All About the Effort | Rabbi Meir Simcha Sperling

Rabosai, I want to share with you something fascinating, I think, that will change our perspective in some of the things that we do, that could really help us with Shmiras Einayim, among a lot of other things as well. In this week's parsha, Parshas Teruma, it says, And it goes through a list of things that Klal Yisroel has to bring, and it seems like it's going in the order of how valuable these things are. Right? Zahav, gold, is first and then silver and then copper and then - And then it goes lesser and lesser. And then the last two items, right? which you think should be the least valuable, almost nothing, almost insignificant maybe, is the Avnei Shoham and the Avnei Miluim, two beautiful stones that came from Hashem himself, that came from Shomayim, the Ananei Hakavod, the Gemara in Yuma 75, they’re last on the list, very strange. So frekt the Ohr Hachaim, What's going on over here? Why are these last on the list, if they are the most Chashuv? And he says over there something unbelievable. He says that from our perspective, from the human way to look at things, it seems like, yeah, these are the most Chashuv, and therefore they should really be first on the list. But from Hashem’s perspective, in other words, the way Hashem sees things, He realizes that there was no work done for these two things. There was no Tircha. Nobody had to give up anything, because I gave it to you. It was a gift to Klal Yisroel. So from Hashem’s perspective, he sees what was hard over here, what was worked so difficult to give up gold, give up silver, give up Nechoshes. These are all things that are hard to give up. And that's why the Avnei Shoham and Avnei Miluim, even though it seems like the most valuable, they are last on the list. Rabosai, this is such a big Yesod in life. Sometimes we look around at the world and we say, Oh, this guy's not doing well. This guy's not trying hard. That's not valuable. What, he was walking on the street and he saw a billboard, so he looked down? Nu, big deal. What about the guy who finishes Shas every day? And the guy who does this and the guy who does that? What's the big deal? These guys are not - What are you doing? So you didn’t go to the beach? How much Tircha does it take, Rabosai? How much work does it take? Everything is based on the effort and the Tircha that you put in. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu sees all that. When you're walking down the street and the Yetzer Hara tries to grab you, and the Yetzer Hara is at the very, very end, we’re in the עקבתא דמשיחא, that means he's working the hardest to get us to fall. And that means that it's very hard. That means it takes a lot of work. And every time we walk and we control ourselves, we're in our office and we control ourselves, we’re in our house, we're in our car and we have a phone, whatever the case is with Shmiras Einayim, we control ourselves, Hakadosh Baruch Hu sees that. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu writes that down. Look how hard this person is working. And that is extremely, extremely valuable in the eyes of Hashem. Imagine after 120 years, Hashem calls over all the Mal’achim, and they point at you and Hashem says, You know, when I created Man, this is who I had in mind. This person right here, you know what he accomplished in his life? How many thousands of times he controlled his eyes, even though it was so hard for him? Rabosai, all of us have this power. All of us have the power to work hard and to show Hashem that we are doing it. We are on this, we are in this together. We are going to fight for you. We are going to fight the Yetzer Hara, and we are going to bring the Moshiach closer.