Tyvos Ha-adam

לזכות הרב מרדכי גימפל בן חיה אביגיל
ולעי"נ ר' יואל בן ר' פנחס הלוי

What are two of the strongest drives in the human male??

One would have to say 1] Food 2] The third of the kinyanei kiddushin enumerated by the first Mishna in Kiddushin. 

Look at what happens: A person is hungry. With great gusto he consumes the food in front of him. Now what? Food is NOT INTERESTING anymore. If he ate TOO MUCH then food becomes repulsive to him. He doesn't want to look at it.

Now a few hours pass. The pleasure of the food is a thing of the past. Long forgotten. What happens to the food? It has been transformed into repulsive, smelly feces that no self respecting human being would ever want to be near if he didn't have to. 

That is the final product of his [animalistic] desire to eat.

The other powerful desire? He wants it so badly, lusts for it, imagines it and then FINALLY the moment has come. What emerges? A gooky, smelly, sticky wet mass of what resembles mucus. And what happened to his desire that was so overwhelming just moments ago?

No longer interested. [When one thinks about it objectively, all chemicals and pleasure centers aside - it is really quite disgusting... I am not referring to the act of loving another human being but to the expression of raw desire].

This is Hashem's way of telling us - LOOK AT YOUR TYVOS! Despicable.....

Ahhhh - but we need these desires. That is how the human race remains in existence. We eat and procreate. If it were just merely a mitzva and nothing more then there would be very little eating and many fewer people on earth. So Hashem of course knew what He was doing. מה רבו מעשיך השם.  

So let us curb our tyvos, keep them in check and give them their rightful place in the greater mosaic of the human condition. Let us limit our desires to the right person, time and place. Let everything be done li-shem shomayim so that instead of coming closer to the animal kingdom, we draw closer to Hashem Yisborach. 

The "tyvah" to be close to Hashem has no unseemly results. Just pure soulful bliss.

צמאה לך נפשי כמה לך בשרי!!