Counterfeit Converted | Rabbi Fischel Schachter

So here I am, in a Yeshiva. There's a big Simcha going on. One of the Bochurim, this is a Sheva Brachos, par excellence. Top notch singers, top notch dancing, top notch joy, top notch food. And I came in, I give a Shiur in this Yeshiva from time to time, they said: Dance. Now dancing is not one of my things. You know, people, like, dance by a Chasuna and they go like this and like that. I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to stick out my... I once tried to do it and someone said: Should I call Hatzalah? Are you okay? I said: No, I was trying to dance. Anyway, so they got me to dance in the middle. Eh, what don't you do to be Mesameach a Choson? And suddenly, I looked down at the floor and I said: Stop, stop! And everyone burst into laughter. I said: What happened now? They said: Why did you tell us to stop? I said: I looked on the floor and I saw a wad of $100 bills. I said: Someone dropped it. And they were all laughing at me. And I said: Okay, it's maybe one of those things where there's an advertisement on the other side. And I pick it up and it looks like a real $100 bill, but if you look really closely where it says: For legal tender, it says: This is not for legal tender. I'm not sure how legal it was. This was someone's idea of a good joke. You know, there's the famous Mashal from the Dubno Maggid that, you know, Yankel is walking along and Yankel is in trouble. He has such a heavy financial burden on him, you can't imagine. He's getting calls from his grocery, from everywhere, from every Gemach in town. Let's go. The loan is due. The loan is due. His wife says: What's going to be? He’s walking down the street, Shabbos afternoon, and he looks down and he sees a $100 bill. He says: It’s Shabbos. And he begins to think. He makes a quick calculation. He says: Let's see... This is just Yankel's calculation, okay? Not to pick up the money is Muktzah, that's a דרבנן, but paying up loans is a דאורייתא, bringing Simcha to my family is a דאורייתא, it could even be Pikuach Nefesh. And he works out in his mind, Maybe I'll just pick it up with a Shinui like this and... drop it into my back pocket. And someone comes over to him, he says, Yankel, it's not a real $100 bill. Oh, oh, oh, sure. I once told my class a story. The Berditchever was so excited about Mayim Shelanu that he fell into the well. And that the גר”א figured out Pshat in the Tosfos and he was dancing all night. And this kid said: But I don't feel that way. So I said: Okay, we'll talk. And we went for a walk and I said to him, I want to tell you something, okay? I'm talking to myself also. It says, Wherever there is גדר ערווה, there is Kedushah. The Shinever Rav said, Hashem gave us תאווה and Nisyonos for one purpose. To convert. At the point that you close your eyes and you hold yourself back, the Simcha, which is counterfeit and doesn't last and only leaves you depressed afterwards, gets transferred to reality, to Simcha. I'm telling you, A day that I have a good day with Shmiras Einayim, is a day that I am happy with my Yiddishkeit. And I told the kid, Let's work on this together. The Rabeinu Bechaye says, Dovid Hamelech says in Tehillim, You see all my תאוות in front of me. You gave them to me as a gift, because I can convert it to Bracha. The world out there is counterfeit. Everything we crave for is shattered in a second, it leaves us depressed, but it's an opportunity. When you see that wad of bills on the floor, in the form of תאווה, never mind walking away from it, but understand, as soon as you walk away from it, that all that is going to be real money, real time.