Infusing Our Soil | Rabbi Naftali Horowitz

I once heard a beautiful story from Reb Moshe Wolfson, zal zayn gezunt. About 100 years ago, a delegation from New York came to the Belzer Rebbe, and they asked him to please come to America and become a Rabbi in New York. Klal Yisroel all over here was desperately in need of Yiddishkeit and they laid out before him the amazing opportunity that was available to implant Yiddishkeit in America. The Belzer Rebbe said, “I need some time to think about it.” And he came back to them, a few days later, and he said, “As much as I would want to do it, I cannot.” “The reason is,” he said, “is that the soil of Europe “is saturated with Mesirus Nefesh, Mesirus Nefesh of Jewish generations withstanding the Crusades, withstanding pogroms, withstanding all kinds of uprisings against us. And in that, we still maintained our Yiddishkeit. It is this Mesirus Nefesh, from which I draw my nutrition to be able to be an Oved Hashem. America does not yet have that track record, that history of a soil which is permeated with Mesirus Nefesh. Mayhaps go to somebody else, who isn't aware of this. Maybe he would agree to move to America. Reb Moshe Wolfson said that the lesson of this is that a place where there's Mesirus Nefesh, it infuses that place with a holiness, so that those who live there and those that come after are able to withstand the Nisyonos that that place brings about. Today in America, we don't have those Nisyonos. We don't have the Nisyonos of Shmiras Shabbos. We don't have the Nisyonos of a place to daven. Kosher Shchitah is available everywhere. Baruch Hashem, Klal Yisroel has Yeshivos, Batei Midrashim, and we are able to practice Yiddishkeit openly and freely, Reb Moshe Wolfson says: But we do have a tremendous Nisayon of this generation, a Nisayon which we yet have to demonstrate, which we yet have to inculcate the soil and the air of this country with, and that's the Nisayon of Shmiras Ha’einayim. It's a Nisayon of what we see every single day before us. In his words, “More forbidden sights arrive in one day's mail than our forefathers saw in their entire lifetime. It is our job, this generation, to stand up with Mesirus Nefesh. What we're doing, we're not just doing for ourselves. We're doing for our children and grandchildren. If we implant the Mesirus Nefesh of refraining from looking at things that we shouldn't into the soil, our children and grandchildren will be able to withstand the Nisyonos that, Rachmono Litzlan, are going to come their way.