This week we begin the fourth of the five books of the Torah.
Isn’t it amazing how fast the days go by?
The Jewish people are now embarking on the the next stage of their journey. In this book is chronicled the 40 year journey, in the desert, which will end with the entrance to the Land of Israel.
The journey takes place in a desert, a barren place, a tabula rasa. It is in the desert that the Torah was given because it is a blank slate, there are no preconceptions, it’s a place available to all, where the sky is the limit.
If you were to tell the epic story of your family dynasty to your children, what would you emphasize?
Surely most of the content would focus on the triumphs and the glory, certainly not on the mistakes and the failures.
Yet the Torah tells it like it was, not sparing any details about the complaints the Jewish people continually lodged against Gd.
We have nothing to drink.
We don’t like the food.
Life was better in Egypt.
(Honestly?!? Egypt was a torture chamber)!
The Torah lays it all out for us. Because “studying Torah is not education. It’s transformation.
It’s an invitation to meet your higher self”.
This idea about seeing ourselves as we truly are and using that as a springboard for personal growth was shared by our granddaughter at her Bat Mitzva this past week.
She shared a powerful message about making the most of each day to achieve the next level of greatness in ourselves.
When the Torah begins to describe the arrival of the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, it says they came on “this day”.
Rashi, the super commentary on the Torah notices that really we should say they arrived on “that day” as the day being remarked upon has already passed.
Rashi explains that the message to us is every day should be “this day”, we should approach our study of Torah as if it was just given to us.
But there is something curious.
The “day” we are referencing is not the day the Torah was given in the desert, it’s actually the day they arrived.
They probably got there, unpacked, had a bite to eat and then went to sleep.
This is the day we are supposed to keep on reliving with newness and freshness?
Yes!
This is the opportunity to take whatever we have learned to help us transform a regular day into a day that counts.
It’s not an easy thing to do.
It takes small steps to transform our days.
There is a parable of a nobleman who owned a quarry. He arrived to inspect the work and saw the laborers on their donkeys bringing the rocks from the quarry up the steep hill. He wanted to show his allegiance to his workers so he took a rock loaded on to flank of his fine steed and prepared to climb the hill. The horse would not budge.
The nobleman couldn’t understand it. His horse was as strong as a donkey.
Why wouldn’t it move?
One of the workers approached with an explanation.
The nobleman’s horse had its head up in the air and seeing the huge hill ahead, would make no attempt to attempt it.
But the donkeys were looking down at the ground, checking their footing, and with one small step after another, they were able to climb that seemingly insurmountable incline.
When we make our days count, when we take one step at a time, all of a sudden we will have conquered a challenge. It may be the changing of a character trait or overcoming a circumstance which may also seem insurmountable.
Recently there was a gathering of a few hundred children who were celebrating the beginning of studying of Torah.
Suddenly, the principal who was conducting the program stopped the proceedings. He had noticed an elderly woman in the crowd. He asked her why she was in attendance and she explained that she had great grandchildren in the program. The principal asked a few more questions and elicited that this woman was a holocaust survivor who emotionally shared that she never thought she would see such a day.
The principal honored this frail grandmother and acknowledged that we are all standing on the shoulders of this person who continued to climb a seemingly impossible mountain.
She made the days of her life count.
When we wake up each day it may stretch before us interminably, but it’s a blank slate, one on which we can make an eternal difference.
It’s an invitation to meet your higher self!
Shabbat Shalom and so much love!