How Do We Succeed in Guarding Our Eyes? | Rabbi Asher Perkesh

00:00 We all know how serious the matter of guarding our eyes is. We know what the verse says: “Do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes.” We know the stern teachings of our Sages explaining how the eyes are the agents through which all the evil in the soul can follow. How is a person supposed to guard himself? The faculties of sight, hearing, thought and speech are among the loftiest powers Hashem placed in the highest part of the body, the head. They are wonderful powers, but they are constantly exposed to all kinds of evil, in a world surrounded by darkness, corruption and difficult tests. We know this is serious, but in practice, we find it hard to withstand the test. Today we’ll talk about what Chassidus gives us: a direction, advice, a path. How can a person take control of himself and of these lofty powers of the soul—channel them, focus them, protect them from harm and evil, and use them for the right and proper things? The basis for what we’ll discuss today is a chapter the Rebbe Rashab, the fifth Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom Dovber, wrote in a work called Kuntres HaAvodah. It is a work he wrote for the students. As is known, the Rebbe Rashab founded the Chabad yeshivah Tomchei Temimim. He wrote Kuntres HaAvodah to explain the path of serving Hashem: how to awaken feelings of love and awe of Hashem, how to daven, and how to refine one’s character traits. It is one of the foundational works of Chassidus. In its second chapter, he devotes an entire chapter to the subject we’re discussing today. He calls it, in two words, “setting boundaries for the senses.” How does a person set limits for his senses, take control of them and channel them? By “senses,” he means these lofty powers in our head: thought, speech, sight and hearing—abbreviated as MaDRaSh. The Rebbe Rashab’s explanation

03:04 is based on Tanya. In chapters 41 and 42 of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe explains the foundation on which a person’s entire service of Hashem is built. In the words of Tanya, it is “the beginning of the service, its core and its root.” When someone puts up a building, there is a foundation, and on that foundation he builds. With strong foundations, he can build a large building. If the foundations are shaky, weak, or nonexistent, the building won’t stand; it will fall. The building in our service of Hashem is all its levels, knowledge and stages—and they are endless. But the foundation on which the entire building stands, “the beginning of the service, its core and its root,” the Alter Rebbe tells us in Tanya, is yiras Shamayim, accepting the yoke of Heaven. When we have that, it gives us the strength to set boundaries for our senses and control them. When we lose it, we are in danger. So the Rebbe Rashab explains the power a Jew has to control his eyes, ears, mouth and faculty of thought by bringing an awareness of yiras Shamayim into his mind. The question is: How do we do that? Here comes the good news the Rebbe teaches us: Every Jew has yiras Shamayim naturally, engraved in his soul. Yiras Shamayim is not something we have to create. We don’t have to ascend to the seventh heaven or cross the sea to find it. The good news, the Alter Rebbe tells us, is that every Jew has a natural yiras Shamayim. This natural yiras Shamayim is not fear of punishment; it is awe of the King. By nature, a Jew does not want to—and cannot—rebel against the Kingdom of Heaven. That is rooted in the nature of every Jew’s soul. What happens is

05:37 simply that we forget it. Life, everything we’re caught up in, everything happening around us—with all our rushing around in the world, we forget what is going on inside us. So our task is simply to awaken that memory: to remember and constantly remind ourselves that we are Jews, that we have a King, and that we are the King’s servants. We need to awaken that point within ourselves, the pure yiras Shamayim that is there. Our Sages call yiras Shamayim a treasure. They say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has nothing in His world but a treasure of yiras Shamayim. What is a treasure? It is something buried deep in the ground. It is there, but it is buried and hidden. You have to dig to uncover it. Yiras Shamayim is present in every Jew, as the Alter Rebbe says, “in the hidden recesses of the heart.” We have to dig and clear away the earth, the dust and all the other things—the coarseness—that conceal it, so we can reveal the yiras Shamayim within us. How do we do that? The Rebbe says: contemplation. Set aside a few minutes every day to contemplate and think about this. There are several points to consider. In the opening lines of chapter 41 of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe gives us some points. I’ll go through at least a few of them briefly. These are things to think about; simply remembering them and giving them thought each day will give us the strength to take on the yoke, embrace yiras Shamayim and live with it. That will give us the strength to overcome all the temptations of the yetzer hara. Point number one, says the Alter Rebbe, is to contemplate Hashem’s sovereignty, which fills the entire earth. Hashem’s sovereignty extends through the heavens, the earth and every corner. “The whole earth is filled with His glory”; “I fill the heavens and the earth.”

07:57 Every corner, every detail. After all, Hashem creates, brings into being, gives life to and sustains everything and every created being at every moment. Knowing that Hashem is present in every detail of the world is the first stage of contemplation. The second stage, says the Alter Rebbe, is to remember that although Hashem and His sovereignty extend over all creation and all created beings, over all the heavens and the earth, over souls and angels and everything else, at the center of all creation stand humanity, the Jewish people, and each individual Jew. Hashem’s sovereignty extends to each and every Jew personally. Here the Alter Rebbe brings a teaching of our Sages that is the basis for everything we’re saying: the Mishnah in Sanhedrin says, “Therefore, man was created alone.” When Hashem created the world in the six days of creation, He created all the other beings in groups, in multitudes and in different species. He created abundant plant life, animal life and inanimate matter. But when He came to man, He was sparing and created just one person, Adam. Only afterward, as the Torah tells us, came a woman, then children, and all who followed. But man is the only being created alone, says the Mishnah in Sanhedrin. Why was man created alone? So that every person, every Jew, in every place and at every time, throughout all generations, should know and say, “The world was created for me.” In other words, Adam was one person, all alone. He got up and saw an entire world around him. He knew he couldn’t pass the responsibility to someone else and say, “Someone else will do it. I’ll go to sleep, and someone else will take care of it.” No. He knew he was the one and only human being, and all of creation had been placed in his hands. When Adam, on the first Rosh Hashanah—we know Rosh Hashanah is the day man was created—Hashem

10:17 He, blessed be He, gave Adam the ability to crown Him when he said, “Come, let us bow down and prostrate ourselves.” The Midrash says that on the first day Adam was created, all of creation—all the creatures, all the animals—came to bow down to him. They thought he was G-d. But he said to them, “Come, let us bow down and prostrate ourselves; let us kneel before Hashem, our Maker. Hashem reigns; He is clothed in majesty.” These are prayers we say on Friday and Friday night. Adam said them when he crowned Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King. He knew that the crowning of the world depended on him. Adam also knew this when he sinned with the Tree of Knowledge. With that one and only sin, he brought the whole world into a state of darkness. He brought... he mixed good and evil into the world, and to this day we suffer because of Adam’s sin with the Tree of Knowledge, which affected all of creation. The Mishnah tells us: Why was Adam created alone? Because a Jew needs to know, “The world was created for my sake.” In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the King of kings, Who fills all worlds, encompasses all worlds, and gives life to every single detail—Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose the Jewish people as a whole, and this Jew, me and you, in particular. He gave us the opportunity and the ability, and He cares; it matters to Him. Our actions, words, and thoughts are important to Him. The Alter Rebbe continues, and I’ll read the wording word for word. How does the Alter Rebbe put it? “And behold, Hashem stands over him.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, stands over each and every one of us, and “the whole earth is filled with His glory.” He is present in every corner and every place in the world, but in a particular, personal way, He stands over him. My conduct matters to Him; He cares about it, it is important and precious to Him. “He looks at him and examines his mind and heart to see whether he is serving Him as he should.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu looks and examines

12:28 and it matters to Him. He cares about what we do and how we do it—with heart, with vitality, with feeling, with joy. So when a Jew reflects on these points, it awakens yiras Shamayim within him. As we said, we already have this awe: awe of the King. The knowledge that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the King and I am His servant, and that therefore a Jew must accept the yoke of Heaven and not want to rebel against the King of kings—that is something natural. Thinking and reflecting serve to awaken and reveal it. Remembering this gives a person the strength to exercise control. So from the outset, when a Jew gets up in the morning and reflects on these points, it gives you the control to know where to look and where not to look. It gives you strength over your eyes, your ears, your speech, and your thoughts, so that from the outset you are focused and on guard: which direction you look, what you think, what you say and don’t say, what you listen to and don’t listen to. The Rebbe once gave a most wonderful explanation that follows on from what we’ve just discussed. There is a well-known story in the Torah, one we all know, about Yosef HaTzaddik. The Midrash says that Yosef HaTzaddik was in Egypt, a young boy all alone, far from his family. His brothers had sold him, and he had become a slave to Potiphar in Egypt. He was in a dangerous situation. Potiphar’s wife pursued him; she wanted to commit a sin with him. Yosef kept running away from her. Then came a moment when “he came into the house to do his work.” Our Sages say there came a moment when the test was especially severe. “And none of the people of the household were there.” Nobody was there. They had all gone out, as we know, leaving Yosef alone with Potiphar’s wife. What does it say? An image. What saved Yosef, so that he got up and fled the house—“and he fled outside”? Rashi tells us, citing the Midrash and the Gemara: the image of his father Yaakov appeared to him in the window. He

15:06 saw Yaakov Avinu. That gave him strength. The question everyone asks is: What exactly did he see? Yosef HaTzaddik was a tzaddik. Surely he had yiras Shamayim. Yet it says that the image of his father Yaakov appeared to him in the window, and that gave him the strength to get up. There are many explanations, but today we’ll focus on a point connected to what we discussed earlier, to what is written in Tanya, chapter 41. The Rebbe explained it this way. The Gemara in Bava Basra, 58a, says: “The beauty of Yaakov Avinu was like the beauty of Adam.” In other words, Yaakov Avinu’s face resembled Adam’s. Of course, this speaks about their faces, but it is not only about their outward appearance. As explained in Kabbalah, in the writings of the Arizal, and as also cited in Tanya, Igeres Hakodesh, Yaakov’s soul was, in fact, Adam’s soul. When Hashem created Adam, “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Adam had the collective soul of the entire Jewish people. Later, he lost it because of the sin with the Tree of Knowledge. That soul returned to Yaakov Avinu. Yaakov Avinu bore Adam’s likeness. As we said earlier, Adam was created alone. He was the crown of creation. He knew that the whole world was in his hands. The moment he crowned Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu became King over the whole world, and Adam brought about its elevation and exaltation; the whole world rose to another level. The moment he fell through a small sin—Adam was alone, with a whole world around him. Nobody was there, nobody was looking at him, nobody saw him. But behold, Hashem stood over him. He knew that through one small action of his, the whole world could be elevated, and, rachmana litzlan,

17:05 through one small negative action, he could ruin the whole world, as we know from the consequences of that one and only sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge. So Yosef HaTzaddik was alone in Egypt—a Jewish boy in a vast country, utterly far from home. His brothers had turned against him and sold him as a slave. He was at the other end of the world. Nobody saw him. None of the people of the household were there. So, well, what would happen? Just one small thing, one small sin. Things could be sorted out afterward. He could do teshuvah for it. He could find explanations, justifications, and so on and so forth. But what did Yosef HaTzaddik see? The image of his father Yaakov—and in Yaakov’s image, he saw Adam’s soul before his eyes. At that moment he realized: With a single act, I have the ability to rectify all the worlds connected to that act. I can corrupt the whole world with this act, or I can elevate the whole world. When Yosef saw that, “he fled outside.” He ran away, and that is what gave him the strength to withstand the test. So when a Jew knows this, when he awakens within himself the yiras Shamayim he already possesses by remembering to accept the yoke of Heaven, it gives him the ability and the strength to stand up to the temptations of the yetzer hara. The Rebbe instructed many people—there are dozens or hundreds of letters and instructions given in yechidus, in letters, and in sichos—to study and memorize the first eighteen lines of chapter 41 of Tanya. Simply learn them and think about them. There was one Jew to whom the Rebbe wrote that he should learn the first eighteen lines of chapter 41 and also keep a photocopy of them in his pocket. He told him: in the pocket of the heart and in the pocket of the garment. In other words, when a person lives with this, thinks about it, and reflects on it again and again... Someone once asked

19:22 I do it and don’t see results. Again and again. It’s not something I do once and, boom, the yetzer hara is gone. This is inner work that we need to invest in every day, and sometimes several times a day. It’s worth setting aside time at the beginning of the day to reflect on it at greater length. Then, whenever I go out into the street—and this is important—several times during the day, I should at least repeat the words, the lines, that one line: “And behold, Hashem stands over him, and the whole earth is filled with His glory, and He looks upon him.” Reflect on those words. Even just having the words in my mind, before my eyes, gives a person the strength to have control. Restraining the senses, in the words of the Rebbe Rashab. “Appoint judges and officers for yourself at all your gates.” Judges and officers. Your gates. It says in the sefarim—there is a sefer called Sifsei Kohen on the Torah, the Shach on the Torah. It was written by Rabbi Mordechai HaKohen, one of the great Kabbalists after the time of the Arizal, about four hundred years ago. He wrote a wonderful sefer with explanations of the Torah through derush and Kabbalah, and he brings the verse: “Appoint judges and officers for yourself at all your gates.” “Your gates” means a person’s gates, the gates of the body. The eyes, ears, mouth, and nose are the body’s gates. Things pass through them, entering and leaving. We need judges and officers. Judges means the power a Jew has to judge, to take control, to stand firm. And we have that power. A Jew needs to know that we have that power. When the yetzer hara comes and says, “Look here, look there,” we need to remember: I have the strength. The strength we have from the neshamah, the G-dly strength a Jew has, the natural fear of Heaven—that is a G-dly power within the soul. It is an enormous power. That power is unlimited. It has the ability to overcome every distraction and every test

21:47 and every temptation out there. Sometimes the yetzer hara says, “Ah, I don’t have the strength.” That’s a lie. We do have strength. Our Sages say: “Israel is the boldest of the nations.” That boldness is firmness, strength—the wonderful strength a Jew has from the neshamah. The power of the yechidah within the soul, the essential power, a deep power within the soul: with it, a Jew has the ability to overcome every temptation. The moment he places “And behold, Hashem stands over him” before himself, along with the image of Yaakov, when he has that holiness before his eyes, he recognizes the strength he has and how precious every action, word, and thought is to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That gives him the strength to control himself and take charge of his thoughts, speech, and actions. I’ll finish with a short story that also offers practical advice, which the Rebbe told several times. There was a chossid of the Alter Rebbe named Reb Mordechai Liepler. He was one of the great chassidim. He lived in Petersburg, even though Jews were not permitted to live there. Because he worked for the government, he lived in that area, in surroundings that were not modest. Nevertheless, the Alter Rebbe said of this chossid that he had reached the level of a beinoni in Tanya. What is a beinoni in Tanya? A Jew who has control over his thoughts, speech, and actions. Wow. Once they asked him, “Reb Mordechai, how did you do it? How do you manage it?” Reb Mordechai said, “I guard my thoughts, speech, and actions because of the pride I have.” They looked at him. “Pride? What do you mean?” He said, “Yes, it comes from pride. I think to myself: I am a Jew with a pure neshamah, an actual part of G-d above. I am a chossid of the Alter Rebbe. I am a person who has

23:58 wonderful G-dly strength that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave me. Am I going to soil myself with such coarse things? That’s beneath me.” That pride, the pride of the yechidah—who am I, and to whom do I belong?—gives me the ability and strength to overcome every test. I’m not going to soil myself with those lowly, petty things. So this is what we take with us today: “Appoint judges and officers for yourself at all your gates.” When we reflect, when we give ourselves time to reflect on accepting the yoke of Heaven, on the fear of Heaven we have within our souls, to awaken it and bring it from potential into practice—when we devote a few minutes each day to reflecting on these points—it will give us the ability and strength to be healthy Jews with healthy eyes. Our eyes will be eyes of “Lift your eyes on high and see Who created these,” looking at creation and seeing the wondrous world Hakadosh Boruch Hu created. Our ears will be ears of “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One,” hearing the word of Hashem. And our mouths will be wholly devoted to “Hashem, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise,” recounting the wonders of the Creator and learning Torah. In this way we will be healthy, whole Jews, and soon we will merit the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu, when “the glory of Hashem will be revealed, and all flesh will see that the mouth of Hashem has spoken,” speedily in our days, amen.