Powerful Speakers Inspire Queens Men to Strengthen Kedushah and Prepare for the Yamim Nora’im
On Sunday night at Beth Gavriel in Forest Hills, hundreds of men gathered for a program titled “The Secret to the Best Life,” co-presented by Chazaq, Ami Athletics, and Guard Your Eyes (GYE). It aimed to prepare the community for the Yamim Nora’im and address one of the greatest spiritual battles of our generation: guarding our eyes in a world overflowing with distraction.
Rabbi Ilan Meirov, director of Chazaq, told over a brief but powerful Torah thought. “Out of all 365 negative mitzvos,” he noted, “the one singled out in Shema is not to stray after your eyes and your heart. If you control your eyes and heart, you can control everything else.” Ami Athletics was represented by its founder, Richie Nektalov, whose Richie Rich Wish Foundation continues to impact the Queens Jewish community. Special appreciation was given to Rafael Yakubov and Shalom Zirkiev for their dedication in helping bring the event together.
Charlie Harary delivered the first keynote. Drawing from pnimiyus, he explained that the final din is not sealed on Yom Kippur, but on Chanukah, when Jews confront the lingering influence of Greece. Harary recounted how Alexander the Great, guided by his “rabbi,” Aristotle, spread a worldview that placed man at the center of the universe. When Alexander entered Eretz Yisrael, he did not threaten to destroy the Beis HaMikdash. Instead, he asked the Kohen Gadol for something seemingly harmless: “Just let me leave a gymnasium nearby.” A little taste of Greek culture. But like germs, it spread. Slowly, ideology crept into Jewish life until even within the Beis HaMikdash, the “Greek virus” — glorifying the body, athletics, and surface over soul — began to take hold.
That same virus, he warned, is alive today. Sports fanaticism, billboards, and the obsession with pleasure are nothing more than modern Hellenism. “The only mitzvah left in America is sports,” he quipped, painting the picture of fathers screaming at a television set while their children absorb what really excites them. “Our children learn what we show them. If they see us pour our passion into a game but drag ourselves through daf yomi, they’ll know where the fire really is.”
“My battle is my eyes,” he declared, urging every man to recognize the power in the smallest choices. “Each time you turn away from something forbidden, that moment becomes an eis ratzon. Pray then. Pray for your wife, your children, for a good year. Every time you do it, you’re a Maccabee in Hashem’s army.”
Naftali Horowitz, managing director at Morgan Stanley and author of You Revealed, transported the audience to December 1944. Surrounded at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, General Anthony McAuliffe rejected the Nazi ultimatum to surrender with a single word: “Nuts!” Turning to his troops, he said: “We are surrounded. That means we can attack in any direction we choose.”
“That,” Horowitz said, “is our life. You walk through Midtown on a scorching day and there’s no safe direction to look — east, west, or even up. But being surrounded means you can win in any direction. Every no, every turn away, is a victory.”
He shared the story of Rav Azriel Tauber, zt”l, who once fell asleep learning in a hotel room and awoke devastated — until he noticed the television on the wall. “I can’t do what my grandfather the Chasam Sofer did, staying up all night with his feet in cold water,” Rav Tauber said. “But I can do something he couldn’t: spend a night in a hotel with a TV and not turn it on.”
Drawing from the Tanya, Horowitz explained that Hashem cherishes not only the tzaddik who conquers the yetzer hara completely but also the beinoni who fights again and again. “We’re not here to win the war once and for all. We’re here to keep battling,” he said.
He illustrated this with the story of a tzaddik who sank into depression, doubting the value of his Torah and mitzvos, until he remembered one unshakable truth: “Hashem made me a Jew.” That alone lifted him higher than angels. “Never underestimate the worth of simply being a Jew who keeps fighting,” Horowitz urged.
Horowitz concluded with a practice he keeps daily: “Each morning, I declare, ‘Everything I see today that is impure, I want nothing to do with it.’ That simple act of bitul changes the battle before it even begins.”
Rabbi Yaakov Nadel, founder of Guard Your Eyes, compared the internet to the Eitz HaDaas of our era — the sum of all human knowledge, now supercharged by AI. Just as Adam failed his test, so too our generation is being tested — but this time, we are poised to achieve the tikun right before Moshiach.
The organization has grown to serve more than 30,000 Jews and aims to reach 100,000. One in five members is a woman, and the spouses’ division has saved hundreds of marriages. More than a third of Orthodox Jews in 12-step recovery programs were first referred through its platform.
He laid out the resources available: the Flight to Freedom program with personalized dashboards, 50 Fortify video modules, active forums and accountability partners, subsidized TAG filters, daily chizuk videos through BAYN, and initiatives like ESAI, which engaged 1,500 boys this past Shovavim with learning, raffles, and trips to American Dream Mall. He also previewed a Kedushah Directory to be placed in every shul and home, covering everything from teen education to internet filters to spousal support.
The presentation ended with a video of rabbanim and therapists praising the initiative. HaRav Eli Mansour stated: “I’ve heard of a thousand yeshivas and camps, but only one organization dealing with internet filth — GYE.” HaRav Elya Brudny added: “In every generation, Hashem sends salvation. In this generation, it is Guard Your Eyes.”
By Shabsie Saphirstein
