Spiritual Hygiene

26 Teves 5782

“G-d instructed Moses to say to Aaron, ‘Raise your staff and strike the dust of the earth, and it will turn into lice.’” (Shemos 8:12)

“The louse is a parasite; it lives off animals and people without contributing anything to their lives. It is therefore a metaphor for evil, since evil thrives by sucking the life force out of holiness rather than by its own merits.

By infesting the Egyptians with lice, G-d was showing them what their indifference to Divinity made them into: ‘parasites.’ All their achievements in literature, art, architecture, science, and so on, served only to inflate their egos and enhance their material lives. As such, they were draining vitality from the forces of holiness in the world rather than aiding holiness.” (Lubavitcher Rebbe, Daily Wisdom)

“As our Sages say: ‘No man sins unless overcome by a spirit of folly’; he imagines that committing this sin will not affect his Jewishness and that his soul will not be severed thereby from the G-d of Israel.” (Lessons in Tanya, Likutei Amarim, beginning of Chapter 14)

“Just as a louse can attach itself to a person only if his hygiene is lax, evil can only thrive when we allow our Divine consciousness to lapse, falling either into misdeeds or the apathy toward holiness that leaves us vulnerable to the enticements of materialism.” (Lubavitcher Rebbe, Daily Wisdom)

Therefore we must call to mind the two mantras the Alter Rebbe shares with us in this Tanya portion - “I do not want to be a rasha even for a moment” and “I desire to unite my nefesh, ruach, and neshamah with G-d” - whenever we feel our Divine consciousness lapsing and our animal soul rising to fill this void in order to bring us away from Hashem. Thereby we will restore our spiritual hygiene and become impervious to evil forces manifesting themselves as cravings of the heart.

“Let Your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen Your precepts.” (Tehillim 119:173)

As the Alter Rebbe already explained in Chapter 13, even the beinoni is only able to keep away wholly from sin through Divine assistance. How much more so do most of us require Divine assistance to stay on our path. When Hashem sees that we have made a serious effort, that we have firmly “chosen His precepts,” He is sure to ready His helping hand for us. This is how the rank of beinoni becomes attainable by every person, which of course includes and obligates all of us.