The Fourth Honda Odyssey | Rabbi Fischel Schachter

Somebody once said that when he comes up to Shomayim, him and his wife are going to be in the same place. And the man said to him, Are you sure? Your wife is a big Tzaddekes and you... He said: No, no, no, no, no. It says לעתיד לבוא, Hashem will take out the sun. Tzaddikim will be healed, Resha’im will be punished by the same thing. So we're going to be in a shopping center. For my wife, it'll be Gan Eden. For me, it'll be Gehenom. You know, that's how it's going to work out, so... Here I am. And I was told that we have to go to this major shopping center, August, because there was something we had to legitimately pick up. There was no other choice. And I said: No, no, no. The parking lot, middle of August, of a major, major mall, no. There was no choice. So I drove in. I said: I'm staying in the car. But staying in the car doesn't really fully solve the problem. I said: I have to find my place, a secluded place. You just see thousands of cars, baking in the sun. I figured: Let me go to the back of the building. Maybe in the back of the building there's a more secluded place. Now it doesn't say whether you can go there, whether you can't go there. Okay, they'll send me out, they'll send me out. And I'm creeping along and I'm saying: Should I be here? And I see, like, garbage compactors and big tractor trailers unloading and there’s a bunch of workers coming toward me. Okay, if they tell me to leave, I’ll leave. And they don't tell me to leave. They walk right by me. And I'm going and I'm going. I feel like I'm going, you know, into the Twilight Zone. But Ribono shel Olam, help me find a secluded place. Please, like, this is... you know, there’s Shmiras Einayim here in the summer. And sure enough, all the way there's... behind a bunch of tires and behind all kinds of different things, there's a back wall, and alongside the back wall I see three Honda Odysseys. Now, as you may know, Honda Odysseys are a very popular car over here. I'm not trying to sell cars. It's just that, you know, you can fit a lot of kids in, legally. I pull up, I’m the fourth Honda Odyssey, behind this little parade of cars, and out of curiosity, I get out and I walk all the way up to the front Honda Odyssey, and there’s a young man there being Maavir Sedra, it was Friday afternoon. I walk to the second Honda Odyssey. Ah, there's a Yid being Mekayem the great Mitzvah of sleeping on Erev Shabbos. Then I walk to the third Honda Odyssey and there's someone listening to Vayimaen. And I said: I am so proud to be the fourth one on the row over here. And I told the Chevra: Let's get out and have a dance. They didn't go for it so much. But you know something? We live in a time that no one knows where the future is going to be, right? We don't know where the world is going. And we see the desperation to find a shelter in the moment that you have to. Shmiras Einayim, says the Or Hachaim Hakadosh, if you are careful with your eyes, the Ribono shel Olam will lift you above the Ayin Hara. You will have that secluded place of safety. I’m a very scary driver. When I have to squeeze between two double-parked cars, which happens in Boro Park from time to time, I’m like... And once I was going and I went weeeee, and my wife said: How come you were so secure? I said: There's another Honda Odyssey in front of me, that just went through. It's the same car. If he can go, I can go. And that's the beauty of Vayimaen. We see that we're doing it together. It's what gives us a Koach that we could have never imagined we have. And B’ezras Hashem Yisborach, we're going to use it, and when the time comes that we need that shelter and we need that shade, all those that were Moser Nefesh themselves, that tried for Shmiras Einayim, we're going to be there together.