Eyes to Success | Rabbi Shlomo Landau

At the height of COVID, there was a simple Balabos, who did what we probably all should have done. He made a Cheshbon Hanefesh. He looked at the world around him and how everything was collapsing and that there were no guarantees, and he said to himself, ‘I need to do something. ‘I need to be Mesaken, I need a repair.’ And after thinking about it, he realized that one area in his life that needed a serious upgrade was Shemiras Ha’einayim. Not the extreme type, just he wasn't careful when he walked in the streets, when he went shopping, when he was working, he just wasn't careful and he decided he needed to do something about that. So he made a Kabbalah to upgrade his Shemiras Ha’einayim. But how? How does one do that? So he did something which may sound a little extreme, but when you think about it, it's not crazy at all. He went to the local eyeglasses store and he bought the exact identical pair of frames that he wore all the time, and he asked the ophthalmologist to please give him a prescription that was just a little bit weaker. So like this he could walk in the streets and he could see where he was going, but he wouldn't see the exact detail. And it will remind him constantly to be more careful where he looked. The first day that he put his pair of glasses on was a little strange for him, but with time he started realizing and appreciating what it was doing with him. And then the crazy things started happening. The areas in his life that needed repair started auto-repairing. But perhaps the greatest place in his life where he saw the most supernatural Hatzlacha was in his business, in his Parnasa. It seemed like all of a sudden everything that he was touching turned to gold. His business was being successful in a way that he never had dreamed before, and he knew it was because of his Shemiras Ha’einayim. Do you know that the Beis Avrohom brings from his father something that is so amazing. By Yosef Hatzaddik, when he was about to lose himself in front of his brothers, the Pasuk says, and he controlled himself, and he said to his attendants, bring some bread. The Beis Avrohom’s father said like this, he said, ויתאפק, if you can hold yourself back, if you don't take that second glance, if you're careful with Shemiras Ha’einayim, the Ribono shel Olam says, ויאמר שימו לחם. The Ribono shel Olam says, Let's give this person Parnasa. We all want Hatzlacha in Parnasa and so many other areas. Let's invest. Let's push ourselves just a drop. And B’ezer Hashem, ויתאפק, the Ribono shel Olam will say, שימו לחם I'll take care of you.