Day 20/50: Bitter-Sweet

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר֙ לְכוּ֙ עִבְד֣וּ אֶת־ה

Go! Worship the Lord

Harav Ahron Feldman Shlit”a, in the forward to the book “From Boys to Men”, writes:

Our society celebrates gratification as the goal of life and the guarantee of happiness. It is unfortunate that society portrays this image, for the truth is the direct opposite. Submitting to the forbidden drives brings on depression and unhappiness. True joy is connecting to Hashem through satisfying one’s neshamah through Torah learning and mitzvos; succumbing to our bodily desires, on the other hand, has the effect of cutting oneself off from his contact with his neshamah and, thereby, from the true source of joy.

Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner zatz”l, who guided bachurim for well over half a century, writes:

Anyone who is an expert in the ways of life and Torah education knows that a person’s spiritual ascents and descents are primarily dependent on the degree to which he safeguards the purity of his neshamah through shemiras habris. Sins of this sort seem sweet for the moment, but are bitter in the end. They bring about depression, a lack of satisfaction with life and rob the person of his “simchas hachaim” (happiness). Conversely, shemiras habris and guarding the purity’s of one’s eyes, zealousness in refraining from any form of forbidden act and from reading forbidden material, brings joy and spiritual strength, simchas hachaim; and the gates of Torah and yiras Shamayim stand open before him.