Two in a Million | Rabbi Shlomo Landau

Did you know that at any given moment there are 1.2 million passengers in the air flying on planes? One of those passengers often is an Israeli Maggid Shiur who gives Shiur in Europe, so he's always traveling back and forth and back and forth. But he has very strange travel requests. His travel agent knows that he's always looking to book flights on old planes. Old planes? Why would somebody want that? You see, old planes don't have screens in front of you. And this way he doesn't have challenges of Shemiras Ha’einayim. Every once in a while he has to take a new flight. But he always tries to fly during the day when he has strength and focus, and he could sit and learn and not have to see the screens around him, which unfortunately don't always have the most amazing and wonderful images. One time, he was stuck. He was on a brand-new state-of-the-art plane, and he knew about it, and it was a night flight and he was tired. What does he do? So he prepares himself. He got himself a sleeping pill, earplugs, he even got one of those eyeshades that you put on your eyes so you shouldn't be able to see. He comes to the plane and his seat is the middle seat of a row of three. On one side of him is one guy, on the other side of him is another guy, and within 60 seconds, they both try turning on their screens. They're trying, they're pushing this button, that button. The screens don't turn on. Eventually, they call one of the flight attendants. The flight attendant tries, the screens don't turn on and she says: I feel so bad. She says to these passengers: Every other screen on this plane works perfectly. But for some reason, these two screens are not working. I don't understand why. And this Maggid Shiur smiled to himself. He understood why. Because he came there with Mesirus Nefesh. He didn't want to see to his right, he didn't want to see to his left. So of the 1.2 million screens in the air that night, two of them malfunctioned. The one to his right, the one to his left. When we work on our Shemiras Ha’einayim, the Ribono shel Olam assists us. And I think this is an important Nekuda. We can't do it by ourselves. It's a huge challenge. It's a big Nisayon. But when we're willing to be Moser Nefesh for Shemiras Ha’einayim, and we ask the Ribono shel Olam for Siyata D’Shmaya, then the supernatural becomes the natural.