A Cat Video from Outer Space | Rabbi Shlomo Farhi

December 11th, 2023. Big day for cat lovers. On that day, NASA, for the very first time ever, beamed a video from outer space to this planet. This video traveled 19 million miles. And do you know what this video was? It was a 15-second video of an orange tabby called Taters chasing around a laser beam. That's what we sent from outer space, 19 million miles to earth. The pasuk tells us that Yehuda, in relating the command of Yosef, he says, Bring Binyamin down to me, and I will place my eyes on him. What a fascinating expression. Normally, when we talk about looking at things, we say: וירא - he looked, ויסתכל - and he paid attention to it, we use those words. What do these words mean, You see, Yosef is actually, in many ways, the father of Vayimaen. The very first time we read about that word in the context of Vayimaen is Yosef. Yosef decides not to do the Aveira with Eshet Potiphar. He said: No. וימאן. My friends, it is that man, Yosef HaTzaddik, who understands how challenging looking at something אסור can be. So Yosef says to his brother, Yehuda, Bring Binyamin down, and I will place my eyes on him. You see, normally, if you're not careful with your sight, it does whatever it wants. Your eyes go here, your eyes go there, your eyes go up, your eyes go down, wherever they want to go. They just happened to go to places, and then we need to control them, and then we need to pull them away. What if we learned from Yosef, the father of Vayimaen, an entirely different way of using our eyes. A conscious, mindful way, where it's not that we looked at everything and then took it away from something that it wasn't supposed to see. But instead, we decided what we wanted to see, what we wanted to look at. What did we do with our eyes? We placed our sight on something. You see, NASA decided to send a cat video from the heavens. All that space, all that technology, and what did we get to see? Something stupid. It's not אסור, it's not forbidden. It's just a waste of my time. I don't need to see that. Sometimes we get taken in the story of Shmirat HaEinayim with what's allowed, what's not allowed. But maybe there's a better question, Is this something that I need to see? And if it's not, do I want to place my eyes on it? Try this for one week. Instead of letting your eyes run wherever they want, just decide before you look. You'll find your world is an entirely different place. Give it a try. You'll be pleased with the results.