Curious George Meets Vayimaen | Rabbi Yechiel Spero

You know, everybody has their favorite children's book. In all probability, when you were a child, you grew up reading children's books. And there were all types of characters. Winnie the Pooh. Mickey Mouse. Well, one of my favorites was Curious George. Curious George was that little monkey who always somehow found himself in trouble. And always, the man with the yellow hat would come and save him. And it was a very endearing story. It seems harmless. It seems like a lot of fun. I mean, a monkey that's curious and gets himself into trouble. But the Sefarim HaKedoshim tell us that the biggest cause for the struggles of Shmiras Einayim is curiosity. Because if you're not curious, you have no interest in what's going on around you. But we all have curiosity. We all want to see what's going on. So instead of walking down the street and minding our own business, we walk down the street and we mind everyone's business. If we're looking at our phones, we want to see what else there is. If we are walking in the supermarket, we're looking around at all of the eye candy, that is tempting us to be interested. The Kotzker says: Curiosity is not an Aveira. But curiosity can lead to something so terrible that it's far worse than the greatest Aveiros. We have to train ourselves to be able to know that we are capable of controlling our curiosity, to be able to channel that curiosity for good things. For things like, How can I possibly help someone else? Can I devise a new way to daven better, to learn better, to help a fellow Jew? It's true. Curious George was a fun character, but he always got himself in trouble. And if we can't control our curiosity, then unfortunately, our trouble can be far worse. We have the strength, we have the power, we have the ability to control our eyes.