Doing it Together | Rabbi Fischel Schachter

So Shimon was faced with an unbelievable test. He was a businessman. We're not going to get into the specifics, but it was a Nisayon. And he said, I can't, because Yom Tov, I'm going to go to my Rebbe, the Lechevitcher. My Rebbe will look into my eyes. He'll see what I did. You know what? I'm not going to go to my Rebbe. If I won't go to my Rebbe, where am I going to daven? I'll daven in the Shtiebel. My friends are going to say: Why aren't you going? You know what? I'm not going to daven in the Shtiebel anymore with my friends. I'll daven in the big Shul. If I daven in the big Shul, they're going to come looking for me. I'm going to say: I'm not going. But I know my friends are going to grab me and take me to the Rebbe. I can't do this. I can't do it. And later, when he came to the Rebbe and the Rebbe looked at him and he said: You see? What a Rebbe can’t do, friends can do. You know what it means that we're part of this Vayimaen Chabura? It means that what Rebbes can't do, what Rabbonim can't do, because it's our Yetzer Hara, it's our decision, what our own personal Yetzer Tov can't do, friends can do. The Sefer HaKuzari says, You know what the Ma’alah of Tefillah B’Tzibbur is? Let’s say your Shemoneh Esrei looks something like this. ברוך אתה השם אלוקינו מלך... I parked on the wrong side of the street. I’m going to get a ticket. אלוקי אברהם, אלוקי יצחק ואלוקי יעקב... It’s so not fair. האל הגדול, הגיבור והנורא... Why do I have to live in this city? I wanted to move to Monsey so many years ago. ברוך אתה השם, מגן אברהם. אתה גיבור לעולם, השם... Oh. Alternate side is... is suspended today. ברוך אתה השם, מחיה המתים. Let's say our Shemoneh Esrei looks something like that, okay? But usually one Bracha in Shemoneh Esrei works. You know, רפאנו, ברך עלינו, some people need a Parnassah, Refuah. When you daven Tefillah B’Tzibbur, says the Sefer HaKuzari, Hashem says: Let me take the best Bracha from him, put it all together, make a perfect Shemoneh Esrei, and the perfect Shemoneh Esrei is applied to everybody. And the same is true for anything you do with a Chabura. I don't know if since ששת ימי בראשית there has been such a Minyan, such a Tzibbur, like Vayimaen. On top of וימאן there's a Shalsheles. Right? Vayimaeeeeen. What's a Shalsheles? A chain. It holds us together. The Ribono shel Olam says: Okay, we're human beings. Sometimes we're successful with our Shmiras Einayim, and sometimes we're not. But if we're part of a Chabura, Hashem looks at us and Hashem says, I'm going to take your best Shmiras Einayim day, and your best Shmiras Einayim day, and put it together, and make the perfect Tefillah B’Tzibbur. You know, when my father first came to America, so he told me he never saw an elevator. He came from a small little city. And the door opened up. He said: What's this? Shedim? Mazikim? Who's opening this door? And he saw a little boy walk in, the door closed, and a few minutes later, the door opened up and an old man came out. He said: I'm not going into that machine. The Ribono shel Olam gave us a vehicle, a machine that could change us, and that's the power of Tzibbur. And that's the power of doing things together of so many tens of thousands of Yidden saying: We want. וטהר לבנו. Ribono shel Olam is going to help us. All we have to do is walk into the machine and press the right buttons, and the Ribono shel Olam will make perfect eyes, perfect Neshama, perfect Tahara, and a perfect person ready to accept the Geulah in our lives, and the Geulah Shleima.