A Smile in Cash | Rabbi Nachum Binder

Many of us, and especially those of us that are privileged to see and hear the Vayimaen daily, have heard many stories, and some of them wondrous stories, of people that merited tremendous Yeshuos in the merit of overcoming a Nisayon of Shmiras Einayim. I want to share a story, not such a big Yeshuah, a relatively small Yeshuah that someone had, but he clearly took it as what we would call a Schmeichel from Himmel, a smile from Hashem, telling him: Mein kind, my dear son, I'm proud of your overcoming the Nisayon. Around a week before Pesach, this friend of mine, who works on 47th Street in Manhattan, was cleaning his office. And as we tend to clean for Pesach, we tend not only to clean for Chometz, but much garbage and clutter that accumulated over the year ends up being cleaned out at that time. And as my friend finished cleaning his office, he had two garbage bags, which he wanted to take out to the dumpster, to dispose of. And as he's walking in the hallway of his office building, he was suddenly faced with a Nisayon in Shmiras Einayim. And at that moment, with strong conviction, he said, I'm not looking. I'm looking down and I'm going out to the garbage. He continued his way to the garbage. He threw out one garbage bag and he's about to dispose of the second one. It was quite heavy and the law is that you're not allowed to put so much garbage in one bag in that place. So he took the bag back to his office, and he figured: I'll split the bag into two. As he starts going through the garbage bag, he finds an envelope. And the envelope has $1,000 cash. Interesting. How did this end up in the garbage? He continues splitting the garbage into two bags, and lo and behold, another envelope. Another $1,000 cash. He finishes and he brought his garbage out, and he thought to himself, What an unusual occurrence. I punkt had this garbage in a bag that was too heavy, and I had to split it, and I found $2,000 cash. And he suddenly realized, This was a smile from Heaven. This was the Ribono shel Olam telling him, It wasn't such a big Nisayon, it was a smaller Nisayon, but you were strong, you overcame that Nisayon. And when you're going to overcome any Nisayon, whether big or small, the Ribono shel Olam shows us how proud He is of us. Morai v’Rabosai, Let us not only think about big Nisyonos or big Yeshuos. Let us think about the day-to-day small Nisyonos, that small Nisayon that happens to each and every one of us, every single day. And every time we overcome a Nisayon, whether we see it immediately or not, the Ribono shel Olam is looking down at us, smiling, and telling us: My child, I am so proud.