Cigarettes from Paris | Rabbi Moshe Aharon Friedman

The story of the convert that wanted to know and sum up the whole Torah while standing on one foot, and he was told, What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. But this can be read, by way of allusion, what is detrimental לחברך, to your connection, to your חיבור to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, simply put: לא תעביד. Just don't do it. Now that sums up the ‘Turn away from evil’, but I want to focus on the ‘and do good’. The Gemara says that by a child, when you decide he's a Gadol, not Bar Mitzvah, younger, but old enough to do certain things, the Gemara’s wording is, If given a pebble, he throws it away. If given a nut, he takes it. He knows the difference between the rock, the pebble, which has no value, and the nut, which has something inside. But the truth is to be an Adam Gadol, all through life, is about throwing away the pebble, to know what's just a useless pebble and taking the nut, and know what's important. And when you know what's important, then you're a Gadol. And when you know you’re a Gadol and you have that awareness, then it's not even a challenge about the turning away from evil. You know you're someone great, better, different. When you're on that plane, and of course, you're not looking at the entertainment, but the gentile sitting next to you is, it's not even a challenge. You want to associate with that? He's playing with a pebble. You’re taking the nut. ‘His heart was uplifted’. You're someone greater than that and you're above that. There's a beautiful story about a Chosid that had to go to Paris. This is in pre-war Europe. And the Imrei Emes told him, Oh, you have to go to Paris? Do me a favor. In Paris, there are very expensive cigarettes that you could only get there that are duty free. Please get me a packet of those cigarettes. The Chosid totally forgot about it until he got back to Poland. And he felt bad that he didn't do the Rebbe’s mission, but he went and found, for very expensive, to get those cigarettes in Warsaw. And he went into the Rebbe, and he said, I was supposed to get you the cigarettes in Paris. I forgot, I admit, but Baruch Hashem, I spent the money, I got you the cigarettes. The Rebbe looked at him with a knowing smile. I need your cigarettes from Paris? I need that when you’re in Paris, you remember that you have a Rebbe. You remember that you have Hakadosh Baruch Hu on top of you. You remember you want to stay a Gadol, you want to stay close to Hashem and on the level that's needed. That's what I wanted from you. Now, we learned recently in the Gemara in Menachos about the fellow that the Tzitzis protected him from doing an Aveira. The Tzitzis gave him a slap. But there's a vort from the Sar Shalom of Belz. He says: We know Tzitzis has 32 strings, לב, doing it with your whole heart, eight strings on each corner. Technically, if your Tzitzis started with 32 strings and a few of them ripped, you’ve still fulfilled the Mitzvah of Tzitzis. He said: Yeah, you’ve fulfilled the Mitzvah, but it won't have that protective mechanism. Only if you do it with the full 32. Because you have to do it with your whole heart. And he said it by way of allusion. The saying of the Sages, The Torah addressed this only to counter the evil inclination. He read it to mean, לא is 31, the Torah spoke. By Torah law, 31 strings is also enough. אלא is 32 in Gematria, to counter the evil inclination. If you do it with your full heart and the full awareness of that you want to connect and you don't want to do anything detrimental to your connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that will protect you and connect you to Ribono shel Olam. That is the ‘do good’ of Vayimaen.