Dear Friend,
Show them who they are, hold up a mirror to their face, explain what they are capable of, and they will rise from the dirt and reach great heights.
When G-d told Moses to throw his staff to the ground and it turned into a snake, it was an answer to one of the questions Moses had.
How can the people be redeemed if they have sunken to the depths of depravity, they have almost completely become like the Egyptians, one can hardly recognize that the are Jews? These are the people you want to redeem and give them your Torah? I just don’t see how that is possible.
Moses had a staff which the Torah calls “The staff of G-d”. It was the same staff which he would later perform the ten plagues with, split the sea, and bring forth water from a rock in the dessert.
The G-dly staff being thrown to the ground is symbolic of the Jewish people being at the lowest spiritual level possible. G-d shows Moses that when thrown to the ground, even a G-dly staff will turn into a snake, resembling a spiritually lowly creature, sly as a snake, and venomous.
G-d then tells Moses, “Lift up the snake and it will turn back into the G-dly staff.”
Here we learn how to consider other people. Instead of seeing with our physical eyes where they are and what they do, look with our minds eye, and understand what they actually are.
Lift them up from the dirt, show them who they are, hold up a mirror up to their face, explain what they are capable of and they will rise from the dirt and reach great heights.
No Jew is beyond being holy, don’t believe me? Look in the mirror and you will discover G-dliness. Now go and live a holy life.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Mendel & Elke Zaltzman
Directors
Shabbos Times
Friday, January 20 Candle Lighting: 4:41pm
Evening service: 4:45pm
Saturday, January 21 Morning service: 10:00am
Kiddush Brunch: 12:00pm Evening service: 4:45pm
Shabbos ends: 5:44pm
Jteen Havdalah and Game Night: 8pm
Four Europeans go hiking together, and get frightfully lost. First they run out of food, and then they run out of water. “I’m so thirsty,” says the Englishman. “I must have tea.” “I’m so thirsty, says the Frenchman. “I must have wine.” “I’m so thirsty,” says the German. “I must have beer.” “I’m so thirsty,” says the Jew. “I must have diabetes.”
WEEKLY eTORAH
Imagine you have been working on the job for years and years. It is hard, manual labor and you are not simply tired but exhausted, demoralized, drained and frustrated. And then, one fine day, some new fellow on the floor stands up and promises a whole new world of equality, rewards and ultimate freedom. Do you believe him or are you beyond hope? Do you dare hold out for a better tomorrow and risk being devastated and cast into despair yet again or do you simply accept your fate and give up dreaming?
So it was with our ancestors in Egypt. They were slaving away all those years when a new face appeared and began making promises. Moses brings a message from G‑d that they are about to be redeemed. There is a Promised Land ahead. All is not lost. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The Jews' response? And they did not listen to Moses out of shortness of breath and from the hard labor.
One commentary explains that “shortness of breath” shouldn’t be understood only literally. The Hebrew for breath is ruach, which can also mean “spirit.” In other words, they weren’t able to heed Moses’ call not only from physical breathlessness, but because they lacked the spirit. Having suffered in bondage for so long, they no longer had the faith or hope to believe that freedom was still in the realm of the possible. It was simply beyond them. They had lost the spirit.
In the history of Egypt not a single slave had ever escaped. How could an entire nation ever walk free? Moses was a dreamer, they must have thought. It is just not realistic to hold out such high hopes only to have them dashed yet again. And so the people were utterly despondent and spiritless and, therefore, they could not hear, i.e. absorb, Moses’ message.
It happens all too often. People become so set in their mediocrity that they give up hope of ever achieving the breakthrough. Marriages get stuck in the rut of routine and the tedious treadmill keeps rolling along until we lose even the desire to dream. And Israel’s people, even brave leaders, are so despondent from years of war, attrition and terror that they clutch at imaginary straws because, basically, if we are honest with ourselves, they have simply lost the resolve.
I have often quoted a wise proverb heard in the name of the legendary Chasid, Reb Mendel Futerfas. “If you lose your money, you’ve lost nothing. Money comes and money goes. If you lose your health, you’ve lost half. You are not the person you were before. But if you lose your resolve, you’ve lost it all.”
Moses brought new hope to a depressed, dreamless nation. He gave them back the spirit they had lost and eventually, through the miracles of G‑d, the promise was fulfilled and the dream became destiny.
To be out of breath is normal. To be out of spirit is something the Jewish People can never afford. May we never lose the spirit.
-adapted from www.chabad.org
