Don't Flinch | Rabbi Joey Haber

A few weeks ago, on a Friday night, for the Seudat Shabbat, I had by us R’ Reimer. He’s the grandson of Rav Elyashiv. His mother is Rav Elyashiv's youngest daughter, and he had the opportunity to be around Rav Elyashiv a lot in the last few years of his life. In fact, one night a week Rav Elyashiv would have a grandson staying up by him to watch him. And he would do it one night a week for the last nine years of Rav Elyashiv’s life. And he told me an incredible amount of stories. And what made them so powerful was the fact that most of these stories he was there and he saw them. I'm going to share with you one of them. Rav Elyashiv would have leading to his house like, a very small alleyway. It was, maybe you could fit two people, three people, small alleyway and then he would turn left and go up the steps. One day, there was a woman who was on the מרפסת, she was on the porch a few floors up and she was in the middle of washing her clothes and there's soap and there's dirt and so on and a whole big tub of water. And as she's finished, she takes the tub and throws it over the side of the porch. Right on Rav Elyashiv. He was drenched. And what did Rav Elyashiv do in that moment? This story he heard from the woman herself. She said: I watched Rav Elyashiv. He didn't flinch. He didn't look up, he didn't look sideways, he didn't fluster. He just kept walking like zero happened. He wiped off some of the water as he was walking up the steps, went into his house, changed some of his clothing to put on dry clothing, did not even say a word to his wife. He didn't flinch. Sometimes we, as Frum Jews, as Bnei Torah, need to have the ability to not flinch. There’s things going on around us. There's a million scenes being put in our face in 2023. Billboards, busses, screens, sounds, people. There are noises, there's a million things happening around you. A Torah Jew has to have the strength and the courage to know sometimes you don't flinch. and you're walking through a street in Manhattan and there's a million scenes criss-crossing the streets. You don't flinch. You walk into a room and there's screens everywhere. You don't flinch. You walk into an office and you're in a business meeting and there's a bunch of people not dressed right. You don't flinch. You go to a wedding and all of a sudden you happen to walk through and you see every person dressed perfectly. You don't flinch. We don't turn, we don't move. Sometimes you need to have that level of discipline. Most times of our life, we could be regular people. Maybe none of us are exactly Rav Elyashiv. We're all aspiring to, but it might be hard to be that. But every now and then, we have to press that button and say: I am a Torah Jew. This scene I'm in is not me. I walk forward, I look forward. I don't move, I don't flinch. because I have discipline to be the Jew that I need to be.