Rav Avigdor Miller on The Mussar of Mosquitoes
Q:
What lesson should we learn from the mosquitoes and the diseases that they sometimes carry?
A:
For us the lesson is as follows. Many people who should be sitting in the Yeshivos and the Batei Midrashim in the evenings and whenever they have spare time, are instead going out and wandering around in places they shouldn’t be. Who said that you should be walking around in the parks and sitting on the stoops wasting your time?! Sunday, for instance. Sunday you have a day off. They could be sitting all day in the yeshiva. But no, instead they’re wandering around all day in the fields, in the parks, and they’re getting bit by mosquitoes.

Now a simple bite should be enough of a warning. But sometimes people ignore the simple warnings. And so they get sick. Some people, chas v’shalom, get lyme disease, from lying in the grass instead of sitting at the shtender. And it’s a lesson they should make use of.

They should be at home making use of their lives when they have spare time. You wait a whole week for that one day off from your job. So you should be going to the yeshiva on Sunday. Don’t most people have off on Sunday? So go to the yeshiva and take along breakfast and lunch and stay the whole day in the yeshiva. Stay there all day long and come home for supper. That’s how you should live. Be a kollel man once a week. But no, you have to go wandering in the country, in the woods where the deer are spreading disease and there are ticks. Sometimes the blades of grass are poisoned with dangerous germs. And the children wander there too. So you want to wander in the woods and sit on the grass as if you forgot that you’re in this world to accomplish something with your life?!

So, make sure to use the mosquitoes as a lesson, a reminder, of what you’re here in this world for – that you’re responsible for spending your leisure time in the best way possible.