23 Dec VAYIGASH: TESHUVAH AND IMPROVEMENT

It states (Mishlei
26:14) “The door
turns on its hinges, and
a lazy person on his
bed.” Reb Shimshon
Pinkus zt’l asks about
the connection between
the hinges and a lazy
person.
Let’s say there’s a
yeshiva where one
thousand bachurim
study. The door of the
beis medresh opens
more than ten thousand
times each day. (There are three sedarim daily,
three tefillos, and one has to wash his hands
before the tefillah. And sometimes one has
to go outside for some other reason, so it can
easily reach 10,000 times a day, and probably
more than that.) But how far do the doors get
after opening and closing so many times?
How many miles do they travel? Not far at all,
the doors remain in their original place. This
is because they are connected with hinges and
don’t detach from them, so they stay where the
hinges are. The same is true for a lazy person.
He is attached to the bed, from all sides, top
and bottom, and he can’t get out of the bed.
The same applies to all matters that a person
is attached to, such as bad habits or the foolish

pursuits of this world. He is connected to
something and remains in the same place. One
must remove the hinges and allow himself to
change and improve his ways.
There once was a person who lived in
Berdichev and was on a very low level in
ruchniyus, making bad choices in life. The
Berdichever Rav zt’l would go to him and
urge him to do teshuvah. The man would reply,
“Rebbe, I will do teshuvah later. Now I don’t
have time for that.”
Eventually, this man became very ill, and the
Berdichever Rav visited him and said, “Now is
your last chance. Do teshuvah.”
The man replied, “Oy, Rebbe! The Rebbe sees
that I don’t have the strength to do teshuvah
now.”
The Berdichever Rav told him a story: There
was a poritz who had many animals on his
estate. He asked one of his workers to construct
a barn for the animals so they wouldn’t be
harmed by the rain, snow, and cold when
the winter came. The worker said, “It is still
summertime. When winter arrives, I will build
a shelter for the animals.”
Winter came; there was rain, snow, and cold.
He told his worker, “Just look at how much
damage you caused me because you didn’t
build a shelter for the animals!”

He replied, “It is winter now. What does the
Poritz want from me? How can I build a barn
in the winter?”
The ill person understood the message that the
Berdichever Rav was telling him. He cried,
and he died amidst his crying. The Rav said
that he died while doing teshuvah.
Hashem asks a person to do teshuvah, and the
person replies, “I will do teshuvah later. Elul is
coming. I will do teshuvah when it is Elul…”
After Elul, he says, “I will do teshuvah on Yom
Kippur.” And when these dates arrive, he says
he doesn’t have the strength to do teshuvah. But
a person should know that every day is a good
time to do teshuvah. When he is inspired to do
teshuvah, that is the best time for teshuvah. He
should break away from the hinges holding
him back and improve his ways.
A bachur in his thirties was 97% blind, r’l, due
to an illness. He underwent two operations on
his eyes, and he traveled with his parents to
America for the third operation. On the day of
the operation, his father woke up his son and
told him that they must rush to the hospital
so they wouldn’t be late. The son said that he
wanted to daven first. The father said that there
wasn’t time for that. If he wants, he can daven
in the taxi, on the way to the hospital.
The family belongs to the Stoliner chassidus,

and the custom in Stolin is to daven loudly
because it helps to have kavanah. The bachur
wanted to daven according to their tradition so
he could daven with kavanah. The father told
him that if he davens loudly in the taxi, the taxi
driver will likely drop them off in the middle
of the way.
The taxi driver who arrived to pick them up
was deaf! He communicated with people
in writing. It is rare to find such a driver,
especially a taxi driver who is deaf. But
Hashem arranged it so this bachur could daven
with kavanah, loudly, as usual, in the taxi as
they drove to the hospital for his operation.