Crafting Your Comeback: Overcoming the Yetzer Hara and Thriving in Torah Study

0:01 There isn't a more gripping and cliche storyline than that of the comeback when one team seems to be down and out, totally dominated and demoralized, but then, behind the heart of a champion and one hero, the hero leads his team back from the depth to steal the game right before they cross the finish line. We love to root for the underdog. It seems like it's deeply connected into the human psyche. It's relatable and we love the story. It's thrilling and exhilarating, motivating. It goes back to the times of Dovid and Goliaths, when Dovid took down the giant.

0:45 And in our lives we have to mount the same comeback and we need to believe, as the medrish tells us, that there is the great and dominant foe, the Eight Sahara, who holds us back from accomplishing this great task of Ki Ha Mitzvah, hazoz Asher, anayi, Himmetsavra, ayyam Laini, flaysheep Memcha, to know Torah. We are commanded to know Hashem's Torah, but as the medrish gives such a powerful muscle, the fool who hears about this mitzvah of knowing Torah will walk inside of the study hall and seek out the rabbi and say well, how do I sign up to know Torah?

1:27 The rabbi will point him to the bookshelf and say why don't you open up a book and take a seat. There are 25 books of scripture and 63 tractates of Gemara and, to be clear, that's 2711, over 2,000, over 2,700 double-sided folios of Talmudic pages. So why don't you get started? The fool says what Ayyam Hussaini Lomad calls those. How am I ever going to find the time to do all of that? So he gives up. But the pikeach, but the hero, the comeback kid, he says well, if I do a chapter a day of learning Chlemish, I'll finish that after a couple years and then I'll move in to start learning Mishnah and then Gemara, and then some Halacha and then some Magada.

2:16 But a little bit a day, a chapter a day, and at overtime you will amass great knowledge and eventually, yes, even finishing Torah is within reach. Kikarive e lecha, hadovar, maod, knowledge of Torah, the mitzvah of studying, it is very close to you. It is close to you and somebody that will take the steps forward and actually try it and notice that if I do a little bit a day and you can finish it, that's mounting. The ultimate comeback, the heroes. They see that this isn't a 50 point game. I don't got to get it all back now. Drive by drive, possession by possession, point by point, you claw your way back in and eventually, when you get close, you go for the kill.

3:05 The fools, the rest of the bum teammates say, oh, we're down by 50, there's no hope. So write the greatest comeback in the history of time. Start learning day by day, piece by piece, one chapter by one chapter, and then you will be the ultimate hero when you stand there finishing all of Torah. It's a beautiful story. Time to come back, kid.