Shabbos Kodesh | Rabbi Yechiel Spero

One time, a father walked into Rav Chaim Kanievsky, a worried look on his face. He was holding his 2-year-old boy, and he said: כבוד הרב, My son was diagnosed with an illness and his eyes are in danger of being ruined. The doctors have told us that it's inevitable. And he starts to cry and he says: My baby is going to go blind. What can we do? And R’ Chaim looked at him and he looked deeply into the eyes of the child, for a long while. And then R’ Chaim said something very surprising. I want you and your family and everyone you know to accept upon themselves קדושת השבת. Accept upon yourselves to keep Shabbos earlier, and through that, your child's vision will be fine. The fellow didn't understand, but if that's what R’ Chaim said, that's what R’ Chaim said. He went home and he told his wife and she told her friends and he told his friends and they told their families, and for the next number of weeks, every single Shabbos, they brought in earlier and earlier, to be מקיים, to fulfill the Mitzvah of תוספת שבת, adding קדושת שבת to their homes and to those who they knew, to their homes. A number of weeks later, over a month later, they went back to the doctor and the doctor said, I don't know what happened. I tested your child and your child's vision is perfectly clear. There's no semblance whatsoever of the dreaded disease that I thought he had. And they went back to R’ Chaim and they asked R’ Chaim, We thought that you would tell us to do something with קדושת עיניים, perhaps. Shabbos? And R’ Chaim told them, תוספת קדושה is what will protect your eyes, because your eyes are holy, and therefore, if you add holiness to your eyes, then they will be protected. Yes, קדושת עיניים and שמירת עיניים of course, protect it, but all sources of Kedushah are attracted to Kedushah. And therefore, your child whose vision was in danger is healed, through added Kedushah. We must constantly work to add Kedushah to our lives, Kedushah through קדושת שבת, Kedushah through קדושת שמירת עיניים. And when we do so, we protect ourselves, we protect the health of our children, we protect everything we hold to be precious. And that is the very special עניין of Shemiras Einayim. Let's embolden ourselves, let's realize what is at stake, let's realize the power that we have and we can protect the most precious commodity that we own.