Ehrich Weiss was born in 1874 and died in 1926. Most people never heard of Ehrich Weiss, but they know his stage name, Harry Houdini. Harry Houdini was a Hungarian Jew. His father, Rabbi Sam Weiss, moved to these shores and eventually, due to the challenge of the time, assimilated.
He became world famous. He was an unbelievable escape artist and could be put in all kinds of different challenging situations and come out unscathed. The London Daily newspaper created a challenge with special handcuffs. He was put in milk jars filled with water to the top, hung by a crane, and escaped. There were daring missions one after the other where he got out. Harry Houdini seemed to be unbeatable.
How did Harry Houdini die? Harry had a certain stunt where he would ask anyone in the crowd, “As strong as you may be, come over to me and you could punch me in the stomach.” He had extremely strong stomach muscles, and he was fine. One day, during one of his stunts, he was not properly braced at a weak moment. A fellow came and punched Harry in the stomach multiple times, rupturing his appendix, and he died a few days later from infection.
What is the lesson to us from that story? You can be the greatest of the greats and overcome all kinds of challenges, but if you're not ready for something, you don't prepare yourself, and you don't brace yourself, you might get into trouble. And that's the same in our story. We have to understand that in life we're going to get challenges. Going out on the street today is a challenge.
Rav Wolbe writes that just as there's a magnetic force that the magnet knows and that turns us from North to South, because there's a magnetic force in the world, there's a powerful force in the world that's pulling us to look at things we shouldn't look at. And Rav Wolbe said that sometimes a person raises their head and, oops, they see something they shouldn't look at, and they think it was an accident. He says, “No, there's actually a magnetic force that's pulling you towards that,” and that's where you have to come in with your vayema'en and pull back and say no to that force.
But if you're not aware of it and you're not ready for that force, then you could be as miraculous as Harry Houdini. If you don't brace yourself and you're not ready, you're not prepared, you might get into trouble. And that's our lesson: be aware that we're going out into a world that's full of punches, and you don't want to get punched in the stomach without being prepared.