Appreciating the Straw | Rabbi Shraga Kallus

There's a very interesting Gemara in Nedarim Daf 50a. The Gemara tells us that when Rabbi Akiva got married, he was, of course, in utter poverty. They were in the barn, picking out the straw from each other's hair. Rabbi Akiva turned to his wife and said to her, One day, I'm going to buy you a golden tiara, some very expensive piece of jewelry. The Gemara continues, There was a knock on the door. It was Eliyahu HaNavi, dressed up as a man that had just had a baby. He said: Please, can anyone help me? I just had a baby and we don't even have straw to put the baby on. Rabbi Akiva turned to his wife and said: Look at that. This man doesn't even have straw. At least we have straw. Rabbi Akiva’s wife turned to him and said: Akiva, go to Yeshiva. Go learn Torah. There's a very interesting question on this Gemara. Why is it that she only said it at this point? Why didn't she say it in the beginning, when he said: I'll buy you a golden tiara? And as a matter of fact, why didn't she tell him to learn Torah right away, right after they got married? That was the whole purpose of their marriage, was that he should become the great Rabbi Akiva. It seems that Rachel, Eishes Rabbi Akiva, understood that Rabbi Akiva had a tremendous amount of ambition and even was a perfectionist to a certain extent. No less than a golden tiara I'm going to buy you one day. She understood that that sometimes can be detrimental to a person's Avodas Hashem. He's only going to feel success if he has total victory. Victory in Torah, victory against the Yetzer Hara. Total perfection. When the man knocked on the door and her husband told her: ‘At least we have straw,’ she saw that he was able to appreciate what he had. He would be able, one day, to appreciate his success in Torah, even if it wouldn't be a total victory in the understanding and knowledge of the whole Torah. And therefore, she said, now you're ready to go learn Torah. Go to Yeshiva. In the battle with the Yetzer Hara in Shmiras Einayim, in ענייני קדושה, some of us, we feel only when we have a total victory against the Yetzer Hara that that's considered success. And that's what breaks us. It's true you need to be ambitious, but we must, and that's maybe even most important, appreciate the successes that we have. We have to be able to appreciate even the few times that we were able to conquer the Yetzer Hara. And that's the key to success.