Now, was Dovid a lost sheep? We wouldn’t say such a thing on our own. But even Dovid felt he needed more hadrachah in life because no matter what you think you know, no matter how big you are already, you have to know that this world is a wilderness. And it’s so easy to get lost in the wilderness. Thousands of tests are being offered to you, this way or that way, this way and that way; all kinds of ways to get lost. Olam Hazeh is absolutely a wilderness.
The Mabul and the Teivah
Especially today. Like a rosh yeshiva once said, “We can never expel a bochur from the yeshivah today because the beis medrash is like Noach’s teivah and outside is a mabul.” He said that to me. “I can’t expel any boy from the yeshivah anymore because outside of the yeshivah is a flood of the worst things, the worst ideas and the worst temptations. The only way is to keep him in the yeshivah; it’s pikuach nefesh!” It means that when the roshei yeshivah are thinking of expelling a bochur, it’s a matter of pikuach nefesh that decision because outside there’s a terrible world and it’s so easy to go lost.
Once a menahel of a yeshivah called me up. He has some weak boys. Should he send them away? I said, “Don't send them away.” You can't send boys away anymore. Work on them. Try to get them to keep sedarim more but don't send them away. Even if a boy sits in a yeshivah and doesn't learn anything, he's better off than going outside the yeshivah.
But even in the ancient days, and even a great man like Dovid, same thing. No matter how great a person is he has to ask Hashem always, “I’m a lost sheep. Seek me out, Hashem, and lead me in the right way!”
Ask Yourself
Now if we’re going to ask Hashem always for help like Dovid did, that’s very good. It means we already recognize the problem. Everyone should ask for help from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And not once. All the time! But still, that's not enough; because we have to do something about it too. And therefore these two questions that the malach asked Hagar when she ran out into the desert, are questions we have to ask ourselves always. Don’t take a step into the desert without questioning yourself: Where are you leaving from? And where are you going?
Let's say if somebody is running away from a good shul. A good shul is a teivah. Or maybe he’s leaving the yeshivah. A yeshivah is a teivah. Even to go to another yeshivah. Maybe you’re running away from a good rebbe or from a good chavrusa. Anybody who is running away should ask himself these two questions.
Running Away from Home
Here’s a person, a young man or young woman, who wants to run away from his father's house. He wants to take an apartment by himself. Let's say because his father is too strict. That’s what he says, his parents are too strict, too overbearing. I don’t know if it’s true but that’s what he tells me.
Do you know what you’re leaving? You know what it means such a house? A strict father is a blessing, a great privilege. You have somebody who is interested that you should be better, more perfect. It's not a hefker place, your father’s home. You're under control and so you’ll grow up without the flaws from which others are infested. Flaws of selfishness, of arrogance, of laziness.
What happens to the younger generation when they don't have strict fathers? When everything is permissible? They grow up unfit to cope with the world. They’re misfits. They can’t suffer an employer. They can’t live with a husband or a wife. All their lives they're accustomed only to hear ‘yes’, ‘yes’ and to do what they want and so they become failures. Not only in yiddishkeit; in life. A fortunate boy is the one who gets a slap in the home.
Stay at Home Moms
Girls too. If a father gives a slap to a daughter, it’s vitamins for her. She's trained that she can't have everything she wants. And when she marries and she asks her husband, “Let's do this” – something that costs a lot of money – and he says, “We can't afford it,” so she can swallow that down. And even sometimes if her husband is careless and he says a word that's not respectful – he shouldn't do it, but if he did – she's not going to take off to California because of that. She’s accustomed to rebuke. She understands her way in this world already.
He also. How many men have fled because their wives have stung them with their poisoned tongues? That's a big mistake. Where are you leaving from? From a wife?! A wife is hard to get. And once you have one, hold onto her. Where are you going away from?! You’re going away from your home! That’s your future! Your wife and your home, that’s your perfection!
And where are you going to? I don’t know. Where will he go? He’ll sleep in the subway? He imagines he’ll find something better. Nothing doing! You’re going nowhere.
The Greenwich Desert
And people who leave us altogether? It’s only because they never asked themselves these questions. Here’s a yeshivah man who used to come to this place and he wasn't successful in a certain big yeshivah. He didn’t get along with the rosh yeshivah. What did he do? He ran away and he settled in Greenwich Village.
A man who used to come to my house every Shabbos to eat, now he’s in Greenwich Village?! That's the only place you could run to? He became a churban. He became a ruined person.
I once called him to come see me. We were sitting in Avenue R in his car and I said to him, “What happened to you? Why’d you leave such a good place? And to go to that filthy wicked district, Greenwich Village. It’s the lowest place in America next to Hollywood and Las Vegas. You had no other place to go to?”
He was very angry that I had bothered him to come from Greenwich Village to Avenue R. He said, “Don't bother me anymore.” He threatened me. I said to him, “It's for your benefit I’m talking to you. You need someone to ask you these questions. You’re not asking yourself, so someone has to ask you.” Otherwise you get lost in the desert.
Paying for a Pathfinder
Now the Gemara (Bava Kamma 116b) says that when merchants are traveling in the midbar with a caravan, so when it comes to the expenses of the caravan it’s l’fi mammon, each one pays according to how much property he has. Because if you have more property, you’re gaining more from the caravan, from the trip.
But there’s one expense that they all have to play equally. That’s a tayar. A tayar is a pathfinder, a man who knows how to lead them in the wilderness; he knows which direction to go, how not to get lost. And for him the rich and the poor have to pay equally because to get lost in the wilderness that’s a matter of sakanos nefashos. It’s not just your merchandise, your property – it’s a matter of life and death – and so everybody has to pitch in the same amount. If you have a pathfinder who knows the way in the wilderness, that man is saving your life. Everyone needs a tayar!
It’s very important advice you’re hearing now. You must have a tayar, a guide to lead you in life. Especially today! You know once upon a time the Jewish street was to some extent a guide. Let’s say two hundred years ago, so you walked in the street and the street influenced you to some extent in the right way. But today the street is full of tumah.
It’s a big maze of confusion outside. And therefore if you don’t have a tayar, no matter what you say otherwise, you’re being influenced by the street, by amei haaretz, by magazines, by imbeciles, and you’ll make mistakes; sometimes very big mistakes.
Darkness of the Rambam
And therefore it’s so easy to get lost. It doesn’t mean you’ll go away from Yiddishkeit, no. You’re still a good Orthodox Jew but you’re walking in darkness. The Rambam says that. When he wants to talk about the materialists he says the wicked who walk in darkness (De’os 6:1). Why does the Rambam have to add they walk in darkness? They're wicked. They walk in wickedness!
But the answer is, he's not talking about that kind of wicked people. In the Rambam's time you didn't have people who profaned Shabbos or didn't eat kosher. The Rambam lived in Cairo; in Cairo, in the Rambam’s day, you didn't have Jews who profaned Shabbos. You have to realize that. So who were the wicked who walked in darkness?
It was the multitude, what we call the Orthodox. There was nothing but Orthodox. And still according to Torah a rasha doesn't have to be a man who has thrown away the practical mitzvos. Reshaim means people who are good Orthodox people but are always tripping up, always making mistakes. They do what's accepted by the rest of the multitude – they keep everything; they pray, they say all the brachos – but they don’t have someone to guide them to their real success in this world, the success of living with Hakadosh Baruch Hu and accomplishing perfection, shleimus.
Everyone On the Hook
And therefore everyone needs a teacher, an advisor, a guide. Everyone! Everyone is on the hook for a pathfinder. Men and women, boys and girls, should make for themselves a rebbe; look for somebody and tie yourself up to that person and live by his advice. Everyone should have a rebbe to ask eitzos. Even a girl, if she can't ask eitzos of the rav but she could have her mother or her father ask eitzos of the rav, yes. A shidduch? Ask eitzos. Sometimes the rav will tell you, "Watch out, it's the wrong one."
You must ask for directions on life's highway. Az men fregt blundjet men nit – If you ask questions, you won't get lost. I'll say that again, az men fregt blundjet men nit – If you ask questions, you won't get lost!
In marriage especially. When a young couple gets married they must decide on one rav and no matter what the rav says, they have to accept his words. The rav says that the woman is too meshugeh, too wild, too nervous, that’s it. He says the husband is too cruel, too selfish, too stingy, whatever it is, that’s it.
They shouldn’t say, “No, he’s criticizing me. I’ll run away from him.” No. Be afflicted under the hand of the rav. He is the one who is going to tell you what to do and you should always rely on his psak. That’s your shleimus!
Afflict Yourself
Boys and girls, husbands and wives, old people too, no matter, take a rebbe. And even though the tayar may be burdensome, maybe he afflicts you and you’re suffering from not being able to do the things you want to do, go back, let yourself be afflicted under his watchful eye. Even though it hurts sometimes, stay there.
I had talmidim of mine that sometimes from one little word that I said, they went away from me. A man always used to sit together and walk with me. Once he asked me, “Maybe I could make an appeal in the shul for a certain good cause.”
I said “Well, we make appeals for the yeshivos frequently. We're not able to change for something else.”
He heard that and I never saw him again.
From one word? That's called loyalty?! Where are you running from? Where are you going? You have to overlook small things. If people go away because they're offended and stop seeing you, it's a sign of disloyalty; and disloyalty to a rebbe you should know is the same as being disloyal to Hashem.
And even that great woman Hagar had to be reminded of that. And if she did, then us surely. All of us have to remember those two questions the malach asked Hagar and his advice – it’s the advice of a malach Hashem after all: “Go back! Go back to your rebbe! Go back to your yeshivah! Go back to your shiur! Go back to the good neighborhood! Go back to your home! Go back to your tayar!” And that’s the way you’ll go back to Hashem.
Have a Wonderful Shabbos
Let’s Get Practical
Learning From Hagar
When Hagar lost herself in her pain and escaped the home of Avraham Avinu, a malach was sent to teach her important lessons for living successfully, lessons that apply equally to all of us. The malach Hashem wanted Hagar to understand that the only way to find oneself is by a rebbe’s guidance and that often the greatest growth a person makes means accepting the suffering that staying in a good place entails.
This week I will bli neder take some time every day to ask myself these two questions that the malach is asking all of us always: (1) Where am I coming from? (2) Where am I headed?
Hopefully this will lead me to accept much-needed guidance from a capable rebbe as well as appreciating the benefits of all the situations that I find myself in.
This week’s booklet is based on tapes: 46 - Avraham and Lot | 410 - Hagar the Egyptian | 640 - Abraham and Sarah | 985 - Lost Souls and Found Souls | E-183 - Freedom for Servitude
