“RABBI’S MUSINGS (& AMUSINGS)”
Erev Shabbos Kodesh parshas Vaeschanan
14 Menachem Av 5781/July 23, 2021
Shabbos Nachamu – Avos perek 3
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לרפואה שלימה נטע יצחק בן רחל
CONSTANT
CONSTRUCTION
It’s
been noted that parents who only have one child don’t have the complete
parenting experience. That’s because when something is broken, they easily know
who did it. Those who have multiple children, however, get to deal with multiple
blank angelic looks and innocent replies of “it wasn’t me”, and have no way of
knowing what really happened.
One of
the biggest challenges of parenting is dealing with sibling rivalry. Nothing
quite warms parents’ hearts like seeing their children play nicely together.
Conversely, nothing raises parents’ blood pressure as much as dealing with the
squabbles and quibbles of their children.
When
those rivalries take place, it doesn’t matter what the parent’s occupation is -
lawyer, financial analyst, actuary, surgeon, real estate agent or Rosh Yeshiva.
At that moment, he/she becomes a detective and goalie, whose sole motive is to
deescalate the situation while trying to preserve his/her sanity and eardrums.
One such
scenario that occurs periodically in our home is when one of our children are
playing with magna-tiles and constructs a delicate structure even above his own
height by carefully laying one piece upon the other. Then, suddenly, a sibling
who was not invited to participate in the building or perhaps wanted some of
the pieces for his own building, takes a swipe at a bottom piece, causing the
whole structure to come crashing down. Screams erupt and we are summoned to try
and restore peace. What took ten minutes to build, was knocked down in two
seconds.
There
exists an unfair balance in our world between building and destroying. While
building needs planning, requires meticulous and painstaking attention, and is
accomplished step by step and layer by layer, destroying is much easier and
quicker. What is true about toys is true about great buildings and structures.
What can take years to build can be felled in moments. We were painfully
reminded of this with the recent tragic collapse of a building in Surfside,
Florida.
It’s
true not only in the physical world but in the spiritual world as well. It
takes commitment and effort to improve one’s middos and to grow in one’s avodas
Hashem. Yet it’s so easy to lose one’s spiritual gains in one fell swoop.
Similarly,
it takes years of effort to foster a positive reputation which can be destroyed
in minutes, especially in our world of social media and instant communication.
The
yetzer hara is quite proficient in what he does. After all, he’s been in
business for over 5780 years. But he also has the advantage of having a far
easier job than his more pious counterpart, the yetzer tov. As one of my
rabbeim once said - the yetzer hara has home-court advantage.
The
pasuk states that one small fly that lands in a large bowl of perfume can cause
the whole bowl to become sullied and unwanted (Koheles 10:1). The yetzer hara
is that fly (Berachos 61a). When he lands in a metaphoric bowl of delectable
food or sweet smelling perfume, all the contents are no longer palatable or
desired.
One fly
in a bowl, one push from beneath and the whole carefully crafted building will
topple over and the whole bowl will become ruined.
I’ve
noticed something else when these sibling rivalries occur. Even in those
circumstances when a jealous sibling knocks down a tower, once the architect
finishes crying and carrying on about it, he immediately begins construction
anew, at times with the help of the sibling who just knocked down the previous
structure.
In fact,
sometimes the builder himself knocks down his own structure. Why would he knock
down his own creation? Because he wants to build something bigger and better.
Hashem
tells the Navi Yirmiyah: “See, I have appointed you today over the nations and
over the kingdoms, to uproot and to smash, and to destroy and to overthrow, to
build and to plant” (Yermiyah 1:10; this was the haftorah of the first of the
three weeks).
Alshich
notes that it is clear from the pasuk that the purpose of the destruction was
ultimately in order to rebuild. In that sense, the painful words of prophecy
that Yirmiyah was forced to convey was ultimately for the good of the nation.
The
greatness of the Jewish people lies in our resilience. We have been uprooted,
smashed, destroyed, and exiled repeatedly. Yet somehow, we find a way to build
and to plant, often upon the charred remains of what was destroyed.
Every
year we move from the destruction of Tisha b’Av towards the days of Elul with
anticipation that we can build and plant anew. There’s so much that has been
destroyed. But we immediately pull ourselves up and start the process of
rebuilding again.
There’s
a lot we can learn from our children and their toys. I think I need to start by
buying more magna-tiles.
Shabbat Shalom & Good Shabbos,
R’ Dani and Chani Staum