You Can Do It! | Rabbi David Nakash

What's the difference between difficult and impossible? Impossible means no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you push, it still never can happen. It never will happen and never could happen. But difficult means yes, it's not going to be easy. Yes, it's not going to be comfortable. But if you push enough and you persevere enough, you're going to be victorious. When it comes to our Shemirat Einayim, we need to understand that it's not impossible. It's difficult. For sure, it's difficult. It's not an easy job. It's not an easy test. But it's something that if we only knew what we're capable of, if we only knew that we could do it. In מעשה בראשית, Hashem, when he's creating man, he says, Let us make man. Who's ‘us’? Hashem is the only creator of the world. Hashem is the only power of the world. What do you mean ‘נעשה אדם’, let us make man? So, of course, Rashi has the Pshat, but I heard a beautiful Pshat from the Ba’al Shem Tov. The Ba’al Shem Tov says, נעשה אדם Let us, me and you, me and man together, God and man together. I will give you all that you need. I will give you a personality, I will give you a body, I will give you Kochot, strengths that you're able to overcome any test I give you. But now I need you to be my partner and you to help me reach those potentials, pass those tests, connect to me, connect to the Kedusha that I'm giving you the opportunity to connect to. נעשה, let us make, if you only knew that we were with Hashem. Hashem gave us those powers in the creation of man that we're able to overcome. It's not impossible. It's just difficult. If we only understood that we had that potential. I heard Charlie Harary was once playing basketball, it was like 5 seconds left, it was the final game and it was like, we were down by one point. One more shot and that team, they could have won. And he was put in the game, the coach put him from the bench into the game, and there's a few seconds left. Finally he gets the ball. He sees an open shot, but he said: Maybe I'm going to miss. I'm scared I'm going to miss. He passes the ball instead of shooting and then the guy just chucks it in and then Bum! the buzzer. They lost the game. After the game, the coach asked Charlie: Why didn't you shoot? He says: Nah, I didn't think I would make the shot. I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think I could be successful. So the coach told him, he says: I've been a coach for 30 years. I know every player on my team. I know exactly what strengths each one has and who could do what. If I put you in that court, if I put you in that game, that means I believe in you, that you can do it. And if you were in that position and you were on that court and you got the ball, that means I trusted you, I believe in you that you can make the shot. It's exactly the way it is with Hashem. Hashem understands us, believes in us, sees our strengths. Gives us our Kochot that we need. He puts us in our Nisyonos, he puts us in the challenges that we have. He puts in the challenges of Shemirat Einayim. He puts us in the challenge to watch our eyes. But the fact that we are exactly in this place at this time with this challenge that we need, we have to know who put us there. He knows best, he knows what we can do, and he believes in us. And the fact that we're there is just a proof that we could do it. It's not impossible, but it's difficult. But if we understood what we could be capable of then for sure we could overcome, for sure we could persevere, for sure we would be successful.