Don't Be Fooled by the Facade | Rabbi Joey Haber

Someone who lives in a beautiful resort neighborhood in the summer in New Jersey told me he once took his children to the wealthiest block in the town. And he took his son in front of the house, and he said: “You see the house? You see how beautiful it is? You see the drapery? You see the architecture? You see the lawn? You see the flowers? You see the really really long driveway? You can see that the ocean is in the back. It’s a magnificent house.” He tells his son: “All you see is the house. You know nothing else about what’s going on inside of that person’s life other than the house. You don't know their mental health. You don't know the relationship between husband and wife. You don’t know the relationship between father and his sons, mother and daughters. You don’t know the relationship between the parents and their siblings. You don’t know the health of the parents in the house. You don’t even know the stress, the anxiety, the frustration. You know nothing about that house other than the outside of the house. You know nothing about what’s going on inside. There might be fighting, or yelling, or they’re frustrated or depressed inside every single day. And I’ve told this over to many people, and every person sees it almost as like eye-opening The truth is, we don’t realize. We look at it. We think we know what it is, but we have no idea what’s going on inside. When a man is walking on the street, and he sees an image that’s inappropriate, or a person walking by. In a split second, his mind thinks: “Wow! That person looks so fantastic! It’s not true. Just like the outside of the house tells me nothing about what’s going on inside, seeing a person in the street, like that, or even seeing them more often than that, tells you nothing about what kind of person this person is. It tells you nothing about how good they are, how wonderful they are, the character they have, the style they have. You know nothing about them. The חובות הלבבות in describing someone who is living life the perfect way, He says: He doesn’t get fooled by the Kishuf, the black magic of the world. What does it mean: “Fooled by the black magic?” The answer is, is that a lot of times the visuals that you see are just black magic. They’re not real. They look like they’re incredible. It looks like that’s fantastic! It looks like I want to follow that! So often, you’re just seeing the outside of the house, and you know nothing about what’s going on inside. So the next time you’re walking down the road, and you see something, and you say: “Wow, that looks incredible!” You should just know, all you’re seeing are the lights and the lawn. You know nothing about what the person actually is. So don’t get fooled by the visuals of the world.