Finding the Holiness Inside | Rabbi Mordechai Stern

Approximately 25 years ago I was in ארץ ישראל. I believe it was during the ימי השובבי"ם, and I saw a number of signs all over with a quote from the ראב״ד in the Sefer בעלי הנפש. And the ראב״ד writes: The ראש, the first, the primary גדר that a person has to make, Shemira that a person has to make, ,שישמור האדם את עיניו that a person has to guard his eyes. So I went and I looked up the Sefer, and I actually found it a little bit amusing, because the actual quote from the ראב״ד goes: That a person has to guard his eyes from everything that is not his. And I felt that the fellow who put up the signs was really misquoting the ראב״ד somewhat. I thought about it a little bit more, and I realized in subsequent years, that the ראב״ד is teaching us here something very, very foundational, something that’s really life-changing. The Passuk in פרשת בלק says: He looked and he saw that בני ישראל were שכן לשבטיו The גמרא in בבא בתרא tells us, he saw that אין פתחיהן מכוונין זה לזה, that the tents of the בני ישראל, in their encampment in the מדבר were arranged in such a way that no opening faced the opening of another tent. It arose in his heart a feeling that he didn’t want to curse them anymore. And it’s unbelievable. בלעם had already spoken the words of Nevuah: He spoke about the unbelievable exalted level of the אבות. He spoke all the unbelievable מעלות of כלל ישראל. And none of those transcendent spiritual levels were something that wanted to change Bilam’s fundamental attitude towards the בני ישראל. Only when he saw the קדושה of a Yiddishe שטוב, only when he saw שאין פתחיהן מכוונין זה לזה. When he saw the קדושה of a בית יהודי, of a Yiddishe שטוב, of a Jewish home, that it’s established in such a way that it’s self contained. That it doesn’t have to look outwards to find excitement, to find satisfaction. It's not looking elsewhere, but it's looking internally. That’s where he saw a sense of קדושה that changed his entire attitude towards כלל ישראל. And he said: this is טוב, this is goodness. I read an account of a Baal Teshuva in ארץ ישראל, who said that what galvanized him to search out the path of Teshuva, was he was in public, and he saw a Yid walking the way an Ehrliche Yid walks, not looking at all of the sights that there were to see. And he said, what does he have at home that satisfies him, that he doesn’t have to look around him? We are self-satisfied, we don't have to look outside. All we have to do is look inside. To see the ברכה, to see the קדושה, to see the sanctity, to see the elevation. That's not mine, that’s not שלי, I don't need that. I’m going to look inside, and I’ll find the מה טבו אהליך inside of me.