Regaining our Sensitivity | Rabbi Elchonon Jacobovitz

A Gerrer Chosid by the name of Yankel, who lived in a mixed neighborhood, was approached one day by his secular neighbor, Ron. And Ron was livid. He said, You, religious people, you people, you're so primitive. And he starts telling him that he was at an IDF event, where the soldiers were graduating, and there was a woman who was put up to sing. And the religious soldiers, they made a whole commotion. A woman’s singing voice, a woman’s singing voice. And he said: What's wrong with you, religious people? I hear a woman's singing voice a whole day, it doesn't have any effect on me. You people are so primitive. So Yankel says: You know what? It's a great question, I don't know the answer, but let's go together to my Rebbe in Yerushalayim. We'll see what he has to say. Shockingly, Ron takes him up on his offer, and the very next day, they find themselves in front of the Gerrer Rebbe in Yerushalayim. And Yankel tells the Rebbe: This is my neighbor, and this is the question that he asked me. What does the Rebbe have to say? So the Rebbe looks at the fellow and asks him, Tell me, Did you ever see the Bedouins? Did you ever notice how they walk barefoot on rocks and glass and they don't even flinch? So tell me, who's more primitive, you or the Bedouin? You know, our generation is called עקבתא דמשיחא. And עקבתא means the heel. And my Rebbi, R’ Moshe Shapiro zt”l, always used to say, You know why we're called ‘the heel’? It's because our generation's problem is not that we're bad. It's that we're callous. Just like the heel. We don't feel, we get used to things, it becomes the new normal, and we don't even flinch. Someone once told R’ Shteinman that he reads newspapers and he listens to the radio, and it has no effect on him. And R’ Shteinman told him, Could you imagine how many things you must have heard and seen that you shouldn't have to get to the point where it doesn't even have an effect on you anymore? And the Sfas Emes tells us that that's exactly what happened to Klal Yisroel in Egypt. They became callous, and therefore the first step out was, And I will take you out from under the burdens of Egypt. Getting them out of their tolerance level for the impurity of Egypt, from tolerating Egypt. And those that were so callous that they couldn't regain their feeling, those who lived in a world of the plague of darkness, of a dulling of the senses, they never made it out. When the Western Wall was captured in 1967, there was a tremendous outpouring of emotion. The soldiers were bawling. And one soldier, a religious soldier, turned to his friend, a secular soldier, and he said, I know why I'm crying, but what are you crying for? Why are you crying? And the secular soldier answered him, Me? I’m crying over the fact that I’m not crying. I'm crying because I don't even feel what there is to cry about. Don't be that soldier when Moshiach comes and Hashem’s palace descends from Heaven. Take something you've become numb to and try to regain your sensitivity. Experience your own And I will take you out from tolerating Egypt. Because to get into that palace, you can't be callous.