This week's Miller's Musings is sponsored
לעילוי נשמת דבורה בת רחל
דבס''
Miller’s Musings
נצביםפרשת
With
All Of You
On the day of his death,
what else would a man of the spiritual magnitude of Moshe focus on, other than
the betterment of his people? His
parting words concentrated on channeling all the Jewish people’s energies
towards making the right choices based on their responsibilities as the people
of Hashem. The Parsha begins with the
words “You are standing today, all of you, before Hashem”, before declaring the
nature of the covenant between the Jewish people and their G-d. The fact that they were “before Hashem” is
always the case and hence patently obvious. An elucidation of its necessity is
therefore required.
I think
we can say with absolute certainty, that the Chofetz Chaim was a man of
tremendous faith and belief in Hashem. But it is brought down in Bilvovi
Mishkon Evneh, that when he felt any manner of slight weakening of his
spiritual level, he would review the sections of the Torah that relate to the
creation of the world. It is of course
impossible to say that he even for one moment possessed even the minutest
amount of uncertainty about Who brought the universe into existence. Yet he read over those passages in the Torah
because he understood that ultimately all failings of our service of Hashem is
rooted in some dilution of our belief in Hashem, His creation and our being His
created ones. This is not to say that he
was not certain of this truth, but perhaps it was to some degree, on his level,
not as entirely absorbed in every fibre of his being, as it may have once
been. And this is what he needed to
rectify. Perhaps this too is what Moshe
was telling the people. You are here
today to form an everlasting bond with Hashem.
To keep His commandments and follow His word. You can live up to this pledge and succeed in
this task that is such a privilege to fulfil.
But the key to your success is being standing “before Hashem” at all
times. To know with all your mind, body
and soul that He is there. If you truly
know this, you cannot go wrong.
The message we must
take is incredibly powerful and has tremendous repercussions for our entire
service of Hashem. It points to the
source of all of our deficiencies and the root cause of every error that we
make that goes against the Torah’s teachings.
Throughout the year, when we slip up, and especially now, when we are
searching for routes back to Hashem, we must give some time to considering the
basic quality of our own belief in Hashem.
For if we believed as we should, absolutely, unconditionally and in
every single part of our being, how could we ever fall and how could we ever
lack the will to achieve what we must?
We must not be afraid of our weaknesses in this area, nor succumb to the
Yetzer Horah’s attempts to accentuate what is common to all and merely requires
strengthening. Moments of frailty do not
indicate an overall failure. Yet knowing
the power and effects of this vulnerability compels us to improve, support and
intensify our belief in Hashem, so that we not only know it intellectually, but
feel it at every moment, in all we do and with all our heart.
*May
our rest on Shabbos deepen our faith in Him*
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