When You Really, Really Want | Chaim Pazskes

Today is Lag BaOmer. For me, this means it's the yohrzeit of Shraga Eliyahu Gestetner. Shraga Eliyahu ben R’ Chaim Eliezer Dovid. He was my שותף for many, many years, until, unfortunately, we lost him in תשפ”א, by the terrible tragedy in Meron. And reflecting and thinking back, I think of someone who really, really changed his life so drastically, in so many ways, throughout those last seven years of his life. Originally, I got to know Shragee in 2015. That was really when his spiritual journey started, when something personal happened in his life that he felt was a call from Shomayim. And throughout the summer, or the end of summer, Chodesh Elul of 2014, he was very into becoming closer to Hashem. He told me that Erev Rosh HaShanah תשע”ה, he had a very strong couple of moments with Hashem, and one of the things he told Hashem is that his Parnassah, his business right now is from music, and he feels that if he continues his career in music, it will definitely not help him to reach his goal to where he wants to be. In the middle of the night, he woke up. He had a dream. He was seeing himself standing in a trade show, and he was selling wall panels. He went to his Rebbe the next morning and the Rabbi told him that, You know, I think Hashem Yisborach was listening to your Tefillos. So Shragee actually started out, and he was developing a product. We actually have a patent on the product. But he developed for many, many months wall panels that you mount on the wall, and he decided that this is going to be his business. Being together all these years with Shragee, I witnessed many stories in his strength in Kabbalah in Shmiras Einayim. When we got to Vegas, the first time, for a show, the furniture show, we used to go twice a year, Shragee was, you know, had been in Vegas many, many times in his life, prior to business and prior to me getting to know him. And he turns around to me and he says, Chaim, let me tell you a little something about this place. We’re now being here, we’re setting up the show. We're going to be here for around a week. You have to be self-מתבונן when you land in this place, you have two ways to go. One way, you know, you could keep your eyes open and free and look around, or, you know, you could say, Hashem has put me in a place, and He’s giving me a tremendous opportunity that after a week, he could walk out of this place with a whole bag full of zchus and full of Olam Haba by not looking out. And all it takes is just five minutes of התבוננות, and you'll make a tremendous Nachas Ruach for the Aibishter that you can't even begin to imagine. And also Shragee shared with me that you know, when he changed the course of his life, he looked through his computer and his phone and YouTube and all the places for all the videos and all the time that he spent watching videos and movies, and he wanted to be Mekabel זה לעומת זה, that he would learn an hour Torah for every minute that he watched. And many years later, one day, he came into the office and he said to me: Chaim, today I'm very, very happy. So I said: Why? So he said to me: Today I finished learning all the hours of Torah that I was Mekabel to learn against the hours that I watched movies and videos. You can't even imagine and understand the Simcha that I have. I feel that the זה לעומת זה is definitely something that Hashem will be Mekabel and say that this person really meant it seriously. Reflecting on Shragee’s life, I think I could say that really he wasn't a Rosh Yeshiva, he wasn't a Rebbe. He was a regular guy, just like all of us. You know, he did business, he had a family. But the level that he reached in Yiras Shomayim, in Avodas Hashem, with everything with such התבוננות and everything with such depth, Shragee taught us that if you really want, and you really, really want and you ask Hashem, and you do what you can do, you’ll definitely reach very high places.