The Right Side of the Street | Rabbi Fischel Schachter

So it was one of those mornings where I didn't just wake up on the left side, I woke up on my far left. I was just upset and angry at the entire world. When I finally got out of bed, I was in a rush. I take care of Shachris in a Cheider. It takes me 13 minutes to walk from my house to the Cheider, and I was about 15 minutes out. I had to get there. If I drive, ah, then it takes only about 15 minutes to drive and 15 minutes to park. The only time I take my car is if I am just irrationally lazy, or I have to go someplace, straight from Yeshiva, or I have to carry something. But this morning, I said: Oh, no. My car is parked on the wrong side of the street. For those of you who don’t live in New York City, we have something called Musical Cars. It's called: Alternate Side Parking, where you move the car from one side of the street to the other, so that this machine comes and turns and blows leaves from one side of the street to the other. It's a complicated process. I can't explain it. But if you're on the wrong side of the street in the wrong hour, you get a hefty ticket. And I said: Here I am. I have to move my car and come late, because I can't be parked where it is. Great. So I get into my car and I realize I'm also boxed in, another custom in Brooklyn. I’m boxed in. I have like an inch ahead of me, an inch behind me. I’m back and forth, a thousand maneuvers. I must have burnt out my transmission, my arms are falling off, my steering wheel’s almost falling off, and I finally pull out and suddenly there's a delivery truck that stops in front of me, and they start unloading furniture. So I say: You know what? I'll just back into the same spot. I'll get a ticket. I got to be in time for Shachris. And I turn around and somebody else took the spot. And I say to that person, You know, you're going to have to move soon. You're on the wrong side of the street. He said: No. This is the correct side of the street. Tuesdays we're okay on this side. It's Fridays that we can't be here. And I said: He's right. I was on the correct side of the street. My ADHD again. I said: I just spent 15 minutes burning out a transmission, breaking my arms, getting out of a tight spot, to be stuck behind a truck, and what was I doing? I was leaving the correct spot to be stuck behind a truck. Ribono shel Olam, I just... I was trying to get to terms with this. And I said: You know what? Chazal say: If your look on the world is everything is bad and everything is gloom and doom, the Ribono shel Olam says, That's your attitude? Then even things that are good, you won't pick up. And if you really want to believe that everything is good, I want to see the good in everything, then even things that are not good become good. עלי עין Yosef had the ability to see the world as good, as difficult as it was. The Or HaChaim HaKadosh says that the wife of Potiphar called all of her friends, all of the princesses, and surrounded Yosef HaTzaddik. You have no choice but to look. And Yosef closed his eyes. He said: Ribono shel Olam, I'm in your hands. I'm never going to say that it's impossible. And that's why he was zoche to this Bracha, of עלות עין, to be above the eye. He always sees good, and Rashi says, people always see him as good. It's the greatest Bracha in the world. It's the key to our Shalom Bayis. It's the key to our Chinuch. It's the key to self-esteem. It's the key to our everything. Tell me something. Are we not surrounded, just like Yosef HaTzaddik was? Doesn't the Yetzer Hara say to us: Too bad. Can't we say the same thing? Close your eyes. Your eyes will be above it. And I'm telling you: It's worth it. Because you'd much rather be on the wrong side that turns out right, than the right side that turns out wrong.