Your Enemy's Donkey

24 Shevat 5782

“If you see the donkey of your enemy collapsing under its burden, and are inclined to desist from helping him, you shall surely help along with him” (Shemos 23:5)

The Holy Baal Shem Tov explains in Chassidus, “The Hebrew for ‘donkey,’ chamor, also means ‘material.’ Thus, this verse also instructs us as to the proper attitude toward the body and physicality:

‘When you will see the chamor of your enemy’—initially you will see your material self as your enemy, as something that obstructs and hinders your spiritual growth.

‘Collapsing under its burden’—in such a state of animosity between body and soul, that the body resists the Torah and its commandments, making them an unbearable burden for it …

One’s first inclination may be ’to desist from helping him’—to shun the body, suppress its instincts and deny it its wants.

Says the Torah: ‘You shall surely help along with him.’ Aid the material self with its ‘burden,’ by training it to recognize that the Torah is the vehicle for its own refinement and elevation.”

“And surely, the other unclean creatures and even the ferocious beasts [are higher than the sinner]. All of these do not deviate from their Divinely intended purpose but obey G-d’s command. Although they cannot perceive it, for the animal cannot perceive G-d’s command, yet their ‘spirit’ perceives it.” (Lessons in Tanya, Likutei Amarim, Chapter 24)

You must realize that your animal soul is performing precisely according to its Divinely intended purpose, to protect your physical well-being at all costs. It is interpreting your spiritual advancements as dangerous excursions that could lead to all kinds of physical harm and self-neglect. Your job now is to convince it of the opposite, as the Rebbe puts it, “you should work with it, strengthening its health while ’educating’ it to realize that accepting the Torah’s dictates is in its own best interest” (Daily Wisdom).

“What is the matter with you, O sea, that you flee; Jordan, that you turn backward; mountains, that you skip like rams; hills, like young sheep? [We do so] before the Master, the Creator of the earth, before the G-d of Jacob” (Tehillim 114:5-7)

Like the mountains and hills that skip like rams and sheep, before the revelation Hashem, once your animal soul realizes the higher source of your spiritual endeavors, it too will act against its own nature of physicality and selfishness. It too will view the mitzvos “as a gift, joining your soul enthusiastically in their fulfillment” (Daily Wisdom).