Now it’s true literally, but it’s true metaphorically also. The anxious footstep takes away more than the physical eyesight. It takes away also your intellectual eyesight. The weekday busyness dims our mental eyesight, our ability to see things clearly. There's no question that then when you're busy all week with gashmiyus – even kosher gashmiyus, glatt kosher gashmiyus, but after all it's gashmiyus, materialism – so the gashmiyus is a mechitzah between a man and the truth.
He might say that everything is Hashem and that Hashem is in full control, but his hasty steps are a mechitzah between him and that truth. He feels that he’s the macher here, that he’s the one doing things. It means that his intellectual eyesight dims somewhat.
Now if that’s the case, if the eyesight of a man is taken away because of the anxieties of life that cause him to remove his mind from the great truths, so the Gemara asks יה≈ּ ̇¿נַ ַּ̃ ̇ י‡ַמ – what’s the remedy for this? What can you do about it? How can you repair that situation?
And the Gemara gives us a queer remedy, a very easy remedy it seems. י≈ׁ ̆¿מƒׁ ̆ י≈ב¿ּ„ ‡ָׁ ּ̆וּ„ƒ ̃¿ּבּה≈ר¿ּ„ַה¿ל – You can restore the health of your eyesight by making kiddush Friday night. It means when you make kiddush or when kiddush is being made, it's an opportunity to restore the health of the body and the sharpness of your mental vision.
Now some people will tell you certain things about this maamar. That by looking at the candles during kiddush it’ll heal your eyes. Or by drinking the wine of kiddush, that’s the refuah. Very good. Excellent. I’m not going to say different but listen now to the pshat.
