Parshat HaShavua Kedoshim from the Teachings of the Righteous Rav Rabbi Eliezer

Parashat 'Kedoshim' - from the mouth of the tzaddik, foundation of the world, the Gaon HaTzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a: The people of Israel are a holy nation! The people of Israel seek only to work on holiness and purity! They do not seek to attain 'prophecies' or 'levels,' which is what the nations of the world and people who do not know the ways of serving Hashem seek. The mistake of Bilam and all the nations of the world is that for them, the main thing is to be a great person! An important person! A famous person! But the people of Israel seek only one thing! How to work on holiness and purity, which is the opposite of all the methods and all the teachings of the nations of the world, who do not know what holiness is; they do not even recognize the concept of holiness at all! The holy people of Israel are not satisfied with words; for them, it starts first and foremost with working on holiness, on guarding the eyes, on the holiness of the covenant, and they fight for these things! They fight to be saved from the prohibition of 'and you shall not go astray after your heart and after your eyes,' even though it is very difficult and a person sees almost no possibility of being saved from it, but he knows that he must fight it; he has no choice, for this he came into the world...

And this is what is written in 'Even Shleimah' from the Vilna Gaon, that a person comes into the world only to overcome this thing, only for this he came into the world, not for anything else. All other things come to assist holiness. People think that holiness is a secondary matter; there are 613 commandments, and there is also the prohibition of 'and you shall not go astray.' The Rambam says, 'Twenty-four things hinder teshuvah (repentance)... and he does not know that the sight of the eyes is a great sin, for it causes the body of forbidden relations, as it is said (Numbers 15:39) "and you shall not go astray after your heart and after your eyes"' (Rambam, Laws of Teshuvah, Chapter 4). The Rambam says that all those who think it is possible to skip the prohibition of 'and you shall not go astray,' to put it in parentheses! To put it aside! To say, 'There are 613 commandments... so I am not careful about one commandment... after all, not everyone is meticulous in all the commandments? I am meticulous in being a genius, in being famous, in being a master of Ruach HaKodesh, but to be meticulous about the prohibition of "and you shall not go astray," I have no time for that, it is not possible for me, I am a busy person, I drive a car...' Truly, the world is in error! Certainly, a person can guard his eyes! Even a person who is driving can guard his eyes; he can ask Hashem to guard his eyes for him! Because through prayer, it is possible to attain everything. Avraham Avinu walked throughout the world in holiness and saw nothing! And likewise, the sons of Yaakov Avinu walked from Israel to the land of Egypt, and they did not open their eyes the entire way! The Midrash says that they did not see anything on the way. A person can travel throughout the world while guarding his eyes! Certainly, it is possible to guard the eyes on the road.

The Rambam says, 'He who looks at forbidden things and says there is nothing in it.' A person blemishes his eyes and says, 'What did I do?! What sin did I commit?! It does not affect me negatively.' This is a lie!! It is told about the 'Beit Yisrael' that he met with several professors. They asked him, 'Why are the Charedim so afraid of every sight and every glance, while for us, the professors, these things do not affect us at all and do not bother us?' He said to them, 'A parable: to what is this similar? To a Bedouin and a European. The Bedouin walks all day on stones, on thorns, on thistles; from the day he was born, he walks on the sharpest stones, and it does not bother him at all; he does not feel any pain (due to habit). Whereas a European person who gets a tiny bit of stone in his shoe, a tiny bit of sand, he can no longer walk! His foot hurts him! He has terrible suffering from it.' The moral is that you, the professors, are like the Bedouins; you have already defiled yourselves so much with endless impurities that a small stone, a small sin, a sight, a forbidden glance, no longer affects you! But a person who is entirely delicate of soul, entirely pure of soul, every smallest thing, every smallest sin, every forbidden look, every forbidden sight, it bothers him! It hurts him! It pierces him like the stabs of a sword! The choice of man is only in the eyes! The moment a person guards his eyes, he will reach all the levels in the world; he will not speak lashon hara, he will not be resentful, he will not hate, he will keep Shabbat, he will put on tefillin... And one must guard not only the physical eyes, but one must also guard the eyes of the intellect!

A person can guard his physical eyes, but he has endless other eyes! Eyes of jealousy, eyes of hatred, eyes of honor; he must guard all types of eyes that he has! He must disconnect all his senses from the world! That he should have no eyes for anything in the world, for any subject in the world! Rather, all his senses and all his desires should be only for Hashem Yitbarach in His glory. And when he guards his eyes (the physical eyes and the eyes of the intellect—jealousy, hatred...), then he merits 'Open my eyes, that I may behold wonders from Your Torah'; all the secrets of the Torah, the secrets of creation, and all the wonders in the world are revealed to him.