It states מרחוק ויעמדו וינעו העם וירא, "The nation saw and trembled, and they stood from a distance." The Apter Rav zt'l (Ohev Yisrael, Yisro, וירא ה"ד) explains that the nation was worried about how they would succeed in keeping all the mitzvos. They found a solution, ויעמדו מרחוק, that they should keep their distance from an aveirah. The Apter Rav writes, "They found a strategy, that they should protect the words of the Torah and the mitzvos with gates and boundaries that Chazal established. This is the translation of ויעמדו; they gave the mitzvos the ability to exist and to stand, מרחוק, through the gates and boundaries that Chazal established."
50. A bachur had to leave his yeshiva in Yerushalayim and contemplated going to a yeshiva in Tel Aviv. He asked Rebbe Shlomke for counsel. Rebbe Shlomke went to the mikvah (as it was his custom before offering advice) and said, “I cannot answer this question." A couple of years later, Rebbe Shlomke asked his gabbai, Reb Elyah Roth zt'l, to find out what happened with that bachur. Reb Elyah returned to Rebbe Shlomke and said that the bachur went to the yeshiva in Tel Aviv and was doing very well there and growing in Torah and yiras Shamayim. Rebbe Shlomke said, "I am so happy and relieved to hear that." He explained that when he went to the mikvah, he saw with his ruach hakodesh that it was good for the bachur to go to Tel Aviv, but "I couldn't take the responsibility on my shoulders." Shemiras einayim in Tel Aviv is challenging, and he felt he couldn't answer the question. This story is marvelous because Rebbe Shlomke answered all types of questions, including matters of life and death. Still, a question that would put a bachur's shemiras einayim at risk was too difficult to answer.
51. Rebbe Moshe Mordechai of Lelov zt’l would tell this story and expressed that Yidden from previous generations relished every part of Shabbos, even the smell of the Shabbos lamps going out.
