Search results ({{ res.total }}):

Nothing but dust, blood and bile

Wednesday, 09 May 2012

The Gemara in Sotah writes that someone who is haughty is likely to fall into the sin of adultry. The Gemara goes on to discuss the humility that we should feel and writes that the acronym for ADAM (Man) is "Afar", "Dam" & "Mara", meaning " Dust", "Blood" & "Bile", and the acronym for BASAR (Flesh) is "Busha", "Shaul" & "Rima", meaning "Shame", "Borrowed" & "Worms" (our flesh is borrowed, since one day it must return to the dust).

When feeling lust for flesh it may be helpful to remember this Gemara. Not only can the resulting humility save us from sin, but the actual lust itself should melt away when one realizes that he is nothing but dust, blood and bile, and he is desiring nothing but "borrowed, shame, to be eaten by worms".