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This week’s Miller’s Musings is sponsored
לעילוי נשמת
לאה בת אברהם
ונפתלי מאיר בן הרב בנימין דוב
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Quote of the Week:
“How lucky we were to have had
something that made saying goodbye so hard.”
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Miller’s Musings
לך־לך פרשת
Beyond
The Stars We See
The impact of the Jewish
people on civilisation is, and always has been, vastly disproportionate to its
numbers. We are, relatively speaking,
few in number compared to the rest of humanity.
Yet we have been leaders and architects of every field of endeavour,
forging the path and illuminating the way.
Nevertheless, given our moderately tiny numerical presence, it would
seem rather disingenuous to proclaim, as is foretold in this week’s Parsha,
that our nation will be innumerable as the stars. Furthermore we were described as being such
in the time of Moshe, when our number was known and quantifiable. We must therefore ask why the Torah compares
us to the stars and how this comparison is indeed legitimate?
In actual
fact there are many reasons that one may be unable to count something. It may be because the number is just too vast
and bordering on the infinite, but if one can see them, then given enough time,
one is able to count even the most cosmic of entities. But the other reason one may not be able to
calculate something’s quantity, is simply because one is unable to see all that
would need to be included within the totaling.
The stars, for example, extend so far into the endless void of
blackness, that it is simply impossible to count them. This, says Reb Shimon Schwab, is the true
nature of the relationship between the Jewish people and the stars and in fact
the reason that counting the Jewish people is forbidden. For though we may be able to tally all those
who are currently on this plane of existence, a Jewish soul is connected to the
Source of life and reality and is therefore eternal. To arrive at a figure based solely on those
present amongst us, would be to effectively deny the existence of those souls
in the Next World. We as a people are
therefore uncountable, for there are many more than those we see, living the
true reality in the world of absolute truth.
To lose one we love or
care for is always tragic, no matter the circumstances. There is suddenly a gaping hole in our lives
that cannot be filled nor restored and the pain of loss is deep and pervasive. The Torah allows for a period of mourning
because it is both vital for us as part of the human condition and in order for
us to eventually find some healing. It
may perhaps be some source of comfort however to think of what we have
said. That no matter how distant they
may seem, all those who return to their Creator, are still as much a real part
of us as a people, as they ever were whilst alive. We may feel it in their enduring legacy,
their generosity of spirit and kind nature that so touched us or the indelible
impression they made on their loved ones. It may be in the example they set for
how we should live our lives, the moments we shared that can never be forgotten
or the love that never leaves our hearts.
They cannot be seen, but they are here within us and will always be so. Those dazzling stars hidden in the
interminable darkness of the cosmos are in truth always there shining,
gleaming, radiating their luminous light, touching the earth with their
incandescent beauty.
*May
the miracle of Shabbos offer warmth and solace for all those who need it*
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