What the Rav said:
Through ‘milta de’shtuta’ (doing something silly), we trick Lavan the Aramean.
He [Lavan] comes to a person with all types of insults, to embarrass you, to make you sad and to break you.
You’re not serving Hashem! You’re no Tzadik! You don’t learn! You don’t pray!
This is the way he brings a person down, and down. By breaking him, he brings a person down to a very low place.
We need to break Lavan the Aramean. Because the main bite of the snake is sadness and laziness.
Through milta de’shtuta we trick the yetzer hara, and we flee into happiness.
My thoughts:
This one’s a bit more complicated.
First, we need to understand a little more about ‘milta de’shtuta’.
Rabbenu taught us that sometimes, the only way to break the yetzer hara is by doing something silly or dumb (which doesn't mean dangerous or illegal!) - it just means making a joke or acting a little silly.
This breaks a person’s pride, his arrogance and his ego – which is another way of saying that it break’s a person’s yetzer hara.
I think I read somewhere that Rabbenu once literally threw himself into the mud for this purpose!
You don’t necessarily need to get your suit dirty, but having a laugh at yourself definitely has its place.
So, next time you feel stuck in a mood that you just can’t seem to get out of, whack on some 80’s pop music and start body-popping, moonwalking or break-dancing until you’re a completely new person!
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