Good Erev Shabbat to all!
It is with great anticipation and excitement that we announce "An Evening of Inspiration" for the benefit of the children of the Hebrew Academy of West Queens, featuring the renowned author and lecturer HaRav Yissocher Frand, Shlita. The event will, B'Ezrat Hashem, take place on Sunday evening March 16 @ 7:30 pm, and will be graciously hosted by the Young Israel of Queens Valley in Kew Garden Hills, HaRav Peretz Steinberg, Shlita, Morah D'Asra. Rabbi Frand's timely topic will be Klal Yisroel: A Study in Diversity. We are looking forward to greeting everyone personally!
Rabbi Frand in his latest Sefer points out an interesting contrast in this week’s Parsha. When the Torah describes the Luchot at the time they were first given to Moshe, they are simply referred to as “two tablets of testimony, stone tablets inscribed by the finger of Hashem”. However, when Moshe was about to destroy the Luchot, the Torah goes into great detail to delineate the miraculous nature they possessed. The fact that they were engraved from both sides, the center of the “mem” and “samach” suspended in midair, and they are called “Maaseh Elokim” (Hashem’s handiwork). Why is this unique aspect of the Luchot only highlighted as they were about to be destroyed and not when they were first presented to Moshe Rabbeinu? Rabbi Frand quotes the Shemen HaTov who explains that the Torah here is teaching us an important lesson for life. Very often we don’t appreciate the blessings Hashem showers upon us until they are gone. We don’t appreciate children until they have gone off and we have an “empty nest”. We don’t take advantage of all the time available to us to study Torah when we are young, until life’s responsibilities limit our time as we grow older. We waste cherished opportunities to be with our elderly parents until, G-d forbid, it is too late. The same concept can be derived in the story of the “Well of Mriam”. Hashem dried up the rock upon Miriam’s passing so the Klal Yisroel would appreciate that it was in her great merit that the rock brought forth water. Isn’t it tragic that for the forty years that through Miriam they were sustained, the Klal Yisroel did not recognize the true greatness of the Tzedeket in their midst? As educators, sometimes in the day to day difficulties and frustration of the classroom we lose sight of what a great Zchut we have to be the inspiration for another link in the glorious Mesorah of Klal Yisraol. We have to step back and cherish the moments we spend with our students, the future of the Jewish nation!
Shabbat Shalom!
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