From Sechitah to Shemiras Einayim: Handles, the Heart, and the Power of Teshuvah

Topics

• From Sechitah to Shemiras Einayim: Handles, the Heart, and the Power of Teshuvah
• Reviewing the Barrel Plug and the Handle
• Why Not Apply That to Brushes and Mops?
• Torah and Rabbinic Sechitah
• Removing Mefarek Is Not a General Rule About Every Derabbanan
• Is a Cleaning Solution Classified as Water?
• Washing While the Sponge and Dishes Are Underwater
• A Kula the Public Cannot Maintain
• A Quick Chazarah
• What Is Being Squeezed in a Brush?
• My Grandfather’s Meeting in Washington
• Explaining a Rabbinic Education
• The Effort to Protect Shabbos Observance
• “How Am I Getting There?”
• “When Will I Speak?”
• Shabbos Is the Life of a Jew
• The Toothbrush Question
• Why Is Shemiras Einayim So Difficult?
• The Warning at Minchah on Yom Kippur
• “What Did I Do Already?”
• Why Speak About It Repeatedly?
• Give Me Your Heart and Your Eyes
• The Pasuk About Hirhur
• “Mikol Davar Ra”: Where the Process Begins
• One Step Leads to the Next
• Read the Gemara Inside
• Shimshon Rebelled Through His Eyes
• “After Your Heart” and “After Your Eyes”
• The Malbim: The Eyes Follow the Heart
• The Chofetz Chaim’s Language
• The Severity Described in Nidchei Yisrael
• Reading the Malbim’s Words
• What Have We Established?
• Ending With Chizuk
• The Same Eyes Can Become a Zechus
• The Glass and What You Put Into It

Transcript

# From Sechitah to Shemiras Einayim: Handles, the Heart, and the Power of Teshuvah

## Reviewing the Barrel Plug and the Handle

There were a few things we said yesterday that I want to clarify. Perhaps se’if 18 was not sufficiently clear, and that made the rest of the discussion difficult.

In Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 320:18, we are discussing a plug involving cloth and a long spigot. Liquid is expressed when the plug is pressed into the barrel. The person is not intending the squeezing as a separate act, but it is a psik reisha.

The Shulchan Aruch discusses arranging the case so that the expressed wine goes to waste, with no vessel underneath to receive it. That gives us the consideration of psik reisha de’lo nicha lei.

But we just learned in Shulchan Aruch 320:17 that a sponge with a beis achizah may be used. Why, then, does the handle not settle the barrel-plug case?

Mishnah Berurah 320:55 answers that the cases differ in the manner of use. The sponge is used for ordinary wiping. Here, however, the plug is pushed forcefully into the barrel opening, so squeezing certainly takes place. A handle does not eliminate the squeezing caused by that pressure.

The Mishnah Berurah then discusses using two considerations together—tartei letivusa: the long spigot separates the hand from the absorbent material, and the liquid goes to waste rather than being received in a vessel.

## Why Not Apply That to Brushes and Mops?

I pointed out an interesting possibility. Whenever an object has a handle and I do not want the liquid that comes out, why should that not provide the same combination?

A brush has a handle. A mop has a handle. If the expressed liquid is discarded, what is the remaining issue? That is the question with which we began yesterday.

The continuation of the Mishnah Berurah complicates it. The case there concerns wine. Wine does not present the same concern of libun as water, and the discussion therefore centers on mefarek. If the wine goes to waste, that affects the extracting of liquid.

With water, however, we still have the issue of libun. Letting the water go to waste does not remove that issue. Perhaps this explains why the Acharonim prohibit a brush even when it has a handle and the water is discarded.

That makes sense as a distinction. But there is another point to examine.

## Torah and Rabbinic Sechitah

The Mishnah Berurah’s cheshbon addresses the Torah-level extracting of wine. We remove that concern through holech le’ibud and then discuss the remaining considerations.

Suppose the brush is made of synthetic material, rubber, or another material for which the squeezing under discussion would be rabbinic rather than the usual Torah-level sechitah. Perhaps we are then back to the same proposed combination: the Torah-level concern has been removed, there is a handle, and the liquid is discarded.

Why should that not help? I find the question difficult.

Unless we are reading the Mishnah Berurah incorrectly. Perhaps he is not saying that any rabbinic case can be permitted by combining two favorable considerations. Perhaps his point is specifically that we have addressed the mefarek in this case.

That is a different reading. We must distinguish “there is no remaining Torah-level mefarek” from a general rule that every rabbinic concern can be answered by tartei letivusa. The latter may be more than the Mishnah Berurah ever meant to say.

## Removing Mefarek Is Not a General Rule About Every Derabbanan

Perhaps that is the answer. The Mishnah Berurah never said that whenever a case is only derabbanan, two favorable considerations permit it. He may mean that in the wine case, holech le’ibud removes the particular concern of mefarek.

Libun is different. Even when the water falls to the floor, the squeezing of the material may still be the issue. It is not enough to point to the fact that the liquid is discarded.

That would be a significant distinction in how we read the Mishnah Berurah. I am not certain that the broader principle we suggested follows from his words.

## Is a Cleaning Solution Classified as Water?

I want to add another question. Are products such as Ajax, Mr. Clean, or Palmolive necessarily treated as mayim for this discussion? Why should they not be treated as she’ar mashkin?

You will say that there is water in the solution. I hear that. But the fact that a liquid is used for cleaning does not, by itself, identify its halachic category.

Nor does the label “cleaning agent” explain the libun of squeezing it out. With water, removing the water from the cloth can be part of the laundering process. With these solutions, we have to understand what is being removed, what is being accomplished, and how the relevant distinction applies.

I am not certain of either point: how these solutions are classified, or whether the proposed combination can help in a rabbinic case. We should not assume the answers.

## Washing While the Sponge and Dishes Are Underwater

Rav Shlomo Zalman is quoted in the discussion of Shemiras Shabbos Kehilchasah, chapter 12, as addressing another case: dishes are already immersed in water, and the sponge is used while it, too, is in the water.

The cheshbon attributed to him is that the person gains nothing from expressing water out of the sponge. Everything is wet already; the water remains in the water. What benefit does he obtain from that expression of liquid?

Someone asked whether this means filling the sink and using the sponge beneath the water. That is the case being described. I want you to read it inside and see the reasoning.

I admire that willingness to examine a familiar halachah afresh. We must learn what the actual act accomplishes.

## A Kula the Public Cannot Maintain

A talmid chacham told me an account of Rav Shlomo Zalman permitting something in one setting while being more restrictive about it in another. When asked about the difference, he reportedly answered that it was a kula she’ein rov hatzibbur yecholin la’amod bah—a leniency whose conditions most people could not reliably maintain.

That is a striking expression. Usually people speak about a gezeirah the public cannot bear. Here the point is that a particular kula can also require conditions that people will not keep.

We briefly mentioned a Baal Shem Tov saying from earlier that morning about helping until one has actually helped. Let us return to the sugya.

## A Quick Chazarah

For someone who has just joined us, let me repeat the questions.

A mop has a handle. The Mishnah Berurah distinguishes water from wine because the water case retains libun. But are these cleaning solutions necessarily water for this purpose?

Also, with synthetic bristles, we have been discussing a rabbinic concern, somewhat like the discussion of hair. There is a handle, and the liquid is discarded. Does that change the result, or is it a mistake to generalize the Mishnah Berurah’s wine case?

Finally, we mentioned Rav Shlomo Zalman’s cheshbon when the sponge and dishes are already submerged.

I understand what is bothering you. It bothers me as well. The question is whether the Mishnah Berurah is giving a general principle about a derabbanan or a particular answer to the Torah-level mefarek. We have not yet settled that reading.

## What Is Being Squeezed in a Brush?

People ask how there can be sechitah with a brush or toothbrush made of plastic bristles. Where is the beliah? Does liquid held between the bristles count as the same kind of absorption as water inside a cloth?

That is a real question. But we also have the discussion of hair, where there is a rabbinic concern even though the case differs from the usual Torah-level squeezing of cloth.

Let us distinguish actual squeezing from the concern that one may later squeeze. Washing a beard is one case; deliberately performing an act that expresses its moisture is another.

A teshuvah of Reb Moshe permitting washing a beard was cited here as Orach Chaim, siman 133. I think that is the number; look it up inside. Someone located the short teshuvah while we were discussing it.

The possibility was raised that a beard differs in its density or type of hair. But we should see what Reb Moshe actually writes rather than choose an explanation before reading the teshuvah.

We also still have the discussion attributed to Rav Shlomo Zalman. We need to keep the actual squeezing, the rabbinic concern, and shema yavo lischot separate.

## My Grandfather’s Meeting in Washington

You have caught me on a Thursday night, so let me tell you a story.

We were speaking about a rav who was murdered in Auschwitz. My grandfather was very involved in hatzalah and in the Vaad Hatzalah’s work. He went to Washington and met with the Secretary of State. I have a photograph of the meeting, with Mr. Klein of Barton’s, and I can bring it to you.

My grandfather went to obtain visas for bnei Torah after the war. There was a category for people studying to become rabbis, and that was the basis on which they sought to bring the students.

The Secretary of State challenged him: How could it be that Hitler killed the ordinary people but left so many rabbis? After all, the people applying under that category were being presented as rabbinical students.

That was the curveball. My grandfather told me that he began to tremble. He felt that the official had caught him on a difficult point.

Remember the circumstances. The people involved were new to this country and did not feel secure about their rights. They feared the consequences of any difficulty with the authorities. My grandfather told me that he davened for the right answer.

He then gave an answer that was reported in a newspaper. I have the clipping. I think the audience with the Secretary of State was in 1951.

He explained that the Jewish educational system in Europe could be compared to the educational system in America. Here, everyone goes through a certain level of schooling. There is grade school, followed by high school.

The fact that a person completes that education does not determine what work he will ultimately do. That comparison was the beginning of his answer.

## Explaining a Rabbinic Education

After high school, a person may become a shoemaker, a plumber, or pursue another occupation. Nevertheless, he has first received the standard education expected of him.

My grandfather used that comparison to explain the Jewish educational system. A person could receive a rabbinic education and the associated certificate without that determining his eventual profession.

You object that the comparison was not exact. I understand. The point of the story is the way he answered the official’s challenge under tremendous pressure. The official accepted it. It was a brilliant response.

## The Effort to Protect Shabbos Observance

Let me tell you another story. In our home I heard about my grandfather’s work on legislation in 1956, as I remember it, which we referred to as the blue laws. I thought the expression was “Blue Zone law,” and you are correcting me that it is “blue laws.” I know the story as I heard it at home.

The problem was that Yidden could lose their jobs because they would not work on Shabbos. My grandfather wanted to address that situation.

In the account I heard, Rabbi Soloveitchik of Boston initially took a different approach to involving the government. My grandfather disagreed with him, and they argued about it. Eventually, as I remember the story, they came to work toward the same objective.

Rabbi Soloveitchik sent talmidim to help. Among those involved was a rav and lawyer associated with the yeshivah in Kew Gardens Hills. I knew the general story from home, but I later heard the details from him himself.

He was a person with an unusual combination of associations: connected to Rabbi Soloveitchik and communal organizations, while also connected to Ger. We spoke briefly about that family and those connections.

## “How Am I Getting There?”

My grandfather worked for an entire year to put together a delegation of rabbanim and lawyers. They arranged an audience with the governor. The governor’s name is in the printed account; I do not remember it now.

Just before they were to go, my grandfather turned to the organizer and asked, “Un vi gei ich?”—How am I getting there?

The organizer had not expected my grandfather to attend. The delegation included English-speaking lawyers and rabbanim, and he thought there was no need to trouble him. He told him, in effect, that the rav need not be matriach himself; the Americans would handle it.

My grandfather answered: “I worked on this for an entire year. It is like my child. Now you are telling me that I cannot go?”

So they arranged a ride, and he came with the delegation.

## “When Will I Speak?”

As they were about to enter, my grandfather asked, “Un ver geit reden?”—Who will speak?

The organizer explained that he would begin and then the others would follow.

“And when will I speak?” my grandfather asked.

The organizer told me that his heart sank—“to my shoes,” as he put it. They had prepared this meeting for a year, and now there was an unexpected problem.

He said to my grandfather, “But the rav does not speak English.”

My grandfather’s answer was that he knew what needed to be said. Do not worry about the English.

He entered the meeting, stood up as the first speaker, and began to speak. Then he began to cry. This is what he said.

## Shabbos Is the Life of a Jew

My grandfather said: America shows tremendous respect for a human being, even for the guf hameis, the body after death.

Consider the honors given to a fallen soldier. Efforts are made to recover the body, and when it is brought home, it is accompanied with honors and an American flag. We also mentioned the importance attached to recovering fallen soldiers in Israel.

If that is the respect shown to the body, imagine the respect that should be shown to the nefesh, to a person’s life.

“Shabbos is the life of a Jew,” he said. “It is the neshama of a Yid.”

Someone translated his words. The presentation worked. When they left, my grandfather turned to the translator and said, “You see? I knew what to say.”

I have that account in print. The protection they worked for was passed: a Jew should not be dismissed because he would not work on Shabbos. That is the story as I heard it in our home.

You arrived just after the maaselech! You came for the discussion of shemiras einayim, but first let us finish the toothbrush.

## The Toothbrush Question

Reb Moshe uses the word tov in the discussion I have in mind: it is good to refrain from brushing with water on Shabbos. I do not remember the exact location now; it is in the next teshuvah we wanted to see.

That wording matters to me. We have been discussing a derabbanan and a gezeirah, not assuming that every plastic bristle presents the usual Torah-level squeezing of cloth.

We also raised the procedure of putting the water in first—water in the mouth and on the brush before brushing—and connected that to the cheshbon attributed to Rav Shlomo Zalman.

That is how I was approaching the question. We need to see the exact teshuvah and the conditions of the procedure inside.

## Why Is Shemiras Einayim So Difficult?

Now, rabosai, shemiras einayim. Let us take apart the sugya.

If we understand why the struggle is so difficult, perhaps we can work on what makes it difficult. We must get to the shoresh.

At the end of Hilchos Issurei Biah, chapter 22, halachah 19, the Rambam writes: “גזל ועריות נפשו של אדם מתאוה להן ומחמדתן”—a person’s soul desires and longs for theft and arayos.

It is a real taavah, a powerful desire. The Rambam continues that one does not find a community, in any period, without people who are breached in these matters.

We mentioned the reading of arayos at Minchah on Yom Kippur. Megillah 31a records that reading. One explanation in the Rishonim is that precisely on that day, with people assembled and women dressed for the honor of the day, the warning is needed. Even at that exalted time, one must be careful about what one sees.

Did you know that explanation? Let us look at it inside rather than assume that the subject has no place on Yom Kippur.

## The Warning at Minchah on Yom Kippur

Someone suggested a different understanding of the gathering and dress on Yom Kippur. We clarified that the explanation concerns people being dressed attractively for the day, not that everyone was necessarily dressed improperly.

Tosafos on Megillah 31a, s.v. במנחה קורין בעריות, says, “לפי שהנשים מקושטות בשביל כבוד היום לפיכך צריך להזכירם שלא יכשלו בהן”—because the women are adorned for the honor of the day, the warning is needed so that people do not stumble.

The point for us is the strength of the taavah. As the Rambam says, nefsho shel adam mis’aveh. That is one reason this avodah is difficult.

## “What Did I Do Already?”

But there is another reason. The yetzer hara persuades a person that there is nothing serious to correct.

“What did I do already? What harm was done?”

Look at Rambam, Hilchos Teshuvah 4:4. He identifies acts that people are unlikely to repent of because they seem light in their eyes. A person sins while imagining that he has not sinned.

Among them is hamistakel ba’arayos. The person thinks there is nothing to it: “וכי בעלתי או קרבתי אצלה”—did I have relations with her, or even approach her?

The Rambam answers: “והוא אינו יודע שראיית העינים עון גדול, שהיא גורמת לגופן של עריות”—he does not know that the seeing of the eyes is a serious sin that leads to the actual acts of arayos. He brings the pasuk in Bamidbar 15:39, “ולא תתורו אחרי לבבכם ואחרי עיניכם.”

The Rambam is addressing the havah amina itself. Do not walk around assuming that it is nothing.

## Why Speak About It Repeatedly?

I told you that I spoke to the mashgiach about this. My inclination had been not to keep talking about the subject. He told me to speak about it, and to speak about it again.

What is gained by that repetition?

Perhaps this Rambam explains it. When the issue is discussed seriously, the yetzer hara cannot so easily dismiss it as nisht gefehrlach, nothing to worry about. The discussion breaks the mistaken assumption that there was no chet in the first place.

That is a different problem from knowing that something is wrong but finding it difficult to resist. Here a person convinces himself that he has done nothing that needs teshuvah.

## Give Me Your Heart and Your Eyes

The Yerushalmi in Berachos 1:5 says: “ליבא ועינא תרין סרסורין דחטאה”—the heart and the eyes are two agents of sin. It brings Mishlei 23:26, “תנה בני לבך לי ועיניך דרכי תצרנה”—give Me your heart, My son, and let your eyes guard My ways.

It then expresses the Ribono Shel Olam’s words: “אי יהבת לי לבך ועיניך אנא ידע דאת לי”—if you give Me your heart and your eyes, I know that you are Mine.

What does that mean? Why are those two things enough? Give the Ribono Shel Olam the eyes and the heart, and the rest follows.

I want to tell you a vort I was thinking about today.

## The Pasuk About Hirhur

Avodah Zarah 20b brings the pasuk in Devarim 23:10, “ונשמרת מכל דבר רע.” It explains: “שלא יהרהר אדם ביום ויבוא לידי טומאה בלילה”—a person should not entertain sinful thoughts during the day and thereby come to tumah at night.

But the wording bothers me. “Mikol davar ra”—from every evil thing. Why does the Gemara apply that broad expression here?

What is the relationship between this particular hirhur and the words kol davar ra? That is what I want to understand.

## “Mikol Davar Ra”: Where the Process Begins

I considered one simple explanation. Perhaps “mikol” means “anything”: even something that a person might dismiss as minor must be guarded against. Do not minimize it.

But I want to suggest another pshat, and I think there is a raya in the continuation of the Gemara.

What follows immediately in Avodah Zarah 20b? The famous beraisa of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair, the sequence that we know from Mesillas Yesharim: Torah leads to zehirus, zehirus to zerizus, and one level leads to the next, through the higher levels of avodah.

The Gemara introduces it with “מכאן אמר רבי פנחס בן יאיר”—from here Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair said.

From here! What is the connection?

## One Step Leads to the Next

The warning about hirhur shows how one thing can lead to another. It begins with a thought, but it does not necessarily end with a thought.

Correspondingly, in kedushah and taharah, one step opens the way to another. That is the principle illustrated by Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair’s beraisa.

Perhaps that is the force of kol davar ra. The beginning contains the possibility of a much greater decline. A person can fall to who knows where, and the beginning can be the hirhur that he dismissed.

I am not merely asking where the prohibition of hirhur is written. I understand that the Gemara derives it from this pasuk. I am asking about the breadth of the wording and about the “mikan” that connects it to the beraisa.

Someone answered that kol can mean “any,” rather than “everything.” I hear that reading. My proposed explanation is that the Gemara is showing a process: one thing leads to the next, both in kedushah and, le’umas zeh, in tumah.

## Read the Gemara Inside

Get me the Gemara in Avodah Zarah. Without the sefer in front of me, I feel like a doctor without his instrument! Look at daf 20b and read the connection inside.

Show it to Reb Yaakov as well. I want you to hear the vort and examine whether it fits the Gemara.

This is what answers the minimization we saw in the Rambam. A person says that it is only a glance or a thought. But the question is where it leads.

## Shimshon Rebelled Through His Eyes

Now look at Sotah 9b. The Mishnah says that Shimshon followed his eyes, and the Gemara says, “שמשון בעיניו מרד”—Shimshon rebelled through his eyes.

What does “marad” mean? Meridah is rebellion. Why use such a strong word?

It is not enough to say that he did not fulfill a particular requirement. The Gemara characterizes what happened through his eyes as meridah. We need to understand what that tells us about the place of the eyes in a person’s relationship with the Ribono Shel Olam.

## “After Your Heart” and “After Your Eyes”

Berachos 12b explains the pasuk “velo sasuru acharei levavchem ve’acharei eineichem.” It says, “אחרי לבבכם זו מינות”—after your heart refers to minus—and “אחרי עיניכם זה הרהור עבירה”—after your eyes refers to sinful thought.

On the first side, we understand the language of turning away from the Ribono Shel Olam. But what does the same velo sasuru mean in connection with the eyes?

Are we using the same words in two unrelated senses, or is there a common idea connecting the two parts of the pasuk?

We also find the language of znus in connection with both arayos and avodah zarah. Why is that word used in both areas? The Gemara itself brings the phrase “atem zonim” in connection with thoughts of avodah zarah.

## The Malbim: The Eyes Follow the Heart

There is a Malbim at the end of Parashas Shelach that has always stayed with me. In HaTorah VehaMitzvah on Bamidbar 15:39, paragraph 70, he discusses the relationship between the heart and the eyes.

People commonly describe the sequence as the eye seeing and the heart then desiring. The Malbim emphasizes another side: the way the person responds to what he sees can reveal what has already been established within his heart.

That is a strong statement. We have to understand it. Is he saying that someone who is drawn to an improper image is a complete kofer inside? What exactly is the level of deficiency in yiras Shamayim that he means?

I am asking about the pshat, not throwing a label at a person. The Malbim connects the response of the eyes with the state of the heart and with whether yiras Hashem is governing it.

Someone objected and raised an example of a person who is shalem and is not affected in the same way. That is part of the distinction we are examining.

If the Malbim is right that the outer response reflects an inner condition, then shemiras einayim requires us to work on the inside as well. It is not merely a detached question about an isolated look.

## The Chofetz Chaim’s Language

Let me show you the Chofetz Chaim in Nidchei Yisrael. Read it and tell me how you understand it.

The passage we were reading says that the designation of a no’ef is not restricted to someone who sins with his body; it speaks also about the eyes. It brings Iyov 24:15, “ועין נאף שמרה נשף”—the adulterer’s eye waits for twilight—and the pasuk of velo sasuru.

Now there is a familiar question. The Gemara’s language about hirhur can sound as though the problem is that it leads to a further act. Does the hirhur itself also have the character of znus?

The way I am reading the Chofetz Chaim, he is addressing the act of the heart and eyes themselves, not only the later consequence. That is the chiddush I want you to examine.

We have the Rambam’s warning about where the seeing leads, and we have this language in the Chofetz Chaim concerning the seeing itself. Let us continue inside.

## The Severity Described in Nidchei Yisrael

In chapter 21, the Chofetz Chaim continues with warnings about the severity of this chet. The passage we were reading speaks of suffering in this world while the principal accounting remains for the World to Come. Yerushalmi Peah 1:1 uses the expression “נפרעין מן האדם בעולם הזה והקרן קיימת לו לעולם הבא”—payment is exacted in this world while the principal remains for the World to Come.

He describes aniyus, dalus, and other yisurim. It is frightening language.

He brings the warning that a person drawn after znus can ultimately seek a loaf of bread in his home and not find it, together with Mishlei 6:26, “כי בעד אשה זונה עד ככר לחם.”

What I am emphasizing is the way the Chofetz Chaim appears to apply this discussion to re’iyah as well. It is not merely a warning about the final physical act.

He then brings the statement in Shabbos 33a about someone who prepares himself for an aveirah and the wounds and afflictions that come upon him. The Gemara brings Mishlei 20:30, “חבורות פצע תמרוק ברע”—wounds and bruises cleanse away evil. The discussion continues to the loss of the Shechinah’s protection and to the din in the next world.

Eruvin 19a describes people acknowledging the justice of the judgment: “יפה דנת יפה זכית יפה חייבת”—You judged rightly, acquitted rightly, and found liable rightly. It continues with the acknowledgment of Gehinnom for the resha’im and Gan Eden for the tzaddikim.

The room has become very quiet. I understand; these are frightening words. But the point we are examining is still precise: how far does the Chofetz Chaim’s discussion extend to the forbidden seeing itself?

## Reading the Malbim’s Words

Now read the Malbim inside. He explains that the eyes follow the heart. His wording in HaTorah VehaMitzvah on Bamidbar 15:39 is: “שלולא ציורי התאוה שקננו בלבו לא יתפעל מראות עיניו”—were it not for the images of desire that had taken root in his heart, he would not be stirred by what his eyes see.

He continues that the heart first forms these images of desire, and then the person follows his eyes. That is why the pasuk places acharei levavchem before acharei eineichem.

Do you hear what he is saying? The response to what is outside is connected to what has already been cultivated inside.

You ask what that has to do with the simple fact that a picture is attractive. That is precisely why I wanted to read the Malbim. He is asking us to consider the inner preparation that makes the response take hold.

## What Have We Established?

Before we end, let us put the points together.

First, Rambam, Hilchos Teshuvah 4:4, tells us not to minimize the chet. One obstacle to teshuvah is the person’s conviction that he has done nothing serious.

Second, we have tried to show why the beginning matters. One thing can lead to another, and a person can fall much further than he first imagined.

Third, the Chofetz Chaim’s language presses the severity of the issue. We cannot dismiss it as nothing.

## Ending With Chizuk

But I want to end with divrei chizuk.

People quote sefarim as saying that an image remains in the mind, like something stored in a computer, and that one cannot undo it. Rabosai, I want to show you that tikkun is possible.

Where did we learn that the eyes can be a meridah? From Shimshon. Now consider the end of his life, when he brings down the building of the Pelishtim.

In Shoftim 16:28, he asks, “ואנקמה נקם אחת משתי עיני.” Rashi there explains, “ושכר עין השנית הנח לי לעולם הבא וכאן פרע לי שכר אחת מהן”—leave the reward of the second eye for the World to Come, and here repay me for one.

I never understood that at first. These are the very eyes with which the story of his decline began! How can there now be a zechus connected with them?

To express the question, imagine someone who cheated on a test asking the menahel to keep the merit of that act for his report card. What zechus is he asking for?

There is a change here that we have to understand.

## The Same Eyes Can Become a Zechus

What do we see from Shimshon?

He had become blind. Those eyes, through which his decline had begun, were now connected with the zechus for which he prayed: one in this world and the reward of the other in Olam Haba.

That is the nekudah I want to bring out. The story did not remain fixed at the point where it began. There can be a tikkun.

A person’s eyes can take him toward who knows where. Yet the same eyes can become connected with a zechus. Do not conclude that because something began badly, there is no way to repair it.

## The Glass and What You Put Into It

I always think of the eyes as a glass.

Fill the glass with something dirty, and that is what it contains. Empty it and fill it with wine, and now it contains wine. The glass is a receptacle; what you put into it determines what is there.

That is the chizuk with which I want to leave you. The eyes are not permanently defined by what entered them before. Their use can change.

We did not get through the whole stack of sefarim today, but we have a good shtikel to think about.