Thursday, May 21, 2015
Parshas Bamidbar: We are all Important!
10:30 PM | 
Posted by
Rabbi Chaim Coffman |
"Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Yisrael, after their families, by the houses of their fathers, by the number of names, every male by their polls" (Numbers 1:2)
The word used here "to take the sum" is a language of honor and exaltedness. Rav Moshe Sternbuch shlit"a in Ta'am V'Da'as explains that the Jewish people are the chosen nation among the nations and G-d and as such, G-d deals with them differently than the other nations.
When the Jewish people do what G-d wants them to do then the chesed that He does with them is unbelievable. If we don't do what He wants, then we can be severely punished as we have seen throughout the millennia. This is what the verse here refers to that the Divine providence for His holy nation is radically different than the other nations.
We have seen this throughout Jewish history just how far this goes that a nation without their own homeland for thousands of years, dispersed amongst the nations have someone still survived; a historical enigma!! Not only that, but the holy land has been fought over for thousands of years by crusaders and the like but miraculously the famed outer wall of the Temple is still intact!
The Midrash shows us how important the Jewish nation is to G-d because G-d counts them 4 times as we see in the book of Numbers! He also count each camp as well. We can compare this to a person who counts money; regardless of how much they have, they carefully count it to see how much they have, all the more so, G-d showing his love for the Jewish people by counting them one by one!
Each person has their own potential and significance; each one with their own special purpose and uniqueness. We all have the ability to reach high spiritual levels as well as G-d forbid, falling all the way to the mud, nothing in between.
Either we are going up or down spiritually; if we are stagnant that is akin to death! We are constantly moving in this world and the more spiritual things we do, the more our body and soul are illuminated; the more physical and negative things we do, the more our soul and body are debased!
This teaches us an important lesson. We have to realize our importance in the world and how our actions matter. We see by the story of the book of Ruth that Ruth clings to Naomi and from here comes king David while Orpah goes her own way and from her comes Goliath. It is no coincidence that the one who clings to Naomi is the one that defeats Goaliath another way to show that what we do, has ramifications for future generations!
Let us all realize the importance of what we do and what we hope to accomplish while making our Creator happy and pleasing Him.
Shabbat Shalom
The word used here "to take the sum" is a language of honor and exaltedness. Rav Moshe Sternbuch shlit"a in Ta'am V'Da'as explains that the Jewish people are the chosen nation among the nations and G-d and as such, G-d deals with them differently than the other nations.
When the Jewish people do what G-d wants them to do then the chesed that He does with them is unbelievable. If we don't do what He wants, then we can be severely punished as we have seen throughout the millennia. This is what the verse here refers to that the Divine providence for His holy nation is radically different than the other nations.
We have seen this throughout Jewish history just how far this goes that a nation without their own homeland for thousands of years, dispersed amongst the nations have someone still survived; a historical enigma!! Not only that, but the holy land has been fought over for thousands of years by crusaders and the like but miraculously the famed outer wall of the Temple is still intact!
The Midrash shows us how important the Jewish nation is to G-d because G-d counts them 4 times as we see in the book of Numbers! He also count each camp as well. We can compare this to a person who counts money; regardless of how much they have, they carefully count it to see how much they have, all the more so, G-d showing his love for the Jewish people by counting them one by one!
Each person has their own potential and significance; each one with their own special purpose and uniqueness. We all have the ability to reach high spiritual levels as well as G-d forbid, falling all the way to the mud, nothing in between.
Either we are going up or down spiritually; if we are stagnant that is akin to death! We are constantly moving in this world and the more spiritual things we do, the more our body and soul are illuminated; the more physical and negative things we do, the more our soul and body are debased!
This teaches us an important lesson. We have to realize our importance in the world and how our actions matter. We see by the story of the book of Ruth that Ruth clings to Naomi and from here comes king David while Orpah goes her own way and from her comes Goliath. It is no coincidence that the one who clings to Naomi is the one that defeats Goaliath another way to show that what we do, has ramifications for future generations!
Let us all realize the importance of what we do and what we hope to accomplish while making our Creator happy and pleasing Him.
Shabbat Shalom
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