Chasidut sur Avot 6:4

The greatest of the Rabbi Simcha Bunem’s disciples was my grandfather, the holy Rav Mordechai Yosef, may his merit protect us and all of Israel, amen. He was the shining star among the fellowship of Rabbi Simha Bunem, a fellowship of holy sacrificial lambs dedicating every fiber of their being to the holy Torah. His fellowship of students was on the level of the fellowship of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai. Rabbi Mordechai Yosef abandoned all worldly affairs, selling his house and family inheritance, even all property his holy father the great Rav Yaakov left him, in order to dedicate himself to the Torah.¹⁵⁸See BT Berachot, 35b, which brings opposing views among the sages towards working for a living. He lived on meager bread, fulfilling the advice of the Mishnah (Avot, 6:4), “eat bread with salt, drink water, and sleep on the floor, for this is the way of the Torah.” He spent nine years living in the study house of Rabbi Simha Bunem of Prshisha, only going back home for a few weeks a year, such as the week Passover. Though he was a weak physically, often ill, suffering from bronchitis, he never took care of his physical well-being. He suffered from cold winters due to a lack of proper clothing, even though he had been pampered as the child of a well-to-do family. His family traced their lineage to Rashi, who connects him with the line of King David, the Messiah of Israel.

(211) And for a person to reach this level at all, of checking themselves, there is one advice. A person is a mixture of good and evil, the body tends to what is physical and to bodily pleasures, and the soul tends to spiritual things, and in order to subdue the physical so the physical will too tend to spiritual things, and so that the physical becomes a shape, a person needs to break their desires of all those physical pleasures, and choose the way of Torah, that is " you shall eat bread with salt, and rationed water shall you drink; you shall sleep on the ground, your life will be one of privation, and in Torah shall you labor. If you do this, “Happy shall you be and it shall be good for you” (Psalms 128:2): “Happy shall you be” in this world, “and it shall be good for you” in the world to come" (Pirkei Avot 6:4). And the commentators already wondered regarding what is happiness in this world? And it seems to me that there is no privation greater than the great and permanent war against the evil inclination, which never stops day or night, as the great sage said "you came from a small war, prepare yourselves for a great war etc" (Duties of the Heart, Fifth Treatise on Devotion 5:6). And behold, the yetzer hara does not arouse itself only in regards to food and drink and physical pleasures, as it says "and Jeshurun got fat and kicked" (Deuteronomy 32:15); and "and you ate, you were satisfied and your heart grew haughty" (Deuteronomy 8:14); however, when a person conducts themselves in the ways of the Torah, the yetzer hara has no entrance to seduce that person, and therefore the person has rest from the great war, and from the sensation of privation of the yetzer hara, and so it is good for that person also in this world, as one is quiet and rests from the great war.