The Neverending Battle | Rabbi Benzion Klatzko

My friends, years ago, I was zoche to write a book for Yeshiva Bochurim. It was called, ‘The Kuntrus’. It was a book in English, and there was a chapter in that book called, ‘The Neverending Battle’, and it was all about Shemiras HaEinayim. I called that chapter ‘The Neverending Battle’ because I felt, for real, this is a battle that never ends. I want to speak heart to heart, person to person, friend to friend, with you. We have all tripped up in Shemiras HaEinayim. Shemiras HaEinayim is the Nisayon that doesn't end. The opposite. It gets harder and harder as the generations and as technology goes on, it gets more and more difficult. I lived in Los Angeles and I would bring my kids to school and at a certain crosswalk in Beverly Boulevard there were big billboards that were incredibly inappropriate. And in front of those billboards were traffic lights, and I had to look at the traffic light to know whether I can cross the boulevard or not. The only thing is when you look up at the traffic light, you're looking at the billboard that's behind. It's positioned very strategically. And my children would say: Tatty, head down. And I would put my head down, they would put their heads down, my daughter would look up every once in a while and say, Okay, now you can go. And we would go without looking at that billboard. Shemiras HaEinayim is something that we battle throughout our lives. Of all the Nisyonos that we have that can bring a person towards low self-esteem, towards ייאוש, towards feeling less than, it's the Nisayon of Shemiras HaEinayim. When we trip, when we fall, when we look, when we glance, we feel - Oy, what happened to me? What happened to my Kedusha? The נפש הבהמית that's inside of us begins to grow and we want to do things and we say: Forget it, I'm hopeless. This is lost. I am lost. Understand, my friends, that you're a normal person and this is a Nisayon that you're going to have to battle all your life. We don't outgrow this. We learn to control this. So I want to give you Chizuk, from one friend to the next, that every single time you overcome, every single time you are able to say: No, not this time. Yes, in the past I have slipped up and maybe in the future I will, but just not this time. You are zoche to rewards that מלאכי השרת can't imagine. And you know what? You earn it, you deserve it, because it's such a difficult Nisayon. But it's what makes you a בעל בחירה. It's what makes you choose Kedusha over anything else.