A Million Dollar Kidney
You say, “That’s all?! Chilutz atzamos? I’d like to do other things. I’d like to have, let’s say, a million dollars on Wall Street.”
A million dollars on Wall Street! I knew a very wealthy man – he was on Wall Street and he had more than a million dollars – but he had no kidneys at all. And three times a week he had to make dialysis. He had a big machine of his own in his house. He could afford to have a nurse too. But every week, he had to put the needle of dialysis in a different place. His whole body was full of holes already. They were looking for a place where they could put the needle in again. A rachmonus on him.
And he was trying all his life to find somebody who would give him a kidney. So his mother gave him a kidney. It didn’t work. His body rejected it. His brother made an operation and gave him a kidney. Also no good.
And you have two kidneys! You have one to spare.
And you’re dissatisfied? You’re unhappy? So Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a taanah on you. I sent you so many messengers! So many times you heard about such people! And still, you don’t walk around in happiness because of your kidneys?! How could it be such a thing? To ignore My messengers?!”
A Happy Noisy Home
If you see a couple, they’re married for so long and still, no children. No children! A quiet house. Ay yay yay, an empty quiet house. They wish to have just one child; that’s their greatest desire, just one child. Shouldn’t that remind you that you’re remiss in your obligation of gratitude?
Or sometimes you meet an old chaver from the mesivta and he tells you he’s divorced now. He’s living by himself somewhere in a basement; in a small basement somewhere in Flatbush. You’re going to ignore that message from Hakadosh Baruch Hu? You’re happily married. More or less it’s happy. When was the last time you thanked Hakadosh Baruch Hu for your wife? Probably never.
And so how can you ignore such things? Don’t say, ‘Oh no, I can’t be happy with the suffering of others.’ The truth is it’s only an excuse because nobody is so built that he cannot be happy by the fact that he was saved from misfortune.
Only what? You don’t feel like you were saved. You think that it’s coming to you; you imagine that everything you have is yours and that’s how it has to be. And that’s the purpose of reminders, of messengers, to wake you up from your sleep, your lethargy of not thinking.
