בס''ד
Credit
where credit’s due! We can all agree
with that. But what about credit where
it does not seem to be due? Rashi tells
us that the words “And Aharon and his sons did all…which Hashem commanded” actually
extol one of Aharon’s virtues that he followed Hashem’s instructions to the
letter. But let us remind ourselves who
we are speaking of here. We are talking
about Aharon the Kohen Godol, a man who was considered equal to Moshe
Rabeinu. Is it really such a great
praise to say he did what Hashem commanded?
Would he ever even have contemplated anything different?
In
reality for a righteous individual of the calibre of Aharon, to in any way
deviate from the dictates of Hashem would have been something totally
inconceivable. It was not even a
possibility, nor was there a choice in his mind that he would have needed to
make. But we must realise that this was
not the status into which he was born, but rather the result of years of
dedication to perfecting himself. The
person he now was, was not the person he was created as being, but rather the
person he himself created through the life choices he had made up until
this point. This, explains the Darchei Mussar, was the source of the acclaim
that the Torah was bestowing upon Aharon.
The basis for the admiration towards Aharon was not for the fact that he
chose to do exactly as Hashem proscribed, for him there was no
alternative. But rather it was for the
fact that he had formed himself into a person for whom there was no option
other than following the will of Hashem.
This
is a tremendously important lesson for us, both with regard to understanding our
Tzaddikim and for understanding ourselves.
There may be a temptation for us to look at those saintly individuals
and use their seemingly unattainable levels as an excuse for our own
mediocrity. We can exonerate our own
failings by dismissing the possibility of our ever being able to reach the
heights of piety that these great people have reached, deeming their
accomplishments as almost innate. This
is however a belittling of the Tzaddikim and ourselves. The reason they are who they are is because
they made decisions that would lead them away from being ordinary people to
being people of distinction. This is
their praise and it is also our condemnation.
For if they could take the path to greatness, so can we.
*May the power of Shabbos stimulate
our growth*
לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם
לרפואה שלימה: שרה יעל בת
ברכה אסתר
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