Zos!

This is Zos Chanuka. The final day of Chanuka. There are plenty of maamarim and sichos about today, and you'd do well to look them up. I'd look them up myself, but I'm currently on a subway and therefore don't really have the necessary resources. But I wasn't planning on blogging about that anyway.

First of all, a massive mazel tov to two really (relatively) close friends of mine, both of whom were my shluchim when I was in yeshiva, Yossi Kagan and Shua Lustig. Do guys ever have really close friends, or is that reserved for girls? Anyway, mazel tov mazel tov, may you be zoche to build a bayis neeman b'yisrael. Also, I met a Dukes guy today, and when I told him that I meant to go to his brother's wedding last night but didn't he said that I could male up for it by blogging about it. Since there's not much I can say about an event I never attended (chabad.org news I'm not) let me just assume that a grand time was had by all.

The Rosh of LA, one of the better people currently living, always farbrengs for many hours on this day. All right, so the second year I was there he didn't but that's because he was in New York celebrating the wedding of his son. So that was a little disappointing, but at least I have the first year memories. We were still in the old zal, and the menora was still burning. It continued to do this for several days after, a true chanuka miracle! Actually it burned because we kept on refilling it, but I'm not here to write about people waking at 4:00 in the morning to keep a menora lit. Truth is, it was LA, so they probably hadn't gone to sleep yet. They were undoubtedly shteiging away until that hour. Or going to clubs. Whatever, it's all good.

Anyway, back to the farbie. I only remember two things the Rosh said, and I'm pretty certain that I've blogged one of them before, but seeing as I heard him say it as least six times I think I can give myself leave to repeat it.

As religious Jews we watch negel vasser every morning after we wake up from our undoubtedly chassisishe chalomos. As chassidim we're very careful to have a cup filled with water and a bowl to pour it into next to our beds so that immediately upon awakening following our recitation of the modeh ani prayer which is of course accompanied by some heibt of hamtelech we can lave though very same hantelech, though of course we're careful to wait a few seconds as per the Alter Rebbe's explicit instructions in his Shulchan Oruch which of course applies to every Jew great and small. Was that a glorious run-on sentence or what? I saw in Nshei Chabad Newsletter and family story time that you should prepare the whole shebang every time you go to sleep for an extended period of time, but this seems to be to be excessive. As the Friedriker Rebbe writes, anyone who is more frum than you is a fanatical nut, and anyone who's less frum is frie like the birds.
Anyway, the question becomes, what do you do with that unclean water? No Shulchan Oruch gives instructions, but our mothers have decreed that the only thing to do is to immediately pour that water out. Not like my roommate does it, outside the window onto the hapless souls struggling underneath but rather in a proper receptacle, such as your friendly local orthodox bathroom sink. Why do we do this? Because the water is impure.

The Rosh said that he searched many years for the source of this and was unable to find one. So why did he do it? Because when Jewish mothers have been saying things for many generations it's a good idea to listen.

Of course this came just a few days after I crashed a shiur gimmel farbrengen in his apartment when he wasn't quite singing this tune. It was the end of the Farbrengen, the Roshette was desperately trying to get us out, she had already turned the lights off, and I mentioned something about guilt to the glorious leader of YOEC. I said that my mother was a big fan if guilt, because it kept people frum. The truth is that in my recollection she never said anything like that, but I was trying to give my words an air of authenticity. Ironic, isn't it, that to give an air of authenticity I lied. Anyway, the Rosh turned on me as if I had said the worst thing in the world. Turns out that he doesn't believe in guilt as a motivator. It's too bad that I don't remember his exact words, which were much more colorful and impressed themselves upon me greatly.

If I was a really big chassid of his I could say that he had ruach hakodesh and knew that my words weren't coming from my mother, and therefore what he would later say wasn't a contradiction. I'm not such such a big chassid though. Heck, he's the master of Jewish mother guilt. Every yeshiva tries to inspire its students with it, but his is one of the best.

The second thing he said, and as I said I heard this from him several times at least, was to explain the difference between a child and an adult. We learn in the holy books that a baby is born with a yetzer hora, an evil inclination (personal satanic element!) and only gets his yetzer tov, his good inclination (a veritable piece of the living G-d) when he turns the ripe old age of thirteen. All right, I remember blogging this very recently. If I was lazy I'd tell y'all to go look it up for yourselves, but I'm on a NJ Transit train and don't really have anything better to do anyway. Besides, you're supposed to learn everything 100 times, and if you're working 101 times, so I'm sure you'll survive the experience.
It seems like the holy books don't know what they're talking about. Have you ever seen a baby? They're the cutesy things in the world, so innocent, so fragile, with neither sin nor double-parking infraction to mar their holiest of souls. Have you ever seen a thirteen year old? These children are the brattiest of the bratty, with more double-parking tickets than you can shake a stick at. So where exactly is this yetzer tov?

A baby thinks about one thing, and one thing only: himself. Hungry? cry. Sad? cry. Tired? cry. Kids are the same thing. They only think about what is best for them. In fact, they can only think of what is best for them. They don't have a yetzer tov. When you turn bar or bat mitzvah you suddenly get the ability to realize that it's not all about you. Obviously many people never get this, and they spend their whole lives focusing entirely on their own needs and wants. These people are self-centered, and though they might do some very good deeds they still don't get it. The goal is to realize that you are not all there is in the world.

What is the yetzer hora? Self-knowledge. What is the yetzer tov? Bittul. Nullification to a higher power. Realizing, but really realizing, that the entire world does not revolve around you. It's tough, it takes a lot of work. A lifetime's amount of tough work. But that's why you were put down here. So get cracking.