Part III. Filled with Gratitude
Appreciate Seeing
Now, once you get the hang of it, you’ll see that it’s not so hard to do. From your own mind you’ll be able to add onto the happiness of meiah brachos. Because you’ll think, “How do I see the sky and the gardens anyhow?” You can’t accomplish that feat without eyes. “Ribono Shel Olam, what would I do without my eyes?!” Ah, eyes! Ay yah yay, eyes! Eyes are a happiness that most of the world is not enjoying. They’re using it, yes, but enjoying it? Ah nechtigeh tug.
And therefore, we have to practice up enjoying our eyes. Can we even describe the happiness of seeing? It’s impossible to describe that pleasure. You see life, you see movement, you see color, you see your family, you see the world – what a happiness it is!
So as we’re walking in our walking club tomorrow morning down Ocean Parkway, let’s not forget – at least one full block, from corner to corner – you’re looking and thinking, “Ahh! I’m using these two cameras in my head and I’m enjoying it to no end.”
Healing the Blind
It takes a long time for these things to penetrate our thick skulls but if you want to know that it’s so, all you have to do is wait until you encounter a man with a white stick tapping his way. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Take a good look at him. Hakadosh Baruch Hu saw that you’re slow in understanding so He sent someone to teach you a lesson. This poor fellow is waiting at the street corner and someone has to take him by his arm and bring him across. Ay yah yay, what a pity. What a tragedy!
Think – what would he say if he suddenly could get a pair of eyes like yours? How would he make a bracha? You think he’d mumble ...םׁ ≈ ַ̆ה ה ָ ַ̇‡ ¿ ך רוָּב יםƒר וƒע ַח≈ ֹ̃וּפ?! That’s how they say it in shul in the morning – yeshiva boys also; the best of them. The best of them rattle it off and they count it towards the hundred brachos! Technically, maybe it counts; maybe it’s a bracha and you can count it, but that’s not how to enjoy a gift.
A man who appreciates his eyes, he says thank you like a man drinking the most precious champagne, sipping every word. Baruch – ah, ah, ah! Atah! Hashem! Every word is a diamond! The man tapping his way on the street would shell out a hundred thousand dollars to the surgeon to regain his eyesight. He’d be eternally grateful to him. He’d call him up every year on the yartzeit of his operation.
And Hakadosh Baruch Hu did it for you for nothing. He’s not sending you bills; He doesn’t ask anything from you except that you should enjoy your eyes. Not just to make a bracha – that’s not what He’s asking. He wants that you should enjoy them – you should be so happy with your eyes that you feel like making a bracha! That’s a big job already!
