A Slap in the Face | Rabbi Fischel Schachter

So you know the story of the old lady that got into a car. She says: I used to drive all the time, but these new fangled things, like, it's ridiculous. I put the car into reverse and a movie comes on. And such a violent movie, people running in all different directions and garbage cans flying. The Yetzer Hara wants us to look back and say you blew it. You tried to be good and you blew it. You were slapped in the face. Give in. So I had a friend of mine I remember in Yeshiva days and he said: I'm not going home. I'm not going home for Yom Tov, because if I go home, I'm going to have certain Nisyonos. And he stayed in the dorm and his family gave him a hard time, and he said: I'm staying in the dorm. And he came to me Chol Hamoed and he was so broken. And he said, You think in the dorm I was okay? I blew it in the dorm. So I have my family angry at me and I blew it. Between a person and his fellow and between a person and Hashem. So we went to our Maggid Shiur and he told us a story. R’ Moshe Soloveitchik was a great Rav in Switzerland, was once a roommate of R’ Chaim Kanievsky. And R’ Moshe was sent out to go to the different Moshavim around Lomza and ask them to send their kids to Yeshiva. He was very successful. And one morning he came home at 4 a.m. and R’ Chaim was still up, R’ Chaim Kanievsky was still up. They were both Bochurim. And he sat down to learn the Daf. He says he doesn't go to sleep without learning the Daf. And he kept falling asleep, saying a line, falling asleep, saying a line, falling asleep. I can relate with that. And the next morning, R’ Chaim said to him, Did you understand one word you learned? He said: No. So why did you do it? He said: Because that commitment is going to give me hundreds and hundreds of Dapim that I am going to understand. You tried to do the right thing and you failed, but it's going to give you a path from here on in. So here I am in Yeshiva and a friend of mine calls me and says: Listen, I want a boost. What do you think I should take upon myself? I said: You know what? I decided that I'm taking the radio out of my car. I came to my mechanic. I said: Pete, take the radio out. He said: Why? It's the only thing that works in your car. I said: Do me a favor, take it out. So he took out the horn by mistake, he took out the front lights, the blinkers. Finally, we got the radio out. And I said I felt it was a good thing for me to do. He said: Fine, I'm going to make up I'm not listening to the radio. And then he calls me the next day and says, First day I'm not listening to the radio, I get pulled over for a ticket. No seatbelt. What do I learn from this? I said: Don't ask me advice? Then he calls me a while later and says, How would you like to come to Chicago? I said: What for? He says: Come, I'll tell you afterwards. And I get there and it's a Seudas Hodaah. And he tells everyone the story. He tells them the first part of the story about how my advice works. And then he tells them that right after he put on his seat belt, there was a tractor trailer coming by that fishtailed. He went flying over the embankment, turned over five times. He came out without a scratch. His tooth was bleeding. And the state police said to him, One thing is for certain. If you didn't have your seatbelts on, you would have never survived. And he gave me an opportunity to speak and I said, You know why you survived? You survived because here you took upon yourself a Kabbalah, and you get slapped in the face and you say: You know what, Ribono shel Olam? I'm still sticking to the Kabbalah. And that's what saved you. You should know, we try to do things for Shmiras Einayim. It doesn't mean everything will be hunky-dory. It means the Ribono shel Olam says, Let me test your resolve, says the Baal Hatanya. You will always be tested. And if you ride through the test, here comes the big blessing.