Part III. Illuminating your life
No Immunity
Now, once a person recognizes this problem – and nobody is immune; that’s what the story of Noach is telling us – so he must begin to set aside time for himself. If a man wants to avoid the tragedy of stumbling, of shame in the Next World, he has to overcome the obstacle of hatipul vehatirdah. There has to be some time in his life for himself.
I always tell you this story. There was a banker, a successful banker, who had many things to do in his off hours. Sunday he was busy all day long, meeting important people. He was important so he met important people. They invited him, he invited them. He was busy all the time, even when he wasn't sitting in his office in the bank.
And one day he decided that this is no way to live and he said, “Saturday night I am separated from the world.” He took his telephone off the hook and he told his wife to go out with the children. “Here is money,” he told her. “Go out and enjoy yourself with the children.” And he remained home. Every Saturday night he spent taking account of himself. A true story.
A Gentile Model
Now this banker, a gentile banker, was cited by a writer as an example of what people could do. He refused Saturday nights to have anything to do with any kind of people except with himself and he became a much better person because of that. And so the Jew lehavdil surely must do that. There’s no excuse, “I’m too busy.” Sometimes your wife makes demands on you, relatives make demands on you, invitations come in from all sides for every kind of affair. A person has to be discerning; you should question yourself what comes first, to satisfy all the requirements of society or to think about myself and accomplish something in this world? Whatever it is, you have to come to some kind of a compromise, but it must be a compromise that gives you time to think.
Stealing for Yourself
It's like the Chafetz Chaim used to say. The Chafetz Chaim zichrono levrachah said there was once a woman who used to sell rolls and she sent out her little boy to sell the rolls. One day the boy came home weeping and his basket was empty and he had no money. So the mother asked him what happened.
