Rabbi's Blog

יום שישי, ב' בניסן, תש"פ
Friday, March 27, 2020

How do we avoid getting used to something that we don’t want to get used to?!

I heard a story that due to the danger of impending war, the Chofetz Chaim had to flee to another town for a while. While in his town, the Chofetz Chaim never saw chillul Shabbos first hand, but in his temporary city of refuge he witnessed many disturbing acts of desecration of kedushas Shabbos. We can only imagine how much this bothered him and impacted his Shabbos.

The second Shabbos he was there however, the Chofetz Chaim cried even more than the first. When asked why he was so much more upset, he replied, “Last week I cried because of the chilul Shabbos. This week I’m crying because I can’t cry about it like I cried last week. It no longer bothers me like it bothered me then.”

Last week we were exiled from our Shul for the first time. Last Shabbos was awkward in so many ways.

This Shabbos, we already know the drill. Last week set a precedent that will simply be repeated. It will not be so awkward. We already have a makom kavua in our home, and we have been davening there for some time now. In and of itself, that’s good. We need to have a certain comfort and yishuv hadaas to be able to daven properly. The flip side, of course, is that our exile won’t bother us as much as it did last week. It won’t be as awkward as it was last Shabbos.

This is not something I want to get used to! We must maintain a positive attitude, but at the same time we have to also remain conscious that we have been thrown out of our of Shul, and we CANNOT GET USED TO THIS!