A Mineful of Diamonds | Rabbi David Shelby

I was lucky many, many times to visit Baba Elazar Abuhatzeira, עליו השלום. Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira was known for Shmirat Einayim, something unfathomable. He wore a hood over his head and it covered his eyes, and when somebody would come near him and he felt good energy, then he would lift it and look at their face and talk to them. But if he felt energy from people far, far away, nobody that we know, he would leave the hood over his eyes, to watch his eyes, to never, ever see something he's not supposed to. On a deeper level, eyesight is not physical, it’s spiritual. Our eye is physical, but our eyesight is spiritual. And the holier you keep your eyes, the more you see in this world. Well, one day, somebody comes to him for a Beracha. They wanted to buy a diamond mine in Africa. They brought the maps to the diamond mine. The Rabbi says: Could I see? He opens up the map for the Rabbi and the Rabbi looks at the entire map. Where are you planning to buy? And he pointed to the diamond mine, the area where he's buying. The Rabbi looks at the map and he says: Do not buy in that area. There is nothing there. He says: Over here is where you should buy. The fellow says: But, Rabbi, that's all swamp. That's nothing. No one will buy there. The Rabbi says: Trust me, that's where you should buy. He ends up buying that property. He had אמונת חכמים, belief in the Rabbi. And he ended up becoming a very, very, very wealthy man. But how could it be? The Rabbi never went to Africa, he never even looked at a picture, a map of that area, and he’s able to see if there's diamonds in one place and not in another place? The answer is, as mentioned, The more holy you keep your eyes, the more you're able to see things. The other day, we had an eclipse and everybody's buying those special glasses. And as I'm walking outside at the time of the eclipse, I bump into someone and I say: How do you not have the glasses? He says: Because I'm not looking at the sun. I said: But it's so hard not to look at something when everybody is looking at it. It's so intriguing. He said: Rabbi, I train my eyes, my body, my soul, not to look at things that I'm not supposed to, so I am able to control myself and not look at the sun even for a second, because I know that it's dangerous to my eyes. And who am I to say but I said, That's really the lesson of our Shmirat Einayim. When you're able to control your eyes, you're able to control your desires, that's when you will be safe from physical damage, from spiritual damage. תזכו לשנים רבות, נעימות וטובות, keep up the good work, כל טוב סלה, אמן.