Our Mental Delete Button | Rabbi Jonathan Rietti

The Steipler, the father of R’ Chaim Kanievsky of blessed memory writes in the Sefer עצות והדרכות, which was written by Rabbi Yaakov Greenwald, but he was asking questions to the Steipler. And one of the questions was, How does the mind work in relationship to someone who's got all these בלבולים, confusing thoughts about things he's seen and can't get out of his mind? And he offers the following. If you don't stay stuck on what you're thinking about, then guess what's going to happen? Your mind is fluid and your mind will come up with a new thought. That's how your mind works. You're always thinking. You can't stop thinking. And when I put a pause on what I'm thinking about, I can get היסח הדעת to something else. He says: As long as I don't stay fixed on what I'm looking at, guess what's going to happen? A new thought will pop up on its own. So I'm going to share with you the World of Pop-Ups. You get a pop-up on a phone. Not you, personally, but a neighbor might have one. And you've got two options. Either you open and I call... Explore, or you press the x button at the top of the screen, Delete and you... Ignore. So when a person gets lots of pop-ups in their mind, I understand that if it's on a phone or a screen, I press the Delete button and that will delete the pop-up, but where's the Delete button in my mind? And the answer is... your next thought. Your next thought is the Delete button. That's a strange statement, because what's faster than the blink of an eye? And the answer is... a thought. You can think much faster than you blink. One blink of an eye is about one sixth of a second. A thought is a split second. And comes along HaKadosh Baruch Hu and wants us to know, I judge you by your thoughts. I want your mind. ישועת השם כהרף עין. There's only one item that's faster than the speed of your blink of an eye. Your next thought. There's your Delete button.