Aharon said to them, “remove the golden rings which are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.” (Shemos 32:2)

Moshe went up Mount Sinai and said he would be back in 40 days. According to the count of the Jewish people, Moshe was late. (Of course, we now know that they were off by a day in their count). Rashi explains Aharon’s plan which is in the verse above: Aharon knew women and children like their jewelry and would not give it away very quickly. This would delay everything and hopefully Moshe would arrive. But the men did not wait for the jewelry of their wives and children; they took their own and hurried.

This is the way the Yetzer Hara works.

I was recently listening to a shiur from Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein where he asked the obvious question: everyone says that you need to have a filter on your computer, but what good does it actually do? Many people have the password to the filter so they can still get to any website that the filter blocks. Or if a person really has a desire, he can go to a place which has open internet and see whatever he wants.

The answer can be found from a Gemara. Our Sages tell us if a person has a desire to do a sin, he should dress himself in black, go to a different city, and perform the sin over there. Does this mean a person is allowed to sin? No… it is telling us a secret to control your desires. When the person needs to change his clothes and travel to a distant city, he will lose the desire. If a person waits and really thinks about the sin he is about to commit, he will lose the desire.

When a person has a filter, it is an extra step which will make him think: do I really need to go to this website. It slows down the person and will slow down a person’s desire.

And this is what Aharon was trying to do. He was trying to get everyone to slow down. Unfortunately, it did not work and we still feel the punishment today from the Golden Calf.

This is an extremely important lesson in our generation. As we know, we live in the “hurry up” generation. We can download almost anything within a few seconds. We can access news from around the world immediately. We can know that America won its first medal in the luge within milliseconds, even though the Games are being played a few thousand miles away. We have the need the speed. But that is the Yetzer Hara. To defeat the Yetzer Hara, a person just needs to slow down and then he will have a better chance of being able to overcome his desires.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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