I was trying to pull the seat pull I was pulling and tugging and pulling to be able to move it so I can get on because the front seat was in the way and the Arab the Arab driver leaned over to me and he said don't use strength rather you should use your intelligence and I felt like garbage. You should imagine what I felt like at that time. Here I have this guy who I would have more importantly preferred to tell it to him that he was going out and telling me this funny uh this funny concept upon him. That's the idea. And of here we see from the mush to the nimul from theur we see an incredible idea. Yes, we have a strong nephesh bahid. If it's idea of kot of the battle of the giants, it's a lightweight and heavyweight. We're never going to win. You can't win. How many times do you try and you struggle to conquer the yates and you try it again and again and again? Think about that smoker who said, "Okay, tomorrow I'm not smoking. That's it. This is the last puff until tomorrow." It doesn't end. It doesn't go. Every time that he tries to conquer this is it. I'm not going to push any. I'm not going to go looking in those wrong places. I'm not going to find myself in the wrong place. And suddenly before he knows it by tomorrow comes and he's in the wrong place once again. It's almost I don't want to say ridiculous but wrong to be able to use the same strategy over and over when you see it's not working. We have the power of intelligence to outthink things to be able to figure it out. And that's why we see the is called a mel he's very strong but the says but the is called he's weak of all he's intelligent. We can we're able to do we have to be able to utilize our intelligence to be able to figure out the right way to not fall into that trap next time. If it means using a filter on the internet, if it means pulling the plug on the whole thing and making sure it doesn't happen or being able to put yourself in a type of situation where you won't fall into a trap where other people are there, that's the way to take care of it. A person who is a bad smoker, who is an addict. So where the whole intelligence of 13 steps is not so much to 13, you don't need it. It's all about just the that's really what it is. But the whole idea is to transfer your your strengths instead of putting it into the cigarette to putting it to somewhere else where it talks about over there in alcoholics anonymous has to do with the idea of just having that mentor that you go ahead and you have your schmoo with that you go ahead and talk to him. You smoo them every time you have that drive that craving you go ahead and exploit it with your mouth instead of going ahead and puffing it with a cigarette. That's the way it is and that's how it works with all addictions these days. By the way, the only way all the a's that they have at the end, addictions with with whatever prefix you want to put it with, they all have to do with being able to transfer that kak into someplace else instead of just trying to suppress it and doing it over and over again because it's a no-win situation. That's the power of of the of the intelligence of the mind and what we have and that's also connected with our para in many ways because you know it says in the para that we have in Israel that we say all the time You have to be also and to be able to do it with both to be able to utilize it with both. How do you use the to be sometimes take those drives and use them towards drive it towards something yes a little bit more spiritual to be able to utilize it. I see I have a drive for this. One example that rivessel used to bring is a rau he was a person who was raik from yes he tried to exit himself from connecting to tavot he didn't even look at his own wife and was one of the four prettiest women in the world and still when he had a tava for food when he realized something is oh so delicious instead of asking sad can you go ahead and learn the recipe and try to learn how to cook it instead of doing that you know what he did he went ahead and tried to serve it to guests he found the best of the best and he utilized it how can I use this forim for for being able to use it for what needs to be done. And that is the sort of everything. Remember, every drive that we have could be utilized from here to here. It's just a matter of what overpowers what. It's an incredible thing when you think about it. A smoker can't stop smoking. But if he's a religious person, on Shabbat, he won't even think about it. On Shabbat, he won't touch that cigarette. And once a Shabbat comes, oh, he's gasping for it. I've got to have that cigarette. What happened? 25 hours you're able to do it. And you can't run away from it for a day. Because when a person puts his mind in the right place, when he knows how to conquer, then he can even conquer an elephant. It doesn't matter how strong it is, he's able to overpower it. Should know and I'll finish with this. When I sometimes you sit, you know, as a unfortunate part of my position, sometimes I have to sit in the mis in the front by some of these. You have to sit in the front and there you have it. And sometimes you come there starving and they have great food. Especially in the mis they have great food and you want to just dish out some food. But you know first of all someone gets up to talk then other people come to talk to you and you know and people are looking or sometimes the camera's focused because the guy speaking is right next to you. So you really don't want to mess up the the film of the of the wedding or the bar mitzvah. You don't want to do that. So there you are looking at the food and desperate but you don't touch it. What's the answer is yes. You have a you have a to go out and eat. You really want to take a you want to take just a little bit of a bite to savor a little bit of that especially when you're hungry. You can't can't imagine. But you know what overpowers that tava? The tava of the thea the lust for the need to be in control. The need that everyone should give me honor should respect me should look at me up high to look at me to look up to me. That sometimes overpowers even the of we see from you the power of being able to be in control of one's if you want to put in the right place. It all comes from the mind, from the perspective, and from the decision that a person makes. Shabbat shalom.