The firefighter

What the Rav said:

If a person was able to take people speaking lashon hara (negative speech) about him 24 hours a day, he would be saved from all the fires [of gehinom] and he would complete his tikkun [rectification] immediately.

However, a person simply can’t stand up in this, so Hashem reduces it for him.

But, a person should know that if they would speak lashon hara about him 24 hours a day, it would be so much better for him.

My thoughts:

In our generation, we’re pretty weak.

We’re not able to get up every night for chatzot.

We’re not able to learn 24/7 like we should.

We can’t do the fasts and the other ‘sigufim’ – like rolling around in the snow.

So, really, how else are we going to manage to fix our bad middot, rectify our souls and save ourselves from a rather unpleasant sojourn in the fires of gehinom?

The answer is actually, remarkably simple.

We just accept the bizayon (disparagement, embarrassment) with good grace.

If we really understood how beneficial it would be to accept bizayon, we’d all be running after it 24/7!