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Posted on September 2, 2022 (5782) By Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein | Series: | Level:

You shall utterly destroy them…so that they will not teach you to act according to all their abominations that they performed for their gods, so that you will sin to Hashem.[2]

The Torah issues this warning many times, beginning right after Moshe came down from Har Sinai. “Don’t make a covenant with them and their gods. They shall not live in your land, lest they cause you to sin.”[3] The warnings are repeated often.[4] So often, that you just know that there is something critical in these red flags.

Moreover, just before Moshe takes leave from his people, he warns them once more. “You know how we dwelled in the land of Egypt, and how we passed through the midst of the nations though which you passed…Perhaps there is among you a man or woman…whose heart turns away today from being with Hashem.”[5] Rashi adds: “For that reason, I need to adjure you.” Listen to what Rashi is saying! The generation that had forty years to contemplate what they had learned about HKBH, as well as to understand the reasons for their failures, needs to take an oath that they will not slip into idolatry. Why? Because they had spent some limited time in an alien environment!

This can best be understood in the context of the Gra’s teaching about the yetzer hora. There are two different kinds of yetzer hora, taught the Gra – an internal one, and an external one. The internal one works on a person’s psyche – his thoughts and feelings. It can be combatted and subdued in that arena. When that happens, the internal yetzer hora is effectively vanquished. It does not have an opportunity to attach itself to the olam ha-maaseh/the general spiritual environment of the visible world.

Not so the external yetzer hora. Operating externally to Man, it is already part of the olam ha-maaseh. All of its spiritual energy is already attached to the external world. It cannot be silenced and stilled. The sole way to resist it is to flee from it.

It seems to me that so much of what ails us as a people can only be ascribed to this external yetzer hora. How else do we understand the fascination of young people with the “isms” of sundry parties, that draw them away from Torah? How do we understand the interest that people have taken in soccer, or in the glorification of physical strength? These have always been part of the culture of non-Jews, but how did they ever intrude into the fabric of Torah life? When did Jews ever make their clothing choices based on the arbitrary vagaries of “style,” as they do today?

All of these are not the product of the “usual” kinds of yetzer hora that we have dealt with since time immemorial. The culprit is the external yetzer hora, working through the toxic influence of our encounter with the nations.

These changes are not pleasant to contemplate. They amount to much more than unconnected inroads into the rhythm of Jewish life. The sum of their effects is that we have assimilated the “Torah of the nations,” rather than our own. We cannot point to any part of ourselves that is authentically Jewish. Our outlook on life, the way we order all our life decisions – personal, household, family – all our goals and perspectives have become those of the nations.

  1. Based on Daas Torah by Rav Yeruchem Levovitz zt”l, Devarim pgs.248-250
  2. Devarim 19:17-18
  3. Shemos 23:32-33
  4. Shemos 34:12; Bamidbar 33:51-55; Devarim 7:2,25; 12:2,29; 18:9
  5. Devarim 29:15,17