Warning: Reader discretion is advised. Shtark mussar. Not for everybody.
Imagine a person goes to the doctor to have a CT scan done. He has been having terrible, recurring headaches and is very nervous. Veryyyy! The doctor calls him in and tells him that additional tests will be necessary but he fears the worst. It doesn't look good.
"What does it look like Doc?"
"I am no sure but it seems like you have a huuuuuge tumor. If we are lucky it isn't but I have seen many CT scan over the last 30 years and I can tell you that it doesn't look promising at all. If it is what I think it is, we are looking at many rounds of chemo which may not only ultimately kill you [this is not well known but chemo can kill - literally] but first will most likely cause tremendous pain, blindness and dementia. It will affect very sensitive nerves in your brain."
BY GOLLY, how many people would NOT be totally freaked out by such a prognosis? Like, about zero. [When Rav Avraham Genechovsky ztz"l was told by the doctor that he had a disease that would end his life, he didn't react with any sadness or distress. The doctor thought that he didn't understand so he explained again what he had. Rav Avroham saw that the doctor needed some type of reaction so he complimented the doctor on the fine job that he does. Then he told the talmid who was with him that he had a shidduch idea for a child of the Talmid's... "הרב דיסלר יש לי בחור מצויין לבת שלך!!!" But Rav Genechovsky was an exception and not the rule. BTW - The doctor made a mistake in his prognosis, so it was all a "fake out break out" anyway.]
Well, here is the bad news from the newsroom that neither CNN nor Fox is reporting. Gehenom is MUUUUCCHHHH worse that anything that this world can offer. The Ramban said that 70 years of Yissurei Iyov don't equal ONE SECOND of Gehenom. Not PC to talk about יראת העונש today?? Hey, the facts don't really care about your feelings. I don't like hearing how Hurricane Dorian is killing people but that doesn't change that it is. I don't like to hear about how Hitler killed six million Jews in the most macabre of ways including 1.5 million pure children. But that doesn't change the facts.
DENIAL IS DANGEROUS. So the facts, ma'am: The halacha says that if one has the choice of either violating Shabbos or losing his vision [provided that it wouldn't kill him when the disease spreads in the body] or any other illness that is not life threatening, then one must refrain from violating Shabbos and take the illness. That means that the punishment in the next world for ONE CHILUL SHABBOS is worse than a lifetime of being blind - or any other illness. S-C-A-R-Y.
If one is in danger of losing his ENTIRE FORTUNE of 3.6 billion dollars and can only prevent the loss by doing an avierah - he must lose the money. Imagine the pain of having to live on the streets, eating people's gross half eaten hamburgers in a bun that he finds in a garbage can, having nowhere to shower or relieve himself etc. etc. after having been a billionaire. INDESCRIBABLE. Yet, the halacha says that one must undergo such suffering in order to avoid the aveirah because the suffering that will be caused by the aveirah is worse!!!
This world? Here today, gone tomorrow. I am at my parents apartment, looking at pictures of my little cute self [or so my mother thinks] from not so long ago, and then I look in the mirror and see a grandfather who statistically has far fewer years left to live than he has already lived. "Chik chak" they say in Hebrew. So quick. And it could all end tomorrow. Today. Before I finish this post.... ANY SECOND!!! And then - ETERNITY experiencing the consequences of my deeds here. And although I have heard a lot of criticism about myself in my lifetime [far too much, for my taste:-)], nobody knows nearly as much as I do how much of an INCREDIBLY flawed individual I am.
How often do I think of money matters [or more correctly money "worries"] during davening? Quite often. How often do I think of davening when I am dealing with money matters? Like, never.
Am I a "guy" with all that entails? Very much so. Beard, Tzitzis out, gartel - the works. But still a guy. Where Kinah, Taava and Kavod work in tandem to create a PANOPLY of spiritual deformities.
Do I speak lashon hara? Only when I am not sleeping but that is quite often [like now at 4:27 am "City that never sleeps time"].
How much chesed do I do? Pitifully little. How much tzaka do I give? Even less. How much do I learn? More than say, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandburg and Jeff Weiner [CEO of Linkedin] but FAAAAR LESS than I should. I am not running a company. I don't have a job. ALL I should be doing is learning.
So why aren't I shaking in my boots from the Yom Hadin? Probably because I am not wearing boots. But where is the fear and trepidation? My existence in this and the next world is at stake. Eternity. Once I leave this world that is it. Over. I am what I am. No appeals. No second chances [unless I get a gilgul but I am probably a gilgul so this IS my second chance].
Sweet friends!! I believe that the reason we are not TERRIFIED is because we have deluded ourselves into thinking that everything will be OK!! We are COOL. No worries. But our feeling don't change the facts. There is A LOT of which to be afraid.
Hashem loves us but that doesn't change the fact that there is reward AND punishment. There HAS to be. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and all of the other evil people in history don't just die and get way with their crimes. There is justice.
"Shoftim Vi-shotrim Titein Licha Bichol She-arecha". WE are the judges and policemen of ourselves. Nobody can force us to be good people, to say the right things, to have pure motivations, to live lives of kindness and spirituality. Only we can do that for ourselves. We know the truth of life. When someone does even ONE SMALL DEED of kindness, he receives eternal dividends. Those Apple stocks that he bought for 3 cents a share back in the 80's that yields him more and more millions by the hour. A tefillah with kavana, hearing a shiur, learning a daf gemara, writing a check to tzdaka [vi-chol ha-marbeh bi-zeros harei zeh meshubach] etc. etc. We have LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES to make our time on earth meaningful and eternal. There is only ONE PERSON who controls whether or not we will and that is US.
YOU have the power, beloved friend. USE IT!!!😊😀
BI-SIIIIIIIIIMCCHHHAAAAAAA!!!!!!
