What the Rav said:
If a person has in his heart, some type of rebellion, some type of conflict, Hashem is not interested in having that person go through his whole life without that being revealed, that a person will go through his whole life thinking he’s a Tzadik.
Because, each and every one of us has all sorts of things in his heart.
Hashem wants it to come out and be revealed.
Rabbenu says that a person often has impurity hidden within him. They make him impure, from heaven, so that the hidden impurities come out and are exposed.
So, a person knows what to make teshuva on.
They cause a person to stumble because they want all the hidden conflicts to be revealed.
Oy, why did I make a mistake? Why did I stumble? This is what Hashem wanted.
Because the mistake [which Hashem caused you to make] revealed your inner [hidden] mistake.
My thoughts:
There’s a lot going on in this piece.
First of all, we need to recognise that we’re not perfect, we’re not Tzadikim.
We’ve still got a lot of bad middot hidden under the surface.
I never used to consider that anger was something I needed to work on. I very rarely got angry – and if I did, it was for a good reason (!) So, it took me a while before I was prepared to accept that I had, under the surface, actually quite a lot of anger!
It took Hashem to remind me of that, to point it out, occasionally repeatedly. Until I got the message.
I have an anger problem. It’s not my biggest problem in life, but for sure it’s still a problem. And, I know that it’s better for me to try to deal with it , both to have a better life down here, and so that I don’t have to face the consequences Above.
So, I bought the Rav’s 'Prayers to be Saved from Anger' booklet and started reading them. I don’t know if my anger problem has improved (maybe it has a little), but at least I’ve got something to say when they ask me Upstairs whether I tried to deal with my anger problem…!
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