Transform Your Life | Rabbi Elazar Meisels

Have you ever heard an ad that says, Just do the following for 3 minutes a day and you'll transform your life. Your whole life will change. And you say to yourself, Yeah, right. What else is new? Well, the Gemara in Yuma says, A person takes a small step in the direction of Kedushah, he has Siyata d’Shmaya, מקדשין אותו הרבה suddenly he becomes possessed of a lot of Kedushah. So you'll say: Okay. A little Kedushah, now you get a lot of Kedushah, but that's not really life-transforming. But the Gemara continues and says, מקדש עצמו מלמטה you're Mekadesh yourself down below, in Shomayim already they say, Oh, wow. This is a Kadosh. מקדש עצמו בעולם הזה you work to be Mekadesh yourself in Olam Hazeh, suddenly you become a Ben Olam Haba. And the Maharsha says, All of these three steps are progressive. It starts with one small step in the direction of Kedushah, and in Shomayim they say: Okay, let's take him to the next step. Let's take him to Kiddush Shem Shomayim in Olam Haba. Let's take him to further Kedushah, so that he becomes somebody who is very great. The Maharsha says that famous Gemara in Chelek, in Sanhedrin, that says, There are Tzaddikim that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, when it comes the time of תחיית המתים, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to bring them back, their Guf, their body, does not decompose. They are fresh on the day of תחיית המתים as the day that they went into the ground. The Maharsha says, That Gemara, that Tzaddik, is a person who started out with one small step. אדם who was מקדש עצמו מעט. Now, my friends, we don't need proof to the veracity of מאמרי חז”ל, but I believe that the Vayimaen phenomenon is living proof of the truth of how 3 minutes a day can completely transform your life. I recently met an old friend, who is the Askan’s Askan, an old-time Askan. He tells me: Elazar, I listen to Vayimaen first thing, every single day. I'm a different person. This past Purim night, I'm listening to the Megillah. Now in the past, my phone would buzz and it would ring and it would buzz, and of course, I'm constantly slipping a glance and checking and hitting a quick text back and doing something, and in the interim, I've probably missed half of the Megillah. He said: For the first time this year, I'm listening and listening, and my phone is buzzing and I don't even notice. The Megillah is over and I look at it and I see missed calls, missed texts, all kinds of things happening, but I was focused in. Vayimaen, he says, has not only changed what I look at and where I look, but it has given me the self-control that I've never had before in my life. Yeah. Three minutes, my friends, and you can totally transform your life בעולם הזה ובעולם הבא.