Brown M&M's | Rabbi Yitzchok Hisiger

In the ‘70s and the ’80s, there was a major, major band that was putting on large productions across the country. And like many bands and many celebrities, they got a reputation of being a bit self-absorbed and spoiled. And their spoiled demands even made headlines and some news reports. Like many bands, they had requirements from each venue for sound and security and crowd control and so on and so forth. But one of their demands was so peculiar and so bizarre that it left people scratching their heads. in the middle of nowhere of this contract, Basically, they wanted a bowl of M&M candies, but if there were to be any brown M&M's, the venue would have to forfeit the entire show, pay the band and let them go on their way. And people mocked this requirement and they just laughed at this band with such ridiculous demands. But that was until the ‘90s, when one of the band members wrote an autobiography in which he described why this band put this very, very strange requirement in middle of their contract rider. He explained that at the time, in the ‘70s and ’80s, they were putting on these massive, massive shows, showing up with tractor trailer loads of sound equipment and other things. And they had to make sure that every single detail of the arrangement was done to the tee. They had to make sure that the venue was safe and that the sound equipment was installed properly, and really, there were so many requirements that they had no way to make sure that their contract was fulfilled to the tiniest detail. And that's when they came up with this chap. They put smack in the middle of their contract, a small requirement about no brown M&M’s. We could call it the Canary in the Coal Mine. It was that litmus test to see would the venue read the contract. And there were times when they showed up at a venue, they went backstage and they saw brown M&M’s, and they knew in a moment that the arrangers had not read the contract. That was their chap. So what does this have to do with Shmiras Einayim? I'll tell you what I was thinking. Sometimes you have something like brown M&M’s, which seems so trivial, but really it's a Siman on something so much bigger. That's really what Shmiras Einayim is. I conducted an informal survey of a number of people who have changed their lives because of the Vayimaen project, by being Mekabel on themselves to watch what they see and to watch what they look at. And what resulted is incredible. It affected their davening, it affected their learning, it affected their interpersonal relationships, because a person who is careful about what he looks at and what he exposes himself to on a daily basis doesn't daven the same, he doesn't learn the same, he doesn't even talk to people the same way. Everything becomes elevated. So Shmiras Einayim is not just some solitary Kabbalah that we take upon ourselves to bring more Kedushah into our lives. The ripple effects are so far-reaching and has such major ramifications in every aspect of our Ruchniyus lives. So let's continue on this journey and continue to bring Nachas Ruach to the Ribono shel Olam.