You Are a Wonder | Rabbi Zev Smith

I once heard a speaker who was trying to generate some Mesirus Nefesh from the listeners. He said: Think about our Zeydes, all that they gave up, and what we're doing, we should be ashamed of ourselves. Although he meant well, he must have forgotten a Gemara and a pasuk. The Navi Zecharia paints a magnificent picture of what it's going to look like in ימות המשיח. And then he adds a mysterious pasuk. When it will be wonderous, when it'll be spectacular in your eyes, said the Ribono shel Olam: It will be a פלא in my eyes. Now what did that mean? Is that what the Geulah will look like, something spectacular that we don't understand? And what does it mean, the Ribono shel Olam doesn't understand? The Gemara in Sukkah speaks about that awesome day, when the Ribono shel Olam Shechts the Yetzer Hara, and Tzaddikim will cry. And the Gemara continues and brings this very pasuk, Even the Ribono shel Olam will not believe what we did. But what does that mean? I'm convinced anybody living in this דור אחרון understands the Gemara very simply. Was there ever a generation with such an overwhelming Nisayon like we have in this דור אחרון? Wherever we go, we are bombarded by the temptations of the world around us. When we go in the street, when we go shopping, at work, at home. The Gemara says not only Yetzer Hara מתגבר בכל יום, but מתחדש. Every day, there's a new temptation. Remember the good old days, the worst thing was newspapers? And then it was magazines, and then it was radio and television and movies and videos and internet, and it gets worse by the day. And we wonder, How can we survive in this Galus? The answer, in the words of the גר”א on that Gemara, is we don't have the ability to succeed. But the Ribono shel Olam programmed the world, when a Yid does all he can, he's zoche to Siyata D’Shmaya. Dear Yidden, we shouldn't sell ourselves short. Every day, we have a struggle, another Vayimaen moment, but it adds up, and we lose sight of the accumulation of so many zchusim. So much so, that when Moshiach comes, we won't believe that we did that. And the truth is, we can't believe it because it's unbelievable. Because גם בעיניי יפלא, even the Ribono shel Olam can't believe that we were so successful. An incessant bombardment of Yetzer Hara and look how you shine in Galus. Dear Yidden, we have nothing to be ashamed of in our Avodas Hashem. It's our persistence, it's our devotion, it's our believing in הבא ליטהר מסייעין אותו, that will be, eventually, the beauty of the Geulah. Because we realize that we do what we could do, and the Ribono shel Olam will help us. I was once talking to someone, I felt he could do more, and he blurted out, What do you want from me? I'm only human. And I told him: You’re not allowed to say that. He goes: Why not? Because a Yid is not human. A Yid is a פלא. A Yid is an opportunity to be a פלא, to be that wonder of creation. Let us realize that right now, we are forming the beauty of the Geulah with our devotion to being the פלא in Galus. And let's hope to see the realization of our dreams be בקרוב, במהרה בימינו, אמן.