Thursday, January 8, 2015
Parshas Shemos: Serving G-d even in Dire Straits!
11:30 AM | 
Posted by
Rabbi Chaim Coffman |
"And it was because the midwives feared G-d that He made them houses" (Exodus 1:21).
Rashi here mentions that the houses that they were given for saving Jewish children were the houses of the priesthood and kingship. Rav Moshe Feinstein z"l in Drash Moshe asks why this verse needs to be stated; after all, do we receive reward for the mitzvos that we do in this world?
Rav Moshe explains that a kohen needs to teach the people and serve G-d by doing the service in the Temple. He therefore needs to love his fellow Jew and have good character traits while sacrificing himself for the sake of the Jewish people.
They should serve G-d and the Jewish people through fear of heaven so they won't make mistakes in their ability to do what G-d expects of them. A king as well needs to have proper judgment and character traits to rule the people.
Sometimes they will be tested and could make costly mistakes that could result in thousands of deaths G-d forbid. He must have proper fear of heaven to insure that these mistakes are not made, keeping his enemies at bay and ruling properly.
The reason that fear of heaven is so important is because without it, they could put their people in tremendous danger. They must have a clear head at all times, really on G-d to help them iin times of great stress.
This is a timely message for all of us. We often see that life throws us curves that we weren't expecting. Not only that, it seems that the situation we have been placed in is impossible to navigate. It is times like these that we throw our hands up to heaven and declare that we only rely on You to help and guide us!
We have seen throughout the last 3,000 years that when the chips are down for the Jewish people, we cannot rely on the nations or anyone else to help us. G-d runs the world and helps in all situations even if we don't witness it directly.
If we look into our lives, we will have witnessed many times how that help has come and saved us from a perilous situation. Even if we are in dire straits, they don't last forever and eventually pass.
At the same time, we have to dig deep in the trenches of our belief in G-d and strengthen the idea of his control over the world even if we don't understand what is happening. We have seen over the last few months, many attacks against Jews in many parts of the globe based on tremendous hatred and calling for our destruction.
Before the messiah comes, the Jewish people have to persevere the difficulties of the times. We have to learn more, be nicer to others and work on our bad character traits and bring the light of the Torah to the world. That is only the way there will be peace in the world while we still have to live our lives and continue to do mitzvos!
Shabbat Shalom
Rashi here mentions that the houses that they were given for saving Jewish children were the houses of the priesthood and kingship. Rav Moshe Feinstein z"l in Drash Moshe asks why this verse needs to be stated; after all, do we receive reward for the mitzvos that we do in this world?
Rav Moshe explains that a kohen needs to teach the people and serve G-d by doing the service in the Temple. He therefore needs to love his fellow Jew and have good character traits while sacrificing himself for the sake of the Jewish people.
They should serve G-d and the Jewish people through fear of heaven so they won't make mistakes in their ability to do what G-d expects of them. A king as well needs to have proper judgment and character traits to rule the people.
Sometimes they will be tested and could make costly mistakes that could result in thousands of deaths G-d forbid. He must have proper fear of heaven to insure that these mistakes are not made, keeping his enemies at bay and ruling properly.
The reason that fear of heaven is so important is because without it, they could put their people in tremendous danger. They must have a clear head at all times, really on G-d to help them iin times of great stress.
This is a timely message for all of us. We often see that life throws us curves that we weren't expecting. Not only that, it seems that the situation we have been placed in is impossible to navigate. It is times like these that we throw our hands up to heaven and declare that we only rely on You to help and guide us!
We have seen throughout the last 3,000 years that when the chips are down for the Jewish people, we cannot rely on the nations or anyone else to help us. G-d runs the world and helps in all situations even if we don't witness it directly.
If we look into our lives, we will have witnessed many times how that help has come and saved us from a perilous situation. Even if we are in dire straits, they don't last forever and eventually pass.
At the same time, we have to dig deep in the trenches of our belief in G-d and strengthen the idea of his control over the world even if we don't understand what is happening. We have seen over the last few months, many attacks against Jews in many parts of the globe based on tremendous hatred and calling for our destruction.
Before the messiah comes, the Jewish people have to persevere the difficulties of the times. We have to learn more, be nicer to others and work on our bad character traits and bring the light of the Torah to the world. That is only the way there will be peace in the world while we still have to live our lives and continue to do mitzvos!
Shabbat Shalom
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment