When the Fire is Burning | Rabbi Eliyohu Meir Schmeltzer

We stand moments before Ne’ilah. We approach Mincha, the Torah comes out of the Aron Kodesh, and the Baal Koreh starts leyning about licentiousness, frivolity, lasciviousness, forbidden relationships, things that are so beyond the scope of the day. We are so distanced from that. We have done full Teshuva. We have no Shaychus to that type of behavior. Why are we leyning about this type of behavior? And the answer is that the holiest person the Yetzer Hara goes after. And that's when they try to get you. When you're at your holiest place, that's when the Yetzer Hara goes after you, and that's why we have to hear this Krias Hatorah. We have to be Mechuzak, when the Yetzer Hara comes after you, that means you are something holy and he wants to get you. My illustrious brother, R’ Moshe, told me a Moyrediker Ma’aseh. The Meshech Chochma, R’ Meir Simcha, the Ohr Somayach was Niftar, and by his Levaya, they called upon the other Rav in town, the Rav of the Chasidim, to say a Hespid, the Rogatchover Gaon. The Rogatchover never spoke in public. He said: I will not say a Hespid, I don't speak in public. They came to the gravesite and they said: The Rogatchover, this was the Rav of the Litvishe. You're the other Rav in town. You must honor this Yid, R’ Meir Simcha. So the Rogatchover relented and he said the following. I was a young boy. I never saw my father out of a wheelchair. My father lived on a second floor, and the apartment that he was in was ablaze. An inferno. And they came running up to try to save him and he says: I cannot go. They said: Why not? He says: Because I have an old tante, an old aunt that lives with me, and she's an invalid and she cannot walk, and I cannot leave her behind. And then what happened? He jumped up out of his wheelchair. He grabbed her, he grabbed his old, elderly aunt, put her on his shoulders and ran down the steps and saved his life and her life, and he sat back down in a wheelchair. Said the Rogatchover by gravesite, How is it possible that somebody who could never move his legs was able to jump up and not only carry his own weight, carry his tante and save themselves? He says: Because when there is a fire, everything can be done. When there's a fire burning, a person is empowered with unlimited Kochos, supernatural Kochos. Said the Rogatchover, R’ Meir Simcha’s fire for Torah was so beyond that he was able to do and accomplish what he did because he always saw a fire in front of himself. I was just recently reading a biography of R’ Benzion Yadler. And R’ Benzion Yadler says that he used to live in Chevron, and in the old city, in the alte shtot, they lived side by side with the Arabs and the Arabs were there on their beck and call to do any Chesed that they needed, and they were there and they lived בידידות, in a Chavershaft and there was never any incident of terror, nothing but friendliness. Said R’ Benzion: How's that possible? The Arabs are sworn enemies of the Yidden. Said R’ Benzion: Because of the Shmiras Hatznius, the Kedushas Ha’einayim, the care given not to look where one was not supposed to look is what saved them. We live in a time that we say Tehillim after davening every day, because of what's going on, the horrors, the hostages, the terror, the רדיפות, the antisemitism, what's going on in the world, whether it's in Europe, America, Flatbush, Brooklyn, Chicago. There's one עצה, and the עצה is what we're doing, what this organization does so profoundly. Shmiras Ha’einayim, that is the way to win the battle, and that's the way to win over the Arabs, and there's no other way. May we merit that there should be Shalom and a good, blessed year.