Therefore, the poets would recite: “Come to Cheshbon; firmly built And well-founded is Sihon’s city. (Bamidbar 21:27)

The story is told that Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin once spoke in his Yeshiva about which is a more difficult test: Wealth or poverty. After discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each one, his conclusion was that being rich is more of a challenge than being poor. To my understanding, this is because it is more commonplace for a rich person to be arrogant and callous to people’s needs. That same day in the afternoon, one of his students came to him trembling with fright. The Rav asked him, “What happened that made you so upset?” “I heard the lesson that you taught us today,” stammered the student, “and when I came home, I discovered that through my lack of good fortune, I won the lottery. I am now a millionaire! I don’t want to have a test that is so difficult to overcome!”

Reb Shlomo Zalman Auerbach one time commented, “I would rather fight with a wicked person than with a fool, for as wicked as the wicked person may be, there is a logical process that he follows. I can possibly tune into his wicked frame of mind – or at least make an educated guess as to his next move – in order to nip disaster in the bud. Whereas when I am dealing with a fool who acts without rhyme or reason, there is no way to be forearmed and I can never be prepared for what is coming.”

With this idea, we can understand that which Rabbi Yehoshua Leib explained to his student. While it is true that the challenge of wealth is greater than the challenge of poverty, this is because most people do not think of wealth as a challenge at all! Therefore, wealthy people do not prepare themselves for the challenge properly, and then fall into the clutches of the yetzer hara. “You,” said Rav Diskin to his dear talmid, “who have absorbed the lesson and understand the dangers, will now have the ability to keep yourself in check and indeed the wealth for you will hopefully only be a blessing. Come, let us right now say the brocho of ‘hatov v’hameitiv’ and I will answer ‘amein’ with true conviction.”

Based on this explanation, Rav Hersch Pesach Frank explained the verse above. It is not enough to know the facts of the news, but the deeper understanding of what really happened is also extremely important as well. The nations went to war, the underdog won, which caused them to conclude that they were a superpower. Therefore, they had the audacity to wage war against the Nation of Israel (See Rashi 21:23). In truth, Hashem had the gentiles win that war to give them an illusion of power so that that klal Yisrael could defeat them in self-defense. This is what the verse above means that one should try to figure out the cheshbonos of the world. It could be dangerous if someone has an agenda of his own, like in our verse. Chazal taught this to us that in our personal lives we have to think about the bigger picture. Calculate the reward of a mitzvah against its loss, and the punishment of a sin versus the reward in the next world, in order for the person to restrain himself from sinning.

It is well known that those who go to a gambling establishment make all kinds of mathematical calculations to explain why just one more roll or spin or card is going to change their future. The only one who gains from this thought process is the establishment. We, from the outside, can clearly see their mistake, based on their agenda.

In our personal lives as well, it is worthwhile before we make a move, to take time out and make a cheshbon before we act further.