What Good Friends Can Accomplish | Rabbi Naftali Reich

There was a Chosid of the heilige R’ Mordechai Lechovitcher and he had to travel on business. He was in a far-flung town in the eastern side of Poland and there, as he went up to his room on the first floor of the hotel, he was engulfed in an incredible Nisayon to do an Aveira. His mind was racing and he was thinking to himself: How will I be able to face my Rebbe, the heilige R’ Mordechai of Lechovitch? But he said: No problem. I'll pull my hat over my forehead and he won't detect the terrible Aveira that I have done. I'll go to the Mikveh, I'll dip in the Mikveh ש”י טבילות, I'll do whatever it takes, I'll do Teshuva, and he won't know. But then he was thinking to himself, just before he was about to do the Aveira, How can I enter into the Shtiebel, into the Beis Medrash, and face my friends, my Chaverim? They're all clean and innocent, pure, מבקשי השם, and I'll be tainted with this Aveira. I'll feel like a Yavan in Sukkah, I'll feel such an outcast. And with Herculean energy, he pulled himself to the window, grabbed his satchel, and he jumped out of the window to the ground and ran to his horse, and he galloped off into the night. Shortly thereafter, when he entered into the room of the heilige Lechovitcher, the Lechovitcher lifted his saintly eyes, and he looked upon him, and he said: Itzik’l, What a great Rebbe sometimes cannot accomplish, one can have a great Rav, but he can't accomplish what Chaverim, what good friends can accomplish. We're all part of an organization, of Vayimaen, and we hear wonderful clips and inspirational thoughts that help us resist the incredible blandishments and temptations that surround us everywhere in our day and age. But nothing is more powerful, subliminally, than the fact that we’re one Chevre, we’re one ציבור, מבקשי השם, integrated, ערבים זה לזה, that that together we’re giving each other Ko’ach, energy and courage, to face the incredible temptations of our time.