The families of Kehos will camp on the south side of the Mishkan. (Bamidbar 3:29)
-near them was the camp of Ruvain who camped on the south side. Woe to the wicked, woe to his neighbor… – Rashi

In this week’s parsha, Rashi reminds us of a famous statement made by our Sages: woe to the wicked, woe to his neighbor. In Parshas Korach, men from the tribe of Ruvain and families of Kehos (who were neighbors) joined together and started a rebellion against Moshe. Rashi points out in this week’s parsha why it was specifically these two tribes: because they were constantly in contact with each other. On the other hand, the tribes of Yehuda, Yissochar, and Zevulun, where the most righteous people came from, were camped right next to Moshe and Aharon. The good they saw from being around these tzaddikim rubbed off on them. We can learn from this how neighbors influence each other.

But it is not only physical neighbors that influence people. It is also the thoughts that constantly reside in our mind influence us.

One paragraph changed my entire life. I read it when I was a junior or senior in college in Gateway to Happiness by Rabbi Zelig Plisken. In this book, Rav Plisken states that if a person constantly focuses on negative thoughts, the person will be a negative person, but if his thoughts are constantly positive, then he will be a happy person. Whatever a person always thinks about will become his reality. Therefore, if a person has a positive attitude and tries to look for the good in everything, he will remain happy even during the roughest of times. For example, a comparison was once made between the happiness level of people with terrible long-term illnesses verses people who won the lottery. Initially, those that won the lottery had much more happiness, but after a few weeks, the exact opposite was true – those with the illness were actually happier. This is because those with the illness, although they were going through much more suffering in their lives, were able to focus on the positive. Since they focused on the positive, they had happy lives. Unfortunately, many who won the lottery continued to behave the way they always had and focused on negative things. Even though they could now afford to pay for many more luxuries than they would ever need, they still did not have happiness, because they focused on negative thoughts.

Neighbors are constantly around each other and therefore, they influence each other. The same thing is with a person’s thoughts: a person’s own thoughts influence himself. If his thoughts are positive, then it is like a good neighbor, but if they are negative, it can make a person become sad, angry, mad, or depressed. A person always needs to try his best to focus on all of the positives in life.

Years ago, there used to be songs that had a chorus of “She Loves Me, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” and similar thoughts. Now, the chorus of the songs is “I used to love her, but I had to kill her.” There seems to be a trend in the world towards being negative. Let’s change that and the best way to start it is with ourselves. We need to physically remove ourselves from being surrounded by negative people and also we need to constantly work on focusing on positive ideas.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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