Staying Afloat When Life Feels Drowning - R. Yitzchak Oelbaum - TorahAnytime.com

There's a guy named Jacobs. He had a family simcha. He met a talmud of his that he hasn't seen in a long time, in years. And he knew that this boy battled a tremendous machlah, and he hasn't seen him since. And he sees him, it's very emotional for the rebbe to see him. He says, "David, how are you doing?" This rabbi asked him. He says, "I heard you weren't well. I've been davening for you." And he says, "Now I'm doing amazing." "Doing great," David says. So it was a journey, and he begins to share his story with this Rabbi Jacobs. Says he will never forget what he tells him. And David says, "When I got sick, it was terrifying. I was a teenager. I was enjoying Yeshiva. I had no daigas. I had nothing. Only my only daigas was waking up for shacharis. I came to sayder. I learned that everything I I I I didn't think anything was going to happen. I get sick. And right there, I'm sitting there, how am I going to handle this challenge? It's a terrible sickness I had. We went to several gedolim for broches, he says. And right before Pesach, one of them said we should add a name. One of the gedolim said add a name. So he says that his father turns to him, he says, "You could choose any name you want." He says, "What name do you want?" So he asked him, he says, "David, he says, 'What name do you want?'" And he says, "I wanted the name Meir." Tells his rebbe. Rabbi Jacobs is curious. He says, "What's that mister name, Meir? What made you choose that name?" So he says, "I was learning the Gemara Yevamos daf kuf kuf alef," this David is saying. And he says that he begins to shine. He says, "The Gemara tells us how Rabbi Akiva was on a boat, and he saw the ship capsize, and he was sure that the passengers on the ship were dead. The great Rabbi Meir died. As Rabbi Akiva got older, Rabbi Meir is done. It's over. He died. And when he comes to shore, he sees that Rabbi Meir is there. Rabbi Meir tells him that the waves of the sea lifted me up and carried me to shore. I was reading the Gemara. The waves of the sea lifted me and carried me there. And David looks at his former rabbi and says, "When I learned that I had my challenge, I realized that a mayor was faced with crazy waves that should have drowned him. But with the moon and the tucking, what happened was those waves became the vehicle and carried him to safety." He said, "I decided right then and there that just like a mayor, I want to be like a mayor. That my illness is going to be my own set of waves. And that's GOING TO BE MY WAVES. And I decided that the waves are not going to drown me. I'M GOING TO TAKE this wave to make me grow and to help me get closer TO AND THAT'S WHY I CHOSE THE NAME MAYOR because the same way that mayor had those waves that took him and should have killed him and destroyed him and instead it carried him and took him fighter to the shore, my machlah that I have, those waves are going to take me to shore. I'm going to come over this illness. In our own lives, we all face waves that at times we feel are overwhelming. Things we never dreamt of. But when we strengthen our moon and we realize the challenges are not there to break us, but they're to make us, and we know it only because we can overcome it. That's the machlah. That's only the machlah to do it. If not, there's no other way. We see that the waves he took, the waves took him to shore. That's what helped him. He took his waves, this David. Took the waves that he should have to grow and got close to Hashem and do what he has to do.