Rav Avigdor Miller on Avoiding Danger on Chanukah

A:

We said here many times that אם רואה אדם שיסורים באים עליו – if a person sees misfortune coming upon him, יפשפש במעשיו – he must search out his deeds.  Yes, absolutely. But included in this searching out is to find out maybe he’s the one who caused it himself.

I’ll give you a mashal.  I already told this story here more than once.  A young man told me once that a meshulach from Eretz Yisroel came to his house.  And so he went and put a glass of hot tea on the table for the meshulach.  Then he went to the kitchen to prepare a meal for the meshulach.  In the meantime, his child came along and tipped the hot tea upon the child himself and he was scalded and taken to the hospital.

He came to me and he said, “For what sin did this happen?  What sin did I do to deserve such a thing?”

I said, “The sin of leaving a child alone with a cup of hot tea on the table.”  That’s a sin.  That’s called יפשפש במעשיו.

Here’s the case of a man who is mekayem on Chanukah lighting mehadrin min hamehadrin.  A true story.  Every child has their own Chanukah candle.  And this man had a son, a little boy, and he told him that he’s going to light the Chanukah candles this year. Fine. Very nice. Mehadrin min hamedrin.  But then the father went out of the room and the son caused a fire and he burned himself to death.

So the father was mekabel be’ahava.  “Hashem punished me.  Maybe I talked loshon hara, maybe.  Maybe I didn’t daven with kavana.”  But the sin that he left his son alone with the candles, that didn’t occur him.  It’s a terrible sin!

The Rambam says in a certain section of his Yad Hachazaka, so the heading is Hilchos Rotzeiach u’Shmiras Hanefesh – The Laws of Murder and Guarding Yourself. You hear the heading the Rambam made, the two words together?  Rotzeiach u’shmiras hanefesh. It’s because when a person doesn’t watch safety, so he’s a rotzeiach, a murderer.

(June 1, 2000)