I once heard a Vort which resonates with me.

If a person trips or slips and falls on his head, he may be seriously hurt, he may need extensive recovery, it may be very costly. There is one key point that needs to be examined: why did he slip?

If there was ice or a piece of wood, a banana peal etc. they will take him to the hospital and treat his injuries. If there wasn't any of that, than he slipped because of something inside his head... Then, he needs a whole psychiatric evaluation and won't be leaving the hospital that quickly...

Same is true for slipping with an Avaira. What caused your slip? Were you around a bad influence, did opportunity land in your lap, it tasted good, looked good? It may be bad, you may need extensive treatment, but it's relatively minor. You get treated and you're on your way.

If you went and tripped yourself..... it's a whole different story.....

What do you think?

definitely an interesting vort.
Although I think that no one slips from their own head into aveiros. The only question is how many banana peels you stepped on. Sometimes we step on so many peels, that we think our shoes are shoes but indeed they are really made of banana peels.
Either way, you gotta deal with the peals.
(Maybe that is why you have to do aliyah leregel by foot and not by wagon, so that by walking to the beis hamikdash you learn how to walk without slipping)

I think that even when "opportunity land(s) in your lap," you have to be honest with yourself regarding why you were in a situation where that could have happened. There may be complete oneis situations, but they are much less common than we allow ourselves to believe.
Also, perhaps the following quote is appropriate here...

DOV

Great quote! Thanks for posting it!

oh, and I like the one in your signature too

“A person does not commit a transgression unless the spirit of folly enters him."

It's always a psychological issue.

I'll explain the Vort a little further.

A person can sometimes slip so badly on the ice that they land in a body cast (I know someone to whom this happened), maybe, they hit their head so hard that they now suffer from concussions, maybe they now get seizures and they're balance is off kilter. It could have started with a slip on the ice and evolved into a slip from within the head.

The point is: slipping on a banana peal can be very bad, even deadly... But slipping from within your head is always worse in terms of the quality of the slip (if I can use such terms).

A teenager who is over at a friends house and said friend shows him porn, slipped into a situation and got caught up in the moment. Maybe he didn't have the fortitude to properly catch the fall. He got hurt. Maybe even seriously hurt. He needs to be treated.

But if he starts thinking that he is entitled to fall, that he is allowed to fall, that it isn't so bad to use it here and there... This is slipping from within the head. As the old Yiddish saying goes "he has a worm crawling in his head". This is no different from the reform movement... It's just that reform threw away many Mitzvos and Halachos and he threw away just one....

Punchline is: even if/when you fall, don't let it get to your head.

I'm havin' a difficult time of graspin' who Mr. CT is attemptin' to talk to.
What kinda person is he givin' advice to, and what is the advice?

cordnoy wrote:


As the saying goes: I'm talking to myself while allowing you to listen in.