Miracle Glasses | Rabbi Menachem Schmelczer

In the town of the Pnei Yehoshua lived a young boy who couldn't see. He so badly wanted to see the words, but he couldn't. So in place of that, he used to go to the bookcases and feel the Sefarim and kiss the Sefarim. And sometimes he'd pull out a Sefer and caress its holy pages. One day, he pulled out a Sefer, and he felt something fall from its pages. He leaned down, felt around, and he picked up a pair of glasses. He playfully put it on his eyes and miraculously, he was able to see for the first time in his life. He put the glasses back in the Sefer, put the Sefer back in the bookcase and ran to his father and told him about the miracle glasses. His father did some research and found out that the glasses belonged to none other than the Pnei Yehoshua himself, who used those glasses only in the confines of the Beis Medrash. A prohibited sight was never seen through those lenses. The father got permission for his son to use the glasses and he happily began to learn and see the holy words of the Torah. You know, Moshe Rabeinu, when he went to see the burning bush, he wanted so badly to see the holiness. Moshe Rabeinu said, I will turn away and I will see. Perhaps Moshe Rabeinu was teaching us that if somebody wants to gaze at holiness, he first has to turn away from something else. I had a student in Miami Beach, Florida, around 26 years ago, who was struggling very badly with his learning. He couldn't focus and he never tasted the sweet taste of a page of Gemara. But then one day, he turned over a new leaf. He started to learn diligently. He enjoyed learning. He understood learning. I went over to him and I said, How did this tremendous transformation take place? What's the trick? He told me his secret. He said a little while ago, he had a spiritual inspiration. He went into his bedroom and he cut the cable of his television. From then on, he said, I was able to learn. I was able to enjoy. I was able to focus. Today, this student is a top-rated Rebbi in the Tri-State Area. He did an act of אסורה, he turned away, and he merited ואראה, he merited to see, to gaze at holiness, to understand holiness, to absorb the holiness. Devoting ourselves to hearing words of encouragement daily on the matter of holiness, which inspires us to turn away, is no doubt the best preparation for the day we received our Torah, where we all should merit to see the voices and the torches that our grandparents saw when they stood at the Sinai Revelation.