Just a Few More Minutes | Rabbi Moshe Scheinerman

When faced with a Nisayon, a challenge that challenges our spiritual integrity, our Gedolei Olam gave us advice. They taught us that there are different, shall we call them ‘tools’, that can be utilized to help us not succumb to the Yetzer Hara. There's a famous story with the Steipler HaKadosh, the heiliger Steipler, that he was conscripted into the Russian army, ripped away from his shtender in the Novardok Yeshiva in Bialystok. When he came to the base, they gave him chores to do and he refused, saying: Today's Shabbos. I cannot perform any of these chores. Whereupon they said: Okay, we're going to make you a sentry. You will guard the outpost. They gave him a gun, and his job was to go outside and watch the military encampment of the Russians. The gun was Muktzeh, but he found a way of carrying it that should not compromise in the Hilchos Muktzeh. But there was another challenge that he immediately came across, and that was there was only one coat, it was called a Peltz, made of the fur of a bear. And in the tundra of the Russian climate, in the middle of the winter, there was an absolute need to wear that peltz. The problem was that the previous guard left the coat on top of a limb, a branch of the tree. Removing the coat from the tree would be a Chillul Shabbos דרבנן. משתמש באילן usage of an אילן, of a tree. And the Steipler said to himself: I cannot be עובר an איסור דרבנן, and he stood there in the frigid cold for a few hours. Afterwards, it became impossible for him to continue, and he said: I must take the coat. However, before taking the coat off of the tree, he said to himself, I will hold out for another five minutes, and then I'll take the coat off of the tree. Meaning, I'm sure I could hold out another five minutes. And after five minutes, he said: I'll hold out for four minutes. What's four minutes? He did the same with three minutes and two minutes, and after another minute, at the very end of this odyssey, all of a sudden, another sentry came and replaced him and he was able to go inside. The Steipler taught us that many times we can win over the enticements of the Yetzer Hara, who's trying to seduce us to do an Aveira, by not giving in, by saying, Just give me a little more time until my spiritual senses come to play. There’s one more story with the Steipler. That he was read a Shidduch, they spoke him a Shidduch to the sister of the Chazon Ish. She was in Kosovo, he was in Novardok, and he took an all-night train to Kosovo. However, upon entering the train, he noticed that the chairs were made out of material which can possibly compromise the Halachos of Sha’atnez מדרבנן. And he stood the entire night. And he said how did he have the Ko’ach? And again, he employed this method of saying, that I will be able to hold out another hour, another half hour, another quarter of an hour. I just must add that when he came to Kosovo and he met the מדוברת, the sister of the Chazon Ish, he fell asleep on the date. And she was extremely concerned afterwards. And she asked her brother, the Chazon Ish, and he said: I'll find out. And he told him over the story. That was the clincher. And she said: Such a yungerman, of course I want to have for a husband. That is a method, the method in the definitive, of how many times we can beat the enticements of the Yetzer Hara. Just give yourself, your spiritual senses and qualities a little more time.