SUBLIME GREATNESS

Dear Family,

Hope everyone is well.

Mazal Tov to Shmuel Levy on your upcoming birthday. You can invite Mommy to celebrate with you this year Shmuel. Wishing you a shnas hatzlocha and happiness.

Mazal Tov to Chanie Davidoff who also has a birthday this coming week. Lots of celebrations for you at this time of year BH. Wishing you a happy year with many more simchos.

Wishing Mommy an enjoyable trip in California.

I heard a fascinating talk from Rabbi Yossie Jacobson this week, based on a talk of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

We are now in the last Parsha of Bereishis, Vayechi, which focuses on Yaakov (YISRAEL), his final years, and we are moving on next week to the Book of Shmos, which is dominated by MOSHE RABEINU.

The talk I heard focuses on YISRAEL.

The name of a person is very closely linked to his deepest inner being and reflects his nature and function, and the talk analyses the name YISRAEL, which is personal to Yaakov, but also personal to each one of us who are also called Yisrael. (as an inheritance)

The night before Yaakov met Eisov in a previous Parsha, where he spent the night on the other side of the Yabok river battling with 'some man', was very mysterious, and there are many commentaries trying to analyse who this man was.

We are going to focus on the commentary of the Rashbam, who was a grandchild of Rashi.

He says that when you find similar events in Torah, they are actually all linked to each other, and each one helps explain the others.

He therefore links the story of Yaakov fighting 'the angel' to the story of Moshe who was being attacked by a serpent on his way to Egypt to save the Jewish people, and the story of Yonah who was swallowed by a whale while running away from the city of Nineveh.

The common denominator in all these stories, was that each one, ie Yaakov, Moshe, and Yonah were trying to escape the request being demanded to them from Hashem.

• Moshe had spent a week arguing with Hashem why he was not suitable for the job of leading Bnei Yisrael.

And all his arguments were true. How could he face up to the most powerful nation of those times ie Pharoah, and he had a speech deficit etc. Moshe then reluctantly agrees to go, and on the way a serpent is about to swallow him up, and his wife Tzipora saves his life by giving a bris milah to their son who had been born recently, and the serpent relents and lets Moshe continue his journey.

• With Yonah, Hashem had asked him to go to the City of Nineveh to get the people there to do teshuvah. This city was not Jewish and it would have been dangerous for Yonah to be there and he did not see the point, and nor did he feel he had the capability. And so he tries to escape by taking a ship to Tarshish, and then this huge storm arose which was going to drown all the passengers, and only when Yonah volunteered to jump into the sea (because he knew the storm was due to him), did the storm subside. - Then the story with the whale, his escape, and then agreeing to do Hashems will in Nineveh.
• And so the Rashbam links the story of Yaakov to these 2 stories and explains that they give us the clue of what was really happening with Yaakov that night. He was running away from facing Esav, which is what Hashem was demanding from him. The'angel' came to stop him from running away and fought with him the whole night, but could not overcome Yaakov. So he then damages Yaakov's thigh so that he cant run away. And at this stage Yaakov agrees to go back and meet Esav, and he asks the angel for a blessing.

And what is the blessing? THAT YOU SHOULD NOW BE CALLED YISRAEL.

Yisrael refers to the inner calling for GREATNESS within each one of us, and our ability to fight and overcome and succeed.

We hear it. Yet we see that it is too difficult, and beyond our capabilities. In truth we are not wrong, because at this stage the work does look like it is beyond our capabilities. And so we may opt to go to the couch with our magazines and snacks and mobile phones instead.

And so how do we achieve this GREATNESS?

Torah teaches us that Hashem puts in front of us 'shoes that look way too big for us to wear'!

But by jumping into them (taking on our mission) we grow, and we come to 'fit into those shoes'.

And the fact that we had the courage to go into our shoes, now gives us the potential to grow! (As in the story of the Ark - initially it looked too heavy to carry, but when it was lifted, it, the Ark, carried those who lifted it).

And if we resist, or run away, Hashem may bring upon us situations that endanger our lives, to thrust us into this greatness.

And in life we see examples of this.

What training does a man and women have to go into a marriage together? Two people who hardly know each other , marry, and have to build an important section of the world together. And even more difficult, what training do the husband and wife have in bringing up children, and all different types of children etc? Yet by accepting the challenge we grow into the roles of what Hashem expects from us, and with His help.

Gut Shabbos to all.