You Can't Make Me! | Rabbi Chaim Dov Stark

There's a reason that a billboard in Times Square can cost millions of dollars a year. Ad agencies, marketing firms study our every move. They know exactly what we will definitely see, and based on that, the price goes up. I'd like to share with you a story about a friend of mine, a heiliger Yid, who went from Yerushalayim עיר הקודש to the big city, to Manhattan, and he ended up in Times Square. And he told me this incredible thought, tremendously Mechazek. He said as he was coming up from the subway, he was quite intimidated by all the hustle and bustle. And in his peripheral vision, he noticed a billboard. It had to have been probably 30 stories high, and he couldn't make out what it was, he was just looking at the bottom, but based on what he saw, this was not something that he should gaze at. And then he thought to himself, All the ad agencies, all the marketing firms would say that I'm definitely going to see this. I will definitely gaze upon this billboard. I am going to prove them wrong. Because they've studied everything. They've studied every mortal man. But they've never studied the Nishmas Yisroel, the heiliger Neshama of a Yid from Klal Yisroel. I will show them that they could never tell me what to do. And he turned away. And at that moment, he felt like he soared over the whole city. He was on top of the world. He was the king. A Yid from Yerushalayim עיר הקודש in complete control of himself. The Rambam writes in Hilchos Teshuva that many are under the impression that we don't have free will at all. We're all creatures of impulse and instincts. That's what they study in these ad agencies and marketing firms. And he says that's a terrible mistake. It's a tragic error to think that way. Klal Yisroel have the ability to choose anything and everything. We have the ability to be Tzaddikim כמשה רבנו ממש, like Moshe Rabeinu. That's our Ko’ach. Chazal tell us about Yosef HaTzaddik, Rashi says in Shemos, We need to know that Yosef was in Mitzrayim? Of course he was. It's to teach us that Yosef was in Mitzrayim, and that same Yosef, who was a shepherd in his father's house, in a sheltered environment, like our heiliger Yid in Yerushalayim עיר הקודש, when he got to Mitzrayim and he even became a king, he remained the same level of Tzaddik. Yosef wasn't told what to do. He told them what he's going to do. He was a בוחר בטוב, he chose. He understood the power of a Nishmas Yisroel. Each one of us can tap into our Nishmas Yisroel, and prove to the world that we are truly a ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש.