QUESTION: How could we rid ourselves of the habit of not seeing the greatness of rain?
ANSWER: By coming here and talking about the things we spoke about tonight (the shiur the Rav gave was about appreciating rain). By talking about them on the street. By thinking about them when you’re sitting down to eat. Every day it rains, you should make sure to think these thoughts. You have to keep on working until it becomes part of your thought routine because complaining comes easy.
By ease, all you do is follow the habits of the multitude. If you lean back and relax like it says in the taxi, you’ll fall asleep and you won’t see the scenery; you’ll miss all the great lessons of life. You have to work hard to become great.
Every time it rains you get busy talking about the rain. Now, your friends will think you for a fool. They’re gonna think you’re eccentric and after a while they’ll stop listening to you so you’ll have to talk to yourself. We’re going to see you walking down Ocean Parkway, muttering to yourself. But you’ve got to realize you’re becoming a great man.
Now, when you get married you think you’re marrying an idealist, so you start telling your wife at the beginning about the rain. So for the first couple of days she’ll have to be polite and listen to you. After a while she says, “Stop, please. Stop! I heard this stuff already. You already told me last week about how we are all 80% water!”
So, there’s nobody to talk to. So, when your wife is not around, close the door and talk to yourself about the rain and little by little, you’ll talk yourself into it and then you’ll begin to have eyes. You’ll be a man who sees the truth.
But you shouldn’t expect company in your success. When you go higher on the mountain, the air becomes more and more rare. The company is all down on the ground and as you go higher on the mountain, you have less and less company. When you get to the top, there’s no company at all. Moshe Rabbeinu got to the top; he said goodbye to Mankind. He was different from all men from then on.
It’s hard to be an idealist. You have to be different. The secret is, you have to be a little bit of a meshuganer. מוטב שיהיה שוטה כל ימיו בעיני הבריות – It’s better to be a lunatic all your life in the eyes of Mankind, ואל יהיה רשע שעה אחת לפני המקום – in order that Hakadosh Baruch Hu should approve of you. However, take that advice carefully. It’s a recipe for greatness, a prescription, but you have to know how to use it. Don’t just stam try to be a shoteh.
Reprinted from a recent email of Toras Avigdor based on a question asked to Rav Avigdor Miller in March 1996.