Musar for Berakhot 63:29
אמר ר' יוחנן מנין שחזר הקדוש ברוך הוא והודה לו למשה שנאמר (במדבר יד, כ) ויאמר ה' סלחתי כדברך תני דבי רבי ישמעאל כדבריך עתידים אוה"ע לומר כן
R. Johanan said : Whence is it that the Holy One, blessed be He, afterwards yielded to Moses? As it is said, "And the Lord said, I have forgiven according to thy word" (ibid. v. 20). The school of R. Ishmael taught : "According to thy word" — the nations of the world will say thus,
Mesilat Yesharim
Therefore the pious deemed it good for a man to afflict himself sometimes, in order to put down the evil inclination of arrogance, which grows strong only through abundance, similar to what our sages, of blessed memory, said: "a lion does not roar over a basket of straw but over a basket of meat" (Berachot 32a).
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