A little Manis for your thought

Yesterday I came up with a nice little phrase that pretty much described my lifeview: Think positively about reality. Good, no? Pretentious? Of course. Anyone who sits for 25 minutes a day and writes about himself for public consumption is certainly full of him or her self. So yes, it is sick of me to think that anyone is interested in reading my nonsense. It's also sick of athletes, politicians, actors, late-night talk-show hosts, and other scum to think that anyone is interested in their performances. It's even sicker that anyone is interested in their performances. Where does this leave me? Pretty average.
I just heard a realy nice vort from a R. Manis lecture. Rashi says that the reason Yitzchak, second of our forefathers, became blind was because of the incense his daughter's-in-law would burn for idolatry. Rashi then offers a second explanation, that his eyes were blinded by the tears of the angels who cried over him by the Akeida. Why did Rashi have to offer this second explanation? The first explanation makes perfect sense. Why bring in this mystical explanation, that Yitzchak was blinded many years earlier by angels? And why does the Torah have to tell us that Yitzchak became blind? Because of the story of Yaacov getting the blessings instead of his brother Eisav, which was only possible through Yitzchak's blindness.
Crying for Jewish children is an angelic thing to do. Rashi is saying that we have to be careful when we cry, because sometimes crying can have the wrong affect. The angels cried, and it caused Yitzchak to not be able to tell the difference between the holy Yaacov and the evil Eisav. So too we have to be careful, that our crying has a positive outcome, and not G-d forbid a negative one.
Nice, eh? Here's another story he told.
The Friedriker Rebbe, as a little boy, heard that to become Aidel (clean, pure, nice, etc.) you had to have Segufim (Self torture). He walked over to the samovar, put his hand under the faucet, and was about to turn it on. His father noticed this, stopped it, and said, among other things, "I don't need handicapped children." Why did the Rebbe say, "I"? The danger is to the kid, not the father! We have to assume that the Friedriker Rebbe was going to do this in order to please his father, because his father wants him to be Aidel, and Segufim make a person Aidel. So the Rebbe was saying that this does not please me. I do not want this.
This is the way to criticize a child, because a child should want his parent's approval. The strongest form of parental disapproval is to say that something does not please the parent.