Break Water Edison | Rabbi Joey Dayon

In 2007, a good friend of mine was making a lot of money, and he tells me, at the time, that he decided to buy four racehorses. He tells me one of the horses never ran a race in its life, but he paid $500,000 for the horse. I said: Why would you pay $500,000 for a horse? He never ran. He said: His grandfather was Lemon Drop Kid, a famous racehorse that won a lot of races, so you have to pay for pedigree. Anyway, he named the horse after a hotel that he owned, called Break Water Edison. And sure enough, I'm keeping tabs because it's very interesting, he tells me the horse wins the first race, the second race, four races in a row the horse wins, and now it's being ranked one of the important horses, and it's running in Saratoga, New York, at the stakes race. And it's a big deal. He tells me if he wins this race, it's possible he'll be running in the Kentucky Derby. He goes to Saratoga. He tells me the people over there, they dress up, the men are wearing suits, the women are wearing dresses and hats. It’s packed with people. They're very into their horse racing over there. And he says, As soon as the horse comes out of the gate, there were six horses, he's screaming: Come on, Break Water! And he says his horse goes from sixth to fifth, to fourth, to third, second, and he says: By the last turn, he's coming into first place, the place is cheering, he's screaming at the top of his lungs, and the horse comes in first place. And he said: It was the greatest experience. It was unbelievable. And then he tells me, he gets a call from an Arab Sheikh. He tells him: Your horse is ranked #16 in the world. I'll pay you $5 million for the horse. And I look at my friend, I said: I'm sure you took it. You got ten times on your money in less than a year. And he says: Actually, I told him I want $6 million. Anyhow, a week later, I see my friend. I said: So what happened? Did the Arab Sheikh pay $6 million for the horse? And my friend puts his head down. I said: What happened? He says: You don’t know. He was training a few days ago, he got spooked, he jumped, he broke his leg and we had to put him to sleep. And the horse is worthless. There's no $5 million, there's no races, there's no Kentucky Derby, there's nothing. Break Water Edison עליו השלום, he's gone. And I was reminded of something that we know. When it comes to physical pleasure, it's fleeting. One minute it's here, the next minute it's gone. This guy was on top of the world, his horse is running, he got $5 million and now he's got nothing. And it could be that Shemirat Einayim is the sharpest application of this. A person's driving down the street, you go into the supermarket, you're in the airport, and you see something or you're tempted to see something that you shouldn't look at. And if you look at it and you think to yourself, What pleasure did I get from it? Ten seconds later, it's gone. I got nothing from it. Ten minutes later, ten hours later, nothing from it. The only thing you're left with is the bill. The only thing you're left with is the feeling of I shouldn't have done it. It's so dumb. Why did I look? You'll tell me, But, Rabbi, at least I got the pleasure in the moment that I looked at what I shouldn't be looking at. At least I got that pleasure. But Chazal tell us it's not true. Even that pleasure you don't get. If you're supposed to have 100 volts of pleasure and you take 20 illegally, Hashem says: I'm going to take it from somewhere else. Maybe you're supposed to go on a trip with your wife and your family, and the weather didn't turn out to be good. Maybe you're supposed to enjoy a barbecue and you didn't have a good meal. Your stomach was bothering you. You can't beat the system. So even the pleasure you don't get. So the next time we're tempted to see something that we're not supposed to see, let's remember Break Water Edison. Let's remember that one minute he was on top of the world, he had $5 million, the next minute he was gone. And let's ask ourselves, Is it really worth it?