EMOR

A person must be very careful about the counting (sephirat) of the omer.... He should not do it like someome who is functioning by rote.... A person whose eyes have seen what the Holy Zohar and the Arizal have written about the greatness and importance of the tikunim (rectifications) which are effected when this mitzvah is fulfilled will understand how proper it is for a person to prepare his heart and mind to count the omer with its powerful kavannot. However, it is not for everyone to take up concentration upon the kavannot of the Arizal.

Therefore, a person should prepare himself for prayer like one of the downtrodden. Before the counting he should fill his heart with true faith, for yirat shamayim and awe of G-d are secreted within this mitzvah. When he does it, he is accomplishing tremendous tikunnim in the spiritual realms (in the realm of the sephirot).

He should recite a short prayer before this important mitzvah that the counting should be considered by G-d as if he conceived all the kavannot which were known to the Men of the Great Assembly. He should make the declaration that he is doing the mitzvah for the glory of G-d, to make unifications of the Divine Name (i.e., to combine the entities of the spiritual realms according to the kavannot), and then he should say the bracha with great joy.

When he completes the blessing, he should take a moment to prepare himself with even greater joy to do the actual mitzvah of counting the day's number....

(Yesod Veshoresh Ha'avodah)

The sefer "Zichron Ya'akov" tells some of the heroic stories of the "cantonists," the children who were kidnapped from their homes in order to be inducted into the army of Czar Nicholas.

The officers of the brigade in which many cantonists had been placed were expecting a visit of the Czar in the year 5600 (1840). They wanted to show him what a splendid job they were doing reeducating these Jewish children. Therefore, they prepared a mass, baptismal conversion along the bank of the river which went through the town of Kuyzan in Russia.

The children were brought from the canton to the river. Priests of the Russian Church dressed in their finest ceremonial robes were waiting for the children there. The carriage of Czar Nicholas approached.

When the Czar came from his carriage, he ordered the children to enter the water to be baptized. They answered with one mind and one heart, "We will do as you say."

When they all entered the river the Czar was amazed by the discipline and the stupendous sight. The water covered the children..., but then only bubbles came up. The children had drowned themselves in order to sanctify the name of G-d with one mind and one heart in front of Czar Nicholas. Concerning them it is written, "...I will return them from the depths of the sea" (Psalms 68:23).

Our rabbi invested tremendous effort to keep away from reading secular books and newspapers. He saw in them a source of corruption and the doorway leading into the pit.

Similarly, Rav Shalom Mordechai Hacohen Schwadron told a hairraising story whose shocking lesson teaches how much a person must stay away from periodicals containing abominable material. Read the story and see that you should not bring disgusting things into your house.

There were two talmedai chachamim in Yerushalayim. One had children; each one was kosher and a yirat shamayim. The chidlren of the second rabbi, may G-d have mercy, were entirely in the opposite direction.

The second rabbi was very troubled and pained by the situation of his children. He wanted to know what was the root of the problem in his children's education, especially why his children went the way they did whereas his friend's children were the opposite. They had both studied together and grew up together; they sent their children to the same schools, and both houses were steeped in yirat shamayim. Since both houses were so identical, why were the results so opposite? He wanted to know what was his error to publish it in public that at least other people will know and take care.

He went to the house of his friend and spoke openly. "I want to clarify with you what mistake I made in the education of my children."

They both sat together and discussed their various practices in education, detail by detail, until they discovered a glaring difference. Although it was a small point and seemingly meaningless, they both decided that this was the difference between them and the cause of the second rabbi's calamity.

It happened that both of them bought fish in the same store. The storekeeper would wrap the fish in pages of a secular newspaper. The first rabbi was scrupulous to make sure that the paper was thrown into the garbage before it reached his house, whereas it sufficed the second rabbi to throw the paper into the garbage after it reached his house.

They found that this was the only difference between them...!