Begging for Life | Rabbi Yechiel Spero

It was in the first few days after World War II had ended. 6 million Neshomos had been taken, and there were millions of others whose lives were shattered and broken and people looked for scraps of life, something to be able to lift them up from the dust and the devastation and the ruin. At that time, the Satmar Rav, the Vayoel Moshe, was in Switzerland. His life had been saved through incredible, miraculous miracles and people came flocking to him for a blessing and some words of encouragement. Everyone came for something else. Rebbe, perhaps you can give me a blessing to find my father, my mother, my brother, my sister, my wife, my husband, my child. Rebbe, please, give me the strength to go on. And they wrote kvitlech. Rebbe, help me get the necessary papers. Rebbe, help me get a visa. Rebbe, please, help me find my soulmate, find a match. Rebbe, a roof over my head. Rebbe, a livelihood. Rebbe, the strength to rebuild. Everyone came begging for something else that would give them life. And the Rebbe answered all of them and gave encouragement to all of them, thousands of people. And then one day, a Bochur, Chaim Erlanger, walked through the door. Later on, he would become well known in the Jewish world, especially in Switzerland, as a great Tzaddik, a miracle worker. But now he was a young Bochur, and he came to the Rebbe, and he, too, wrote a kvitl. And on that kvitl, he wrote four words. And the Rebbe looked at the kvitl, and he looked up at the Bochur, and he saw the purity of spirit in him. But still he said, Who helped you with this? And the Bochur looked down. And the Rebbe looked again at the kvitl, and he looked at those four words, and those four words asked and begged, to merit to be a chariot for the Divine Presence. I just want to be a chariot to carry the mission of the Divine Presence. And the Bochur looked at him and he says: Rebbe, you want to know who helped me? It was a Bochur. Aharon Leib Shteinman. And R’ Aharon Leib would become the Gadol Hador. In a time when people were begging for life, they, too, were begging for life. Eternity. To merit becoming a chariot for the Divine Presence. We are now in the middle of the three weeks and everybody is trying to have a good time. It's the middle of the summer. But the temptation is all around us. And Vayimaen asks of you, and it asks of each one of us, to take upon ourselves a mission to help rebuild the Holy Temple. What is the mission? Don't turn right, don't turn left, don't be lured by temptation and desire, but instead to merit becoming a chariot for the Divine Presence. And if we do, if we can, if we will, we’ll merit to partner with the Ribono shel Olam in the rebuilding of the Third Temple, speedily in our days, Amen.