How Can Looking At Idolatry Destroy Your Soul?

0:14Rav Kotler said that he had a bachur that came to him one time and said, "I'm going to convert to Christianity." Rav Kotler thought he was joking. wants to convert to Christianity. He said, no, no, I'm serious. I want to convert to Christianity. Why? I don't know how to convert. Do you have a reason? I just want to do it. I have this desire. I want to do it. They tried talking to him. He would completely reject everybody. He didn't want to talk to anybody. He didn't even want to hear an argument. It wasn't like today, where people want to hedge, prove me here, prove nothing. He didn't want to hear anything. He's like, that's it. I'm converting. There was a big tzaddik named the Rebbe of Mikovnitz. They went to him. He said, "Rebbe, what do we do?" The Rebbe Mikovnitz must have had Ruach HaKodesh. He told him, "Ask this boy, what kind of watch does he have?" He says, "No, Rebbe, he has three watches." "How do you know he has three watches?" "Because he always has a problem waking up in the morning to get to shul on time, so he has three watches. One alarm, another alarm, another alarm. So, ask this boy, where does he..."

1:42Fixes his watch to make sure that it's the right time because, you know, after a while, depending on the manufacturer, the cheaper the watch is, the more likely it is to start becoming a little inaccurate with the time. It's slow or too fast, and so on. So every so often, you have to fix it. So where does he fix it? Based on what? So they went to the guy and said, the Rebbe of Kobrin is saying, ask him about the watch out of all the things in the world. You figure, you ask the guy what book he's reading, who's his father, who's his mother, let's check his breed. I don't know, something that's like, I don't know, it's obvious to us, regular people. No, no, no. His watch, I want to see his watch. Where does he fix his watch? They asked the boy, where do you fix your watch to make sure it's on time? No, what are you talking about? Christianity again? No, no, no. We just want to ask, where do you fix the watch? Not here. What do you mean? Well, the kollel here, the yeshiva here, the clock on the wall is not right. So every week, I go to the clock that's on the church. I go to the clock on the church and I fix all three of my watches. All three of my clocks, I fix them based on that because that one's right.

2:59They went to the Rebbe of Mikovnitch, and they said, "This is what he does." He replied, "Exactly. That's where the Tumah is coming from. He's looking at that clock and he's receiving Tumah without even knowing it. Tell him we're buying a new clock for the yeshiva. It's the best clock in the world. And from now on, just look at that clock. And if he asks you, 'When can I convert?' tell him next week." They went, they bought the clock, a big beautiful clock. They brought it into the yeshiva. "Okay, we got you the best clock in town. We had to invest a lot of money. I like to have a lot of money, but the same in the Shema, you're not going to buy a clock." They brought the clock into the yeshiva, "Hey, this is the best clock in town. From now on, you don't have to go to the church, just fix your clock based on this one." "But I'm converting." "Okay, convert next week. But just make sure to use this clock first." A week passed, he didn't want to convert anymore. The desire to convert for no reason left. Why? He wasn't receiving the Tum'ah from the clock. That's a sipur from Rav Kotler—Rav Aharon Kotler, Gadol HaDor of the previous generation. I heard it from Rabbi Fein.