Stolen Shoes! | Rabbi Yoir Adler

I want to share with you a practical tactic how to overcome the Yetzer Hara of Shemiras Einayim. The Gemara tells us in Masechtas Bei’a, On Rosh Hashanah, the Aibishter decides how much Parnassa we're going to have the coming year, how much income we're going to have, how much money we're going to make. Says the Steipler, This is not only referring to dollars and cents, it's not only referring to cash, it's referring to any satisfaction, every pleasure that you’re going to have this year has been decided by the Aibishter. When a person's faced with a challenge, and he feels that he wants this so-called pleasure, he has to understand the pleasure that he's going to have from this Aveira he's going to have anyway. He's not going to lose out one bit by holding himself back. The Aibishter will ensure he'll have this pleasure from somewhere else. The question’s only are you going to get this in a way that's מותר, or in a way that's אסור? And this reminds us of the story about this Rebbe that saw that his Gabai’s shoes had holes in them, and he felt terrible for his Gabai. Why should he go around with such shoes? So he decided to put together money and he’ll buy him a pair of shoes. And after he had enough money, he placed the money in his drawer and he decided tomorrow he's going to tell the Gabai, Here’s the money. Buy yourself a pair of new shoes. The next morning, the Rebbe comes, he opens up his drawer, and he sees the drawer’s empty. He looks at his Gabai and he sees the Gabai has new shoes. And he puts two and two together and he realized the Gabai must have taken this money. And he approached the Gabai and he says, Where are these new shoes from? And he started to fumble and mumble and eventually he admitted: Yes, I couldn't resist. My shoes were torn. So I decided to take the money and buy myself this pair of shoes. Said the Rebbe: !שוטה שבעולם You know how foolish you are? The shoes you would have got anyway. I was about to buy it for you. All you did was a terrible Averia of לא תגנוב, all you did was that now I don't trust you anymore, but you gained zero. The same applies by every challenge. We’re not going to gain anything from sinning. Not a drop more pleasure will come our way through the avenue of חטא. Hashem Yisborach already decided that that pleasure is coming to us and we will get it no matter what.