When we gird ourselves for battle, we can rise above our lower selves

Voices. We hear them all day long. They tell us we must buy the most fashionable items on the market. Incessant, they make us believe that we can’t be happy unless we acquire the latest and greatest. Or they influence us to think that it is okay to be angry, or annoyed, for this particular situation warrants such a response.

How do we silence these voices? How do overcome their powerful pull?

One potent weapon we have is to say the brachah “Ozer Yisrael bigvurah — He girds Yisrael with strength” with special kavanah.

What is it about this brachah — originally recited in the mornings when getting dressed and putting on one’s belt — that enables us to silence our internal voices?

The Role of the Jew

Rav Shimshon Pincus ztz”l emphasizes that the greatness of a Jew is his ability to synthesize the holy and profane. The non-Jewish world is consumed by satiating their physical drives. Angels, in contrast, are completely spiritual beings with no desire for physicality. The Jew is unique in that he understands that there is a time and place for physicality, and that his role is to uplift it.

The spiritual has to influence the physical, without being influenced by it. In order to successfully do this, a barrier has to be created between the spiritual and physical worlds. Girding a belt, notes the Gra, is the symbolic manifestation of this distinction, because it separates the lower part of the body, which signifies the physical part of a person, from the upper part of the body, which signifies spirituality.

As Jews, we are commanded to have our eyes and heart focused upward, and not downward. Particularly when preparing ourselves to daven, we should try to be focused on the spiritual aspects of life.

The Rokeach, Rav Eleazar of Worms, sees the imagery of girding a belt as a sign of gearing up and preparation. Indeed, notes the Haktav V’hakabalah, Rav Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, this brachah beseeches Hashem to help us achieve success in one of the most intense challenges we encounter on a daily basis: overcoming our evil inclination. The Chovos Halevavos (Sha’ar Yichud Hamaaseh, ch. 5) tells of a chassid who told those returning from battle that they had just returned from a small war, while a much more powerful one was awaiting them when they got home: the inner battle with the yetzer hara.