Respect Who You Are | Rabbi Shlomo Cynamon

There was a Bochur who learned in the Radiner Yeshiva, and he decided to go for the Chodesh of Elul to learn in pre-war Europe, in Bialystok, the Yeshiva of Novardok. When he came to the Yeshiva of Novardok, he had to be accepted in the Yeshiva. He waited in the waiting room to speak to the Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Avraham Yoffen zt”l. As he was waiting, the Rebbetzin of R’ Avraham Yoffen, who was the daughter of the Alter of Novardok, came into the room. She asked this Bochur, Why are you leaving Radin, where the Tzaddik HaDor is, the Chofetz Chaim, to come to Bialystok? The boy, who was the future R’ Yaakov Moshe Shurkin zt”l, was tongue-twisted. He didn't know what to answer. And the Rebbetzin told him, I'll tell you what to say to the Rosh Yeshiva when he asks you this question. In Radin, you see the Chofetz Chaim, the Tzaddik HaDor. You have what to aspire to. You see the perfection that a human being could reach. But you know what you learn in Novardok? In Novardok, you don't learn what you can become. You learn to respect who you are. Every person is a fusion of two parts. He is an aspiration of what he can become, and he has tremendous power in and of himself where he is. Every Yid has to have Emunah in Hashem, he has to have Emunah in the Torah, and you have to have Emunah in yourself. If we respect ourselves for who we are, we respect ourselves as the Bnei Torah and the Ehrliche Yidden who are doing the Avodas Hashem and that the world is standing on our shoulders, that will, in and of itself, give us the power to be able to curtail, to be able to control, to be able to cherish the world we live in and the special מתנות and gifts that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us. And when we come to that הכרה, we come to that cognizance, then we'll be able to reach the aspirations that we all have for ourselves, our families, our children, our Talmidim, and the people around us.