Q:
Why doesn’t Hashem give humans the ability to see like an eagle sees and to hear as well as a bat can hear?
A:
Why didn’t Hashem give us the abilities that certain animals possess? And the answer is Hakodosh Boruch Hu in His great kindliness gave us what’s good for us. Let’s say a dog would come in here and there are a hundred people here listening to the lecture – each person has a separate smell and the dog recognizes the smell of each person. Everybody has their own smell.
Now, suppose you were gifted with that ability. Would it make you happy? It would be very unpleasant for you. And so we smell just enough to enjoy our food and to protect ourselves from harmful things. We enjoy our food a little more because of the smell and that’s enough for us. Our sense of smell also warns us about any spoiled food we’re about to place in our mouths. That’s why the nose is where it is, by the way. Hakodosh Boruch Hu placed your nose right above the mouth so that it should stand guard – anything that you try to put into your mouth, the nose is right there to check it out. So we have the sense of smell that we need. More than that is no good for us. It would ruin us; we’d be miserable.
Seeing too. This man would say the sight of an eagle would be very good. Eagles see very far away because an eagle flies on high and he has to see a dead rabbit some place a long distance off. An eagle needs that; he has to see that rabbit in order to survive. But we have eyes that see plenty. We see more than we have to see. It’s very important not to look where you’re not supposed to look. Ohhh! Watch your eyes! Watch your eyes! Lo sasuru acharai levavchem – don’t wander away after your eyes. The eyes have misled many people. There are many people who have followed their eyes into trouble and therefore to have the sight that an eagle has wouldn’t be good for us. We see plenty. We see all that we need.
And therefore all the functions that animals have that are necessary for their existence are for us very, very harmful and we say boruch Hashem that He gave us just what we need.
TAPE # 729
