Not advice, but a lesson I always remember –
We all would like to think that during the times of Chanuka, we would have been in the small group of people who stayed strong and listened to the Maccabees. What was the difference between the masses of people who turned into misyavnim and the small group of people who didn’t? The ones who became misyavnim heard what the chochomim said and said to themselves: “Oh that doesn’t apply to me. I’m above that” etc, or “that’s a nice level, but it’s not for me”. They made decisions for themselves and thought they knew better. The small group that we all hope we would have been a part of were the ones who listened to the chochomim, no matter what they said, no matter how extreme it was or whether or not it applied to them. They followed blindly and they were the ones who were able to stick it out and stay on the right side.
This thought always crosses my mind when I start to doubt how much the words of the chochomim actually apply to me. Especially in these tough times, we have to cling to them, or else ch”v, we’ll be on the misyavnim’s side of Chanuka when this is all over.