Part 8- Calming Desires
Chapter 34- Calming Desires
Yosef Hatzaddik was one of the mightiest warriors to ever live. He won one of the most difficult battles of desire in history. This was no one-time event with a crazy woman coming after him, like they taught us in third grade. His victory was so astounding that Yosef is one of only two people to be called a tzaddik by the Torah.
At the young age of seventeen, Yosef was sold into slavery by his brothers. He ended up in Egypt, where he was purchased as a slave by Potifar, Pharaoh’s royal butcher. For an entire year, Potifar’s wife tried nonstop to get him to sin. She was a very attractive woman and Yosef was a teenager at the height of his desires. Because Yosef would not look at her, she forced him to wear a spiked chain around his neck to stop him from looking down. She changed her clothing twice a day, and she left scarves sprayed with her perfume around the house to get him to constantly think about her.
Don’t think Yosef wasn’t affected. He was pulled so strongly, and a part of him longed to give in. He had to fight himself, and it was incredibly challenging. There even is an argument in the Gemara (Sotah 36b) whether he intended to sin when he entered the house on that final, fateful day described in the Torah. Either way, Potifar’s wife made sure no one was home that day, and she came after Yosef again. Yosef had exhausted most of his willpower and was in danger of succumbing. Hashem saw Yosef’s strength fading and sent him a special message, showing him an image of his father in the window. That awakened him to remember the severity of what he was about to do. With his last strength, he ran from the house, emerging victorious from his yearlong battle.
Yosef demonstrated superhuman strength and self-control in winning this difficult battle. But we must ask how Yosef was able to overcome such raging desires for so long. The hardest battles are the ones that prolong. The desires grow stronger and stronger, and the person’s willpower stretches and weakens until it snaps. How did Yosef stave off the yetzer hara for an entire year? What was his secret?
We can deduce Yosef’s technique from the Gemara (Sotah 43a). The Gemara calls Yosef “the one who belittled (‘Pitpet’) his yetzer hara.” Rashi explains that ‘Pitpet’ means Yosef ridiculed his yetzer hara and conquered it, not considering it (its claims) to be anything of significance. Rabbi Henach Leibowitz, zt”l, (Chiddushei Lev Bereishis pages 225-226) explains that Rashi is telling us that Yosef did not primarily battle the yetzer hara with willpower, by straining and forcing himself not to sin. Rather, he belittled and disproved the arguments of the yetzer hara. This limited his desires and prevented his urges from growing stronger.
The yetzer hara sparks feelings of desire. He tells us we want something and really need it. But all his claims are lies. The yetzer hara tries to make us think we can’t be happy without his wares, and he tells us that if we get it, our lives will be amazing. He peddles cheap pleasure and empty thrills as the greatest experience based on the faulty logic that it must be incredible if we want it so badly. But as we know, the strength of the desire does not correlate with the pleasure or its lasting effects.
This is what Yosef thought about to prevent his desires from increasing. Whenever the yetzer hara tried to convince him that sinning would be so amazing, he thwarted the yetzer hara by thinking about how physical pleasure is overrated. He observed the yetzer hara’s lies and dwelled on the falsehood. He proved the yetzer hara wrong and stopped his desires from increasing. That’s how he defeated the yetzer hara in such a lengthy, overwhelming challenge.