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Mining Diamonds
I can share with you a few ideas growing up in South Africa. One of the things that South Africa is known for is that its rich in minerals, diamonds, for example. Suppose you have a precious, precious diamond, would you leave that precious diamond on the table in front of everyone completely exposed? Or would you likely put it in a beautiful velvet box locked up in your safe? So the Almighty created the world with 7 billion people, out of those 7 billion people, at best, 14 and a half million of us are Jews.
He bestowed a diamond, the biggest gift one can possibly get is a Jewish soul. He gave 0.02 % of the world population that diamond. The Jewish soul is sacrosanct. The window to that precious soul is the eyes. The importance of looking after the diamond Is a concept that I'd like you to think about when you talk about guarding your eyes.
And that brings us to another concept in the world of mining and growing up in South Africa. One of the things that I notice in gold and coal miners, is before they ascend up the shaft, before leaving the mine, there is a certain station where they wait, they put on certain glasses and they slowly acclimate their eyes before they reach the ground floor or get out of the mine.
Why? Because they've been in a dark, dark, dark mine for many, many hours and the shock and the contrast of suddenly seeing the bright light, can in fact, harm the eyes. Similarly, by exposing our eyes to things that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has told us are going to desensitise our eyes, desensitise our Neshamas is a similar concept. One of the reasons we should remember to guard our eyes is think of the miner and the shock of exposing and the damage that it can cause by exposing ourselves to things that are repugnant and shocking and are going to desensitise ourselves.
One of the things I'm asked often is, Rabbi, I don't understand what the big deal is of me watching or seeing something that's inappropriate, which brings me to one final point. When we say Shema, we cover our eyes. One of the reasons our Rabbis teach us is because we might not completely understand or fathom the ways of the Almighty, but we know that Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves us and everything he ultimately does is for our good. Perforce, we don't really have to understand and appreciate the fact that Hashem has got our back and will guide us to good things. Similarly, even if we don't necessarily understand all the deep spiritual nuances of the window of the soul, the eyes, Hakadosh Baruch Hu told us I love you, I gave you one of the diamonds, guard that diamond. And even if you might not understand, it's because I love you, and I want you to return that soul, one day in 120 years, as clear and as untainted as possible. Perhaps we should think about this, especially now during the Coronavirus when people are hunkered down and have the opportunity not to be exposed so much to the street, to think about the precious diamond that we want to hold close to our hearts.
Keep sacrosanct, keep those thoughts in mind and Be'ezrat HaShem we should see the yeshua very soon.