A Boa Attack That Changed His Life Forever

Many of us are quite familiar with Ravuria Zohar, the great actor who eventually at the age of 43 years old uh went ahead and was Jose Batsuva. Interestingly enough, he died 43 years later at the age of 86. At the age of 86, that's when he passed away. And uh Rabbi Akiva and he went ahead and turned over at the age in his 40s. It was because he was at an event where Rav Zilberman was there, one of the great beginners of a Mosaddegh in the old city where he started the whole system. Was there answering many of the questions of him and a few of his friends who were around. His friends who were there was a was a big singer, someone named as Arik Einstein. Einstein and a few other people that were actors and popular people, popular figures of the time and they were all kind of ridiculing Rav Zilberman and the whole Haredi idea and he was giving proper answers back. He was very impressed. Ravuria Zohar was very impressed with him because they grew up with the impression that these people are all set many years back, extremely primitive, unintelligent and he was very impressed with his answers, his intelligent and his decor. In the end of the day, the Rav did something very impressive and he stopped in the middle and said, "If you guys are really interested in hearing the answers to these questions, you will give it a little bit more time than sitting at some event where you're asking, throwing out some questions. Here's my phone number. Exchange the phone numbers. Go ahead, take my phone number. If anyone's interested, you can go ahead and call." At the end of the event, they were all walking, they were going back all to their their very fancy cars and this. And Ravuria Zohar was actually so impressed, he said, "I think it makes sense that tomorrow we should be calling this rabbi. It was very impressive and there seems to be some truth to what he's saying or at least to figure out what he's saying or what it's all about." All of them were very upset with him and said, "What are you talking about? Are you crazy?" Nobody was interested in listening to what he had to say. But he said, "Didn't you Don't you agree with some of the things he said? He said some very intelligent things." They said, "Said intelligent things, but many people say intelligent things. What's that to do with me? I have my life ahead of me. I'm all my own experience. I have my parnassa. I have everything about me. You think that I'm going to go ahead and listen to some old old fogey, as they say, going ahead and listen to what he has to say?" And they didn't have to do The next day it was very difficult for him, but he picked up the phone and he actually dialed. It was probably difficult to go back then to dial. You had to roll around the whole thing, if you remember. Anyways, that's what happened. And eventually we all know, as they say, it was the rest is history, and he slowly but surely, even though as difficult as it was, left everything behind, which is not our subject right now. My question is, what happened to him more than everybody else? Why was he so enough intrigued that he went ahead and made the phone call as opposed to everybody else? They all agreed in the end of the day that the person showed very high signs of intelligence. The answer is we say in Vidu 10 times on Yom Kippur, Betim'on Levav. Betim'on Levav. What is Betim'on Levav? So we actually just read it in Parshat Ki Tavo, [clears throat] when it talks about the Kelalot, when it's giving the curses, it says the Betim'on Levav. One of the Kelalot that we get is Betim'on Levav. And here we are hit with Betim'on Levav. We have a sin of Betim'on Levav. At least let's understand what it means. So Rashi tells us, "You know what it means? Atem Lev." A clogging of the heart. What does that mean the clogging of the heart? The Yetzer Hara isn't there to go ahead and knock you out, to give you a knockout punch, to tell you to do a virus and do the wrong thing. He's there to put you to sleep. How does anyone go under the scalpel? How does anyone have a go go into surgery? There's only one way that a person is willing to do it. He's given an anesthetic. There's a whole doctor a physician, right? That's called an anesthesiologist and his whole purpose in life is to put people to sleep. Whether you're talking about general anesthetic or whether you're talking about local anesthetic, in the end of the day the point is to make the body not feel the pain, take the nervous system and disconnect and make that disconnect from your brain so you don't feel what's going on. That's the job of the Yetzer Hara. That's what he's there to do. He's not there to make you sin, he's there to make you not think. Just like the difference here between Yetzer Hara and the rest of his friends. All of his friends fell into a deadly trap of not thinking, of not going in and thinking because they just want to live life and continue as usual. Don't tell me anything that's going to change, don't let me make any any differences in life, have some have some idea of some quick inspiration and it just goes back to status quo where it was before. I don't want to see it. That's the difference between a person who is successful and not. And that really is a yesod that is coming about when we're talking about the ideas of Yom Kippur. To go ahead and make a look and make a change and make us realize that maybe it's time to a little bit wake up. Uru Uru Mishana Tachem, that's the whole yesod of the teshuvah, the shofar to make us a little bit make a difference. Let me tell you another story, an interesting one and then I'm going to finish, of a person who was in a taxi cab who was in a taxi cab. The best stories we always get are in Israeli taxi cabs. If you want to get some good stories for speakers, put yourself in an Israeli taxi cab and try to get a speech out and try to get him to speak about. This taxi cab driver was completely not religious was sitting and reporting to this person and told him that after the army, after I finished the army, not like you that didn't go to the army, I was traveling around the Amazon jungle in South America. I was traveling around over there. We were going around different areas in South America and we were with a group of five of us in the Amazon jungle. We were got out of the car and we were snooping around over there and without noticing, one of our one of our friends was towards the back was slowly being encompassed coming down from the tree was a boa constrictor, a massive humongous snake that was coming out of the tree and slowly enveloping himself around our friend. We didn't notice it even he didn't notice until we suddenly started hearing his screams. We all turned around and we saw that he was already completely enwrapped by this boa constrictor who was going eventually for the neck. He was going in order to strangle him and all of a sudden to do it. We still we tried to pull the snake off of him as best as we could, but we were not able to do it. This person realized his end is near and he cried out Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad, those dear words that we say before a person is about to pass away. I always thought that snakes can't hear. I know it's a little bit, but in this case this snake definitely heard what he had to say and he started to unwrap himself on the person. He completely stopped enveloping him and went straight up into the tree that he came for it and left him alone. Obviously listening and being attentive to his screams. This person who just realized he was given the gift of life suddenly being so appreciative of it. This taxi cab driver reported he actually left our group. He went back to Israel and he was over there with you. He said he's married now, he has a few kids. He works and he learns, he has a seder also. And he is a talmid chacham. He said he was in kollel for a number of years to do that and he was completely over there with you. So the person sitting in the passenger seat I heard that it was I think if I'm not mistaken of Eliahu Lapian couldn't help himself and he told the taxicab driver he asked him he said, "No, what about you?" All right? You were sitting and saw this absolute miracle in front of your eyes and said, "What about you? What happened?" The person looked at him the taxicab driver looked at him in dismay and and very confusing goes, "I I I don't understand what you're saying." I said it happened to my friend. It didn't happen to me. What does this have to do with me? That's a small mind and heart. We sometimes see the scenario and things that happen to us. We see calamities. We see messages that are being sent from here and there and we don't appreciate that sometimes maybe those messages are being sent to me. Maybe the miracles that are happening around are meant to be told to me to do something about it. As I heard when Steinman was in the hospital he was already in his 100 101, 102 years old and he was saved miraculously. Came out of a sickness miraculously and the doctor actually told him that he is blessed. You should know that you're a living miracle. You're a walking miracle. He told to Steinman. And as he told him he said, "You're a walking miracle. The fact that you're still here after what you just went through no one else would have survived such a thing." Steinman looked at him inquisitively and he said to him, "Do you know that you're also a living miracle? The fact that you're alive is no less a miracle than the fact that I'm alive right now. Those are the messages we're supposed to be hearing. When I see someone who's a living miracle and I see some incredible thing that occurs maybe the fact that I'm still alive is also something to appreciate. Maybe that's also something to be looking and appreciating and by that when I go ahead and tell him that he is alive I'll start realizing to open those clogs of the heart to take off the anesthetic and start feeling that maybe that knife is being penetrating into my own flesh instead of applying it to everybody else, I'll start realizing that maybe now it's the time in this new year to make a change.