Mesirus Nefesh Today | Rabbi Joey Haber

A little while ago, I had the opportunity to moderate a Q&A with the four Roshei Yeshiva of Lakewood, R’ Malkiel Kotler, R’ Yerucham Olshin, R’ Dovid Schustal and R’ Yisroel Neuman. And the first question I had was, You know, in the old days, there were a lot of people that were really sacrificing for Torah in an extreme way, whether people living in small, really small houses, people driving old car station wagons with the bumper falling off, and, I said, today, for even a person learning in Kollel, for the most part, there's not the same Mesirus Nefesh and the same sacrifice as there was in the days of old. And my question for R’ Malkiel, the question for Rosh Yeshiva was, How does that impact and how do we view the change? And I knew what the answer was going to be. The answer was going to be that once upon a time, we had tremendous Mesirus Nefesh and nowadays, we don't quite have Mesirus Nefesh, the time has changed, but it's beautiful there's still so many people learning Torah. That wasn't his answer. His answer instead was, he says, I don't know what you’re talking about. He says: There's a tremendous amount of sacrifice today, too. He says: I don't know about bumpers falling off, but the idea that there are people that are sacrificing for Torah, whether it's stuck in traffic, whether it's taking care of their children, whether it's paying their bills, whether it’s making sure they take their kid to the playgroup. There's so much more Mesirut Nefesh today in so many other ways, even if they don't have beat-up station wagons. And all of a sudden, it gave me like a different perspective. Because I feel like everybody walks around, saying that in the old days it was so much better, it was so much truer, it was so much more genuine, it was so much stronger, it was so much purer. And I think sometimes you could say that nowadays requires us to be so much stronger. And I think the biggest example of this is Shmirat Einayim. Because if someone lived on a farm 150 years ago, how many tests do you think they had? How many triggers were there? There were sheep, there were cows, there were chickens. There was grass, there was hay, there was wheat, there was corn. You didn't see the neighbor or the neighbor's family. Maybe you saw him once every week. You went to the general store twice a month. Today, the amount of triggers that there are in Shmirat Einayim is insane. There are so many people on the streets. There are so many pictures on the signs. There are so many magazines and newspapers, even in frum ones. There's so much media around you. So the test today is so much greater, which makes our generation so impressive, because everywhere you go, people come over to you and say: Rabbi, I watch Vayimaen. Rabbi, Vayimaen inspires me. Rabbi, Vayimaen changed my life. Because everywhere you go, there are Jewish people in every city, whether it's in Europe or in America, Chicago, New York, L.A., Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, Mexico, Panama, any city in Eretz Yisroel, in Switzerland or France or Belgium, it doesn't matter where the Jewish people are, they're watching Vayimaen, and they're struggling with it, and they're doing everything in their power to be strong. So we may not today drive around that many people in broken-down, 25-year-old station wagons, but our Mesirut Nefesh is in a very different way. And in many ways, it requires even more strength than it did 100 years ago, which is what makes you such an incredible person. Because every day you watch this, and every day you're begging Hashem for the strength, and every day you're begging to be the kind of person that doesn't overcome one or two triggers a day, who overcomes sometimes thousands of triggers in a single day. The strength that you have to overcome it is what maybe makes us in so many ways unbelievably, unimaginably great.