CHOCHMAS NASHIM: STUCK IN A MUCK…NOT
By: Suri Stern
This week’s Torah portion is Behaalotchah, when you rise.
When spring came, my long time sage bush seemed dead, truly dead. I didn’t have time to uproot it and throw it away, and time passed. Yes, some of the leaves did die, but literally from the top of the stems came new sage leaves and from the bottom of the bush the leaves came forth beautiful and green.
Alternatively, my beautiful lilac bushes, also decades old, one on one side of my home to enliven the dining room and my bedroom on the second level, and the other lilac bush, to freshen up my living room and my son’s bedroom, both laid low by a moth. No lilacs this year, but from those roots have sprouted young branches which have started growing up.
K’heref Ayin, in a blink of an eye. What do we really know. It looks dead to us, but G-d has another plan. At the end of pirkei avoth which we learned right before Shavuot, we learn, 6:11: “ Everything that the Holy One Blessed Be He created in this world, He created only in order to reveal His glory, as it says in Yeshaya;, Everything that is called by My name, I have created, formed, and made for My Glory…”
In this week’s haftorah, at the end, Zecharia tells King Zeurbavel: “Not with courage, nor with might, but with My spirit” shall the Jews sit in the land of Israel.
The war cabinet in Israel has been disbanded. The United States, and the other countries of the world attempted to dictate to Israel what it should do in its war of justice, and when Israel showed it was not going to be bullied by them, and moved forward to take back four hostages, we showed it is not the power of the nations, it is by the will of G-d that Israel survives and cares for its own.
We are over 255 days in war, last Shabbos we lost 8 of our sons in battle, but this week’s haftorah reminds us that those sitting in yeshiva are helping the war effort as much as those with guns. It is my humble opinion that those learning torah, should show their support of the soldiers as they did at the beginning of war, by feeding them, dancing with them to keep up morale, laying tefillin with them, making tzitzit for them, so they feel it is a united effort. It is as the Lubavitch have it, learning in the morning to better themselves, so they can share with others, by helping others do mitzvoth and see a clearer connection with G-d.
I end this week’s dvar Torah with a passage from this week’s daf yomi, Bava Metzia 107a:
Rab said: “Blessed are you in the city, blessed are you in the field, blessed are you when you come, and blessed are you when you leave.” All is good, for G-d bestows good, see my podcast on Spotify, Lesson 4, which discussed how trust in G-d brings tranquility, for while reliance on one’s self is limiting, and reliance on others are limited by their knowledge and experience, not so trust in G-d who is omnipotent and omniscient and only good.
May G-d bless Israel and its rulers with wisdom to bring home the hostages and remove the enemy from within and merit to bring Moshiach speedily in our days.
Good Shabbos.
Suri