Rubber Band Mayhem | Rabbi Fischel Schachter

So a friend of mine is taking me to the airport, and he’s very busy tracking the flight. And he has some kind of an app, and he says this is an amazing app. You can see all the flights coming into the New York area exactly where they are. And I’m really not into these things, And I was focusing on catching the flight, not on catching all the other flights that were flying around in the air And he just says: “No, this is amazing. You see there’s hundreds and hundreds of flights that at any given moment are coming into the New York area and the planes are like minutes away from each other.” I said: “Do me a favor. I don’t need to know all the information.” And then I was thinking to myself: “If there is some kind of a satellite up there in Shamayim that sees exactly where every one of these hundreds and hundreds of planes are, and knows exactly how high they are, and what position they are, what type of plane it is, and where it's coming from, and where it's going then I guess it’s reasonable to assume that there’s a Borei Olam that sees each and every one of us, and knows exactly where we are in our flight of life, where we’re going.” And I said this to my friend. And he said to me a very profound thought. He said: “And Hashem sees where we’re not.” I said: “What?” And I thought about that for a moment, and I said he’s right. So, I'm substituting a seventh grade after coming out of retirement. Believe it or not, I went right back into the battleground, and I’m substituting a seventh grade. And after forty years of teaching, you still learn something new every time you go into a classroom. And I'm about to tell them: “Do me a favor. Just whatever you do, I’m going to do a contest with you. I’ll try to make an easy day. Take it easy on me, alright? And I hear a commotion, and I turn around and I see Moishe, not using real names. I see Moishe shooting a rubber band. No, I catch him in the act. And it hits Yanky, not using real names, and Yanky goes: “Oouuchhh!!” Of course, if it was in the middle of a basketball game, he wouldn't have blinked! But now he went “ouch.” And I said to Moishe very calm, I said: “Moishe, please step outside.” And Moishe turned to me and said with all the passion in the world: “I didn't do it!! I didn't shoot a rubber band!! Why are you making up stories?!? You always make up stories about me!! You're always picking on me!! You never see the good things I do!! You only see the bad things!!” And he walked out. And I followed him out because I was confused because this kid was not lying. He said with all of the passion, with all of his heart, with all of that pain in his eyes that he didn’t do it. So I walked out, and I said to him: “Okay, so tell me what happened. Tell me the whole story from beginning to end.” Well, here's the whole story: Yanky shot a rubber band at him, and he repressed his feelings, even though he's an impulsive kid, he said: “No, I’m not disturbing the class.” Yanky shoots another rubber band. It’s even harder. He holds himself back. Yanky shoots a third rubber band, and this time Moishe can’t handle it anymore, and he turns around and shoots back, and that’s when I saw him. So Moishe was right. “You never see the good things I do!! I didn’t shoot the rubber band!!” It’s true! Twice he didn’t shoot the rubber band! I tried to explain to Moishe: “I’m sorry, but you have to realize we, human beings, can only see the things that people do. We can’t see the things that people don’t do.” But the Ribono Shel Olam sees the things you didn’t look at! The places you didn't go! And the apps you didn’t open. No satellite in the world can see it. But the Borei Olam does, and those points count.