One Step Away | Rabbi Shlomo Landau

One of the side-benefits of having the zchus for presenting for Vayimaen is that people always come over to me and share with me their stories of successes and of struggles. One day, I'm walking out of Shachris, and a guy comes over to me and he says to me, Rabbi Landau, I have your next Vayimaen video. I said: Make my day. And he did. He shared with me that he has a friend who had been training to become a nursing home administrator. He'd been apprenticing for a bunch of years, making a very sub-average salary, and finally, he was at the place where he had all the credentials, and he was ready to become a nursing home manager and finally make a respectable salary. The problem is he could not even find a single lead. There was not a single nursing home administration position that was available for this fellow, and he was despondent beyond. He kept his old job, because at least it was some income. One Sunday morning, he's on a group chat with the many employees in the nursing home that he's currently apprenticing at, and a particular woman says: Hey, guys. And part of him is like, Okay, let me check it out. Then he says to himself, I should check out someone else's profile picture? That doesn't behoove me. And he says: I'm stronger than that. Pushes away from it and he says, I am not doing this. My friends, it's hard to believe this, but I verified the story. In less than one hour, his phone rings. He picks up his phone. It is one of the most successful nursing home owners in the United States. And the guy says to him, Someone gave me your number. Are you still looking for a job? He says: I am. He says: Can you meet me within the hour? He goes: I can. The guy interviews him, likes him, and offers him a dream job, something way beyond an entry level management position, managing a substantial facility with a great salary, with so much opportunity for growth. This fellow literally went from darkness to light. How? With one moment of Gevurah, of strength. And I'll share one more story and then we'll bring it together. There's a particular family, who has a family member that they're very close to, who's not so focused on areas of Kedushah, and they were making a Simcha. And they very much wanted to participate in this family member’s Simcha, but they knew that it would not be the type of event for their family, for their children to be by. There would be way too many Nisyonos and areas of Shmiras HaEinayim, and it was a very difficult internal struggle what to do. In the end, they called the relative, they shared how much they loved them, and they said, We can't come, because we're really careful. And you know what? The relative was respectful. The very next day, the father and the son, who was just Bar Mitzvah, are walking into Shul, and they see there's a raffle for a car and the boy turns to his father and says, Tatty, we really can use another car. I have some Ma’aser money. I'm buying a raffle ticket. And his father says: Okay. My friends, they won a brand new car. Now, you may say to yourself, That's crazy. One decision and you get a job? One decision and you get a car? The answer is: I don't know. I don't know if the decision has the power to get it. But it's very possible that the Ribono shel Olam wanted to give this guy a job. The job was sitting there and waiting at the door. The car was literally sitting there and waiting behind the curtain. All these people had to do was pull the curtain, was open the door. That was one moment's decision, and then HaKadosh Baruch Hu poured out the Shefa. So we wonder sometimes why, when it comes to Shmiras HaEinayim, is the reward through the roof? And the answer is because maybe Hashem, anyways, wanted to give us the Yeshuah, the Refuah, the Parnassah, the Shidduch, the Shalom Bayis. We just need to make a move. A moment of Gevurah could change everything.