With G-d's Great Help - ב"ה

Let Me Tell You About Riding The Donkey...

Donkey = (Chamor) חמור

As it is said of Avraham Avinu, blessed be his soul, that he saddled the donkey the morning of the Akeida (The Binding of Yitzhak), when he was about to take his son Yitzhak to sacrifice him to G-d as he was instructed.

WHAT IS THIS DONKEY?

The word Donkey (חמור) comes from the root:  

חמר = MATERIAL

and

חומרניות = MATERIALISM

To saddle the donkey, to ride the donkey, all refers to ride the materialism of the world. To be in control of the Yetzer (inclination). This I have learnt to do. I started with a very uncontrollable donkey in many respects. The greater the Tzaddik, the greater is his Yetzer. After doing Teshuva, a Baal-Teshuva stands higher than a complete Tzaddik, suddenly I received the greatest Yetzer in the world. It has been a very rough ride. At first it felt as if the donkey was riding me. Then I started by fighting with this donkey, and then I realized that this is not going to work. I needed to be gentle with it, and help it to bend its will to my will, and to G-d's will. To do everything for heaven's sake. After many falls and many prayers and attempts to get back up, I managed to be able to learn to ride the donkey smoothly, and make it subjugate it will to G-d's will. Soon G-d helped me realize how I can use the donkey, the Yetzer and the materialism to my advantage, to grow spiritually.

Let Me Teach You How You Can Ride the Donkey Too... 

The materialism in this world, is represented mostly by money, food and other lusts.

Money

This is easy. Use money only to do G-d's will, this means giving charity as much as is asked of you, buying presents for loved ones, buying books to learn, using money to do mitzvas.

Having little money can be used as a vehicle for prayer to G-d, thanking him for what you do have, asking him for more and telling why you want more (to do only good with.)

Food

The initial step in riding the food Yetzer is to refrain from all pleasurable foods. All delights are off limits. Anything you 'want' and crave is from your animal instincts, and giving in to them is like being ridden by the donkey.

After a long period of training yourself to ride your donkey, you can start to use the food as training your Yetzer. You can allow yourself little amounts of delights, and usually it is best to wait a while before having what you want. When you are presented with a piece of cake, wait a while before having some…

 Even though it looks so good to your eyes.

Then when you have some, eat it slowly and thank G-d for every mouthful. Eat only a little and control your urges- this is riding the donkey.

 
Alcohol

The same with alcohol.

What would Chabbad do without vodka?

Again, you can ride the donkey or you can let it ride you.

Alcohol is one of life's very dangerous pleasures. You need to be able to control your inclination. Only have a little to reach a certain level of disinhibition and Simcha, and be able to control yourself to not have any more.

The sages know how to use alcohol to have spiritual experience in a Farbrengen : 

So far we have talked about controlling the donkey. Now let me explain to you how to actually use the donkey, materialism, to improve Midot and create challenges for yourself to grow in Midot.

Money

You can create a lack of money for yourself, and then use the situation to increase in your trust of G-d. Use the trust in G-d to talk to G-d and ask him for your needs, without asking others, and by this way you will see how He sends people to help you, and you will see miracles, noticing the Hashgacha Pratit (Divine Providence) which G-d shines upon you. He will provide you with food, shelter and all your needs, and will lead you to meet people and be at places which are beneficial to your spiritual development.

Food

Food can be used to improve spiritual attributes. For example, if you want to practice patience, have a couple of cups of coffee with sugar before you go to a place where you will have to stand in line. This way you are sure to test your patience. When you grow in this attribute G-d will send further challenges to you to grow further.

Alcohol can be used to test your powers of speech control. When you have much alcohol, the tendency is to speak without control, and so if you are at a high level of speech control, having alcohol lowers your threshold to speak freely, and so you have to try to be extra careful, and again, you will be rewarded with a blessing from G-d for having passed, and you will receive more challenges to further grow in this area.

Another example is coffee.  If you drink much coffee and you have to wait in a cue (line), you will be faced with a greater challenge of patience than without the coffee because your body and mind are more excited. This is a way to use a simple material as coffee to work on the character trait of patience.

Another example is chili. If you have reached a stage of anger control, patience and tolerance where you think you have mastered yourself, you can use chili, which causes your system to be more sensitive and prone to anger and impatience. By this way if you have much chili and you are challenged in certain situations, you have to practice more patience than if you did not have the chili.

Chicken is another example. An esoteric one, albeit. Our sages say that one who eats a certain food adopts the characteristics of the food. Therefore, if you have chicken, you are prone to be a little less brave and run away, like a chicken. So if you are presented with a situation where Gevura - courage is needed, you have to try extra hard to be courageous when you have that chicken on board trying to make you be less courageous.

Meat is very 'Gashmi', very physical, and so the spiritual person can use meat to bring him down to be more physical. Then it is hard work to be spiritual when you eat much meat. Then when you stop eating meat, you can be much more spiritual than before, because you have learnt to be spiritual with the meat on board, and now that you have no meat on board you can fly spiritually and reach very high levels.

There are many more examples. The whole concept of food contains many secrets, which we will uncover with time. Each will discover them as time passes, with experimentation. This is how you ride the donkey.

How to leave the donkey behind…

After using the donkey to develop your attributes of self-control, courage and patience, you can leave the donkey behind. Leaving the Gashmiut – physicality behind entails fasting. This is to be done under supervision by people who care for you, for it may be dangerous. With G-d's help you can achieve very high levels of closeness to G-d and spirituality with prolonged periods of fasting. You can cleanse yourself, physically and spiritually and you can have prophetic insights, revelations, sages coming to you in your dreams and many amazing experiences.

See, there are many uses for the donkey…

And with time we will all learn how to master it.

May G-d bless us all to improve our Midot, grow spiritually in working him with a full heart and direct all our deeds towards the heavens.

Amen.

Dr. Itamar