A Century of Strength | Rabbi Yechiel Spero

So last week I was sitting in Shul and right in front of me was a tissue box, Kleenex. And it's covered in skateboards. And I'm looking at the tissue box and I see that there's a message there. the skateboard enthusiasts produced the first-ever commercial skateboard. And underneath it, So Kleenex, which apparently was created in 1924, is having their 100-year campaign. Now, I don't particularly find skateboards to be all that inspiring, but Kleenex is giving every year significance through a moment that happened over 100 years. A century of strength. One time, R’ Chaim Ozer, after writing שאלות ותשובות אחיעזר, he showed the Sefer to R’ Eliyahu Chaim Meisel, the Rav of Lodz. R’ Eliyahu Chaim looked at it, and he was so awed by the גאונות of R’ Chaim Ozer. R’ Chaim Ozer said to him: Nu, when are you writing your Sefer? And he noticed that in the pocket, R’ Eliyahu Chaim had a small little book that was held together, maybe, by a rubber band with papers flying out of it. And on it was written, This אלמנה, 100 rubles. This יתום, 20 rubles. All of the money that he had to give, and that he had given all of those that were נצרכים, that were in need. And R’ Chaim Ozer said: Oy, הלוואי one day I'll be able to write a Sefer like that. The Gematria of שם, a person’s name, is ספר. Every person writes a book. How do we write our book? We tell our stories. Our stories are 100 years of moments, a century of strength. As we begin a new year, a year where we hope and we daven and we pray that we won't have a year like last year, with such difficulty and tragedy. Rather, we need to show the Ribono shel Olam we're writing a Sefer. I walk down the street and instead of looking at something immoral or inappropriate, I turn the other way. Take out your little notepad and jot it down. And then the next day, there was a billboard and you passed by and you turned. Another moment, another entry into your Sefer. And when you're done, at the end of the year and at the end of our lifetime, we hand that Sefer to the Ribono shel Olam, and we say, Here, this is who we are. A hundred years of moments. A hundred years of Vayimaens. A century of strength.