Way Beyond a Mikvah | Rabbi Ari Bensoussan

R’ Don Segal told over an incredible story. He said that the old Shomer Emunim Rebbe, when they brought him over to Yerushalayim, to live in Me’a She’arim, he would walk the streets of Me’a She’arim on Friday, to go to the Mikvah. And his Chasidim heard him say once, Ah, I miss the immorality of the streets of Pest, back in Europe. And the Rebbe saw that, to the astonishment of his Chasidim, they couldn't believe their ears. So the Rebbe said: Let me tell you, When I would walk to the Mikvah, over there in the streets of Pest, the immorality of the streets, it was all around me. And so, I was עוצם my עיניים, I would have to close my eyes tight to not look at any of the going ons around me. And the Rebbe smiled and said, Whatever Kedushah and Tahara I got from the Mikvah, it could not compare to the Kedushah and the Tahara that I got from closing my eyes in the streets of Pest. He said: Over here in Yerushalayim, over here in Me’a She’arim, it's so beautiful. There's nothing to close your eyes to. So all I have is the Kedushah and the Tahara of the Mikvah. It's an amazing thing, the chance, the challenge, the opportunity, and also the inevitability, of what comes to all of us as we walk the streets. When immorality is dancing around us, all over, when the Satan himself is being מרקד, when he dances in front of us, when that טומאה on the outside wants to invade us, in that moment, we can be עוצם עיניים. We can close our eyes and we can think that the same way a Mikvah is מטהר את הטמאים, the same way that a Mikvah, it purifies those who are impure, אף הקדוש ברוך הוא מטהר את ישראל, Hashem is the one who purifies us. When and how? When you close the world out around you, and it's just you and Hashem, with closed eyes, in that moment, you should think to yourself that a Mikvah has nothing on the Kedushah and the Tahara of the moment that a Yid closes his eyes to the impurities and immoralities around the world. And for that moment out of time, it's just him and it's Hashem in Kedushah and Tahara together. It is at that moment, that the inevitable challenge will have turned into the most promised Schar.