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Enlighten Our Eyes

the.guard Monday, 16 October 2017
Part 3/50 (to see other parts of the article, click on the pages at the bottom)

Streetwise


As we step outdoors, most of us feel an urge to look all around and survey what is happening in the vicinity. Our glance darts hither and thither - who's this, and what's happening there? A mild curiosity concerning what's going on might seem harmless enough, but if it awakens a longing to see a particular thing, it will then be more difficult to look aside. Indeed, a major hazard for shmiras einayim is our well-entrenched habit of giving in to curiosity.

What started off as "I just want to see what's doing" could suddenly turn into an attraction. And if it does, it's our own doing because we didn't recognize the danger. The more we look around, the more our curiosity will be piqued. Why open new battlefields for ourselves?

It would serve our interest, therefore, to pre-empt the snags and potholes. If, before heading out we could give ourselves a mini mental briefing, it could run something like this: "I wish to go somewhere now, and there is nothing on the way that requires my investigation. I do not want my eyes pulling me in all directions. This urge to never miss what's going on is really quite pointless and unbecoming. How many times has my inquisitive nature led me to stumble? Curiosity comes with an expensive price tag."

Straightening out our priorities would then lessen our precarious juggling act: trying to catch half-glimpses while simultaneously hoping, of course, to maintain our purity.

Overcoming inquisitiveness, like anything else, can be accomplished with habit. Those twitches of curiosity that were forever pushing us to look around start to fade away over time.

Is there any way we could get a head start and prepare ourselves before stepping out into the streets?

There most certainly is. Off-site eye-control training can be practiced even in shul, while we daven or learn. Someone's likely to walk in sooner or later, and we find ourselves itching to look up for a quarter of a second just to know who it is. But no! We don't need to see! We really don't need to know who has just entered.

Begin with just one minute. During that time, no one and nothing will get you to lift your head up from the siddur or sefer you are looking into. During that time, we are exercising a skill which will keep us in good shape later, out of shul, when we need to slip into "on-guard mode."

Overcoming curiosity means we are far less likely to come in contact with trouble - it's the "stitch in time."

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