10 Dec VAYISHLAH: THE “DUST”

We read in Parashat Vayishlah
that as Yaakov Avinu made his
way back to Eretz Yisrael, a
mysterious man attacked him,
and wrestled with him
throughout the night. Yaakov
ultimately emerged victorious,
although he sustained an injury to his hip, that
made him limp.
The Rabbis explained that this mysterious
attacker was Saro Shel Esav – the angel of Eisav,
the Satan, the force of evil, the yetzer ha’ra that
tries to lead us to sin.
To understand the significance of this incident,
we need to take note of the word used to describe
the fight between Yaakov and this angel:
Va’yavak (32:25). The root of this word is Avak,
which means “dust.” Rashi explains that this
word is used because when two people wrestle
with one another, they kick up dust into the
air. The Gemara (Hulin 91a) teaches that the
dust that Yaakov and the angel kicked up during
their fight ascended all the way to the heavens.
In other words, the fight between good and evil,
the struggle that we wage against our yetzer
ha’ra, is a fight about the dust.
What does this mean?
The Gemara elsewhere (Baba Batra 165a)
teaches that virtually all people are guilty of
Avak Lashon Ha’ra – literally, “the dust
of lashon ha’ra.” Most committed Jews avoid
outright lashon ha’ra. We don’t sit and indulge

in gossip and spread embarrassing information
about people. But almost everyone is guilty of
“sort of” lashon ha’ra – of innuendos, of remarks
which might not qualify as direct lashon ha’ra,
but are clearly intended to make somebody else
look not great.
This is what avak, “dust,” means – the subtle,
small particles of “dust” that we put on an
otherwise clean, beautiful Torah life.
The yetzer ha’ra doesn’t approach us and try to
get us to violate Shabbat or eat non-kosher
food. The yetzer ha’ra doesn’t tempt us to go
over to somebody we’re upset at and say,
“You’re a terrible person,” or “I hate you.” We
are all good people who are committed to Torah
values. And we’re nice and ethical. We aren’t
going to do something awful.
But what the yetzer ha’ra does instead is get us
to kick up “dirt.” It gets us to make a somewhat
insensitive comment that hurts somebody, to say
something subtly offensive, to do something
that isn’t precisely proper according
to halachah. This is the battle that we face.
The pasuk in Mishleh (10:32) says, “The lips of
the righteous person know how to earn
favor.” Rashi explains that a tzadik, a righteous
person, knows how to earn Hashem’s favor
through his prayer, and also knows how to make
people feel good with his words.
Knowing how to say the right thing, how to
speak sensitively, how to speak to people in a
way which makes them comfortable and at ease

around you, is very difficult. Somebody who
does this all the time is a tzadik. This doesn’t
mean that the rest of us are bad people. It just
means that the rest of us kick up “dust” in our
relationships. We’re good people, we’re nice,
and we don’t want to hurt people, but sometimes
we say the wrong thing, we create “dust.” This
is the struggle that we face, and this is the
struggle that we must try to win.
Rabbi Paysach Krohn told the story of a man
who was part of a daily Torah learning group
that got together to learn every morning. This
fellow was in charge of giving out coffee to all
the participants. He made a point of knowing
exactly how each and every member of the
group liked his coffee – with milk, without milk,
with or without sugar, with or without artificial
sweetener, strong or not too strong, very hot or
not too hot, etc. He ensured to give each person
precisely the coffee that he wanted.
But there was something very peculiar about the
way he served the people their coffee – he
always brought them half a cup. If they finished
and wanted more, he would happily bring them
more, but he always gave them no more than
half a cup.
One morning, he was not feeling well, so he sent
his son to serve everybody their coffee. He
prepared for his son a detailed list explaining
how each member of the group liked their
coffee.
As the son was preparing the coffee in the shul,

the father showed up.
“Dad, I thought you weren’t feeling well,” his
son asked.
“Yes, but I needed to come because I forgot to
tell you something very important – you need to
make sure to give everyone only half a cup at a
time!”
The son didn’t understand. He asked why he
couldn’t just give everybody a full cup.
The father explained that there were two elderly
members of the group whose hands shook
somewhat. Unless their cup of coffee was only
half full, the coffee would spill on their
Gemara. And since they needed half a cup, he
gave everybody half a cup, so they would not
feel embarrassed.
This is an example of a tzadik who understands
how to avoid the “dust,” how to live a perfectly
“clean” Torah life, without causing anyone any
sort of discomfort or pain.
Let us be strong and resolute in waging this
battle, and keep all our relationships, both at
home and outside the home, clean of any “dust,”
always trying to make people feel comfortable
and at ease around us.