‫‪Parsha‬‬ ‫‪Preview

Harav Hagaon Meir Wahrsager Shlita

In Hashem’s Embrace

Parashas Vayekhel-Pekudei

Harav Hagaon Meir Wahrsager shlita

Together with all of Klal Yisrael, I find myself facing the nisayon of the coronavirus, and, as a Yid, I’m trying to focus on my proper obligation at this time. In keeping with the Rambam’s words at the beginning of Hilchos Taanis, I’m trying to escape from the world of “mikreh” and avoid the conversations on all the street corners, influenced by the media and the panic, that revolve around figuring out who brought the virus over and other technical details. Rather, I’m trying to concentrate on what the Rambam advises – to understand why Hashem sent this to us. And the Rambam makes it very clear that when Hakadosh Baruch Hu sends us such a nisayon, its main purpose is to talk to us and send us a message. What’s happening is not random; it’s a message to us. If we don’t read Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s message we’re actually being cruel, writes the Rambam, and abandoning the world to cruelty. So let’s try to focus on what this message is.

I believe that the coronavirus, with all the fear and challenges it has brought, actually poses a tremendous opportunity, one that we have to try to use and maximize. We have just experienced the Yom Tov of Purim, about which the Gemara (Megillah 14a)גדולה הסרת טבעת יותר מארבעים ושמונה נביאים ושבע נביאות שנתנבאו להן לישראל – Haman’s decree accomplished more than the words of all the nevi’im combined.

The goal of all of the rebuke given by the nevi’im was to bring Klal Yisrael to teshuvah, but in a way the real-life gezeirah of Haman brought about an even greater teshuvah. We, too, have heard many shmuessen – many fiery shmuessen – that speak to our minds, and that we know intellectually are true, but a real-life experience can influence us and make us receptive to messages in a way that no shmuess can ever accomplish.

We have all been seized, these past few days and weeks, by the real-life opportunity Hakadosh Baruch Hu has sent our way. He has brought society to a virtual standstill, freezing the world as we know it. The prevailing feeling everywhere is uncertainty and vulnerability.

I think the main message here is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is trying to remind us Who’s really in control of this world. We have, without realizing, essentially taken over Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s world, putting Him in the back seat, so to speak. We have to hand back the steering wheel to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and recognize that He’s really in control.

The passuk says: הַשָּׁמַיִם שָׁמַיִם לַה’ וְהָאָרֶץ נָתַן לִבְנֵי אָדָם. What does it mean that the heavens belong to Hashem and the earth belongs to people? Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn’t own the earth, he only owns the shomayim? A different passuk says explicitly that Hashem owns the earth: לַה’ הָאָרֶץ וּמְלוֹאָהּ!

The meaning of the above passuk is that in shomayim, the ultimate supremacy of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is readily apparent. There’s no smoke there, there are no clouds, and you can see yad Hashem clearly. That’s why the malachim don’t have bechirah. But here in this world, for the purposes of bechirah, Hakadosh Baruch Hu hides His guiding Hand, the yad of hashgachah, and, at least superficially, leaves the running of the world to our hishtadlus. On the outside, then, this world depends on people’s actions. The person who’s more capable and powerful, at least as it appears, will succeed and can do what he wants. The yad Hashem, which is behind every last thing that happens, is not obvious – וְהָאָרֶץ נָתַן לִבְנֵי אָדָם.

With the advancement of technology, mankind has reached an incredible stage, where we’ve managed to arrange almost everything. Most notably, the internet enables people to order an item online from across the globe and receive it almost immediately. We enjoy instant worldwide communication and convenient overseas travel. This has become our reality, and we’re totally dependent on it. In the process, we have unwittingly driven Hakadosh Baruch Hu out of the world, because on a day-to-day level, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not part of our life. Now, He has stopped the world as we know it.

Many of the messages expressed in the tefillos of Rosh Hashanah are reverberating now: וידע כל פעול כי אתה פעלתו ויבין כל יצור כי אתה יצרתו, and ומלכותו בכל משלה – everyone is going to understand exactly Who’s the boss. We say these words on Rosh Hashanah, and we daven for that to happen, but unfortunately the message doesn’t always hit home. Now, no one can run away from the message. We have to internalize the concept of הַשְׂכֵּל וְיָדֹעַ אוֹתִי, and recognize that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in total control.

On Hashem’s Command

At the end of Parshas Pekudei, where we reach the culmination of the five parashiyos that discuss the Mishkan, the passuk says:

וּכְבוֹד ה’ מָלֵא אֶת הַמִּשְׁכָּן. וּבְהֵעָלוֹת הֶעָנָן מֵעַל הַמִּשְׁכָּן יִסְעוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּכֹל מַסְעֵיהֶם. וְאִם לֹא יֵעָלֶה הֶעָנָן וְלֹא יִסְעוּ עַד יוֹם הֵעָלֹתוֹ. כִּי עֲנַן ה’ עַל הַמִּשְׁכָּן יוֹמָם וְאֵשׁ תִּהְיֶה לַיְלָה בּוֹ לְעֵינֵי כָל בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּכָל מַסְעֵיהֶם.

Through the Mishkan, Klal Yisrael achieved a certain dependence on Hakadosh Baruch Hu. With hashra’as haShechinah among them, they would not start moving or stop to camp without His directive. This is described in Sefer Bamidbar as: עַל פִּי ה’ יַחֲנוּ וְעַל פִּי ה’ יִסָּעוּ. This madreigah was the purpose of the Mishkan.

The Gemara (Shabbos 31) cites a machlokes Tannaim regarding the melachah of sosseir, demolition or dismantling, which is one of the 39 melachos of Shabbos. We know that the melachah includes only sosseir al menas livnos – dismantling for the purpose of rebuilding, but in order for sosseir to be violated, does the rebuilding have to happen in the same place, or is a person considered to have performed the melachah even if he rebuilds the structure in a different location? Rav Yosi’s opinion is that only if someone dismantles a structure with the intention of rebuilding it in the same place is he liable for sosseir.

How can that be, the Gemara wonders. The source of the melachos of Shabbos is the mileches haMishkan, and when the Mishkan was dismantled, it was with the intention of rebuilding it elsewhere, after moving to the next encampment. The Gemara answers that Klal Yisrael were considered to be in one place throughout their travels through the Midbar, because עַל פִּי ה’ יַחֲנוּ וְעַל פִּי ה’ יִסָּעוּ.

Our rosh yeshiva, Rav R’ Chaim Shmuelevitz zt”l, famously compares Klal Yisrael in the Midbar to a baby who is held by his mother. The mother might move around from place to place, but the baby remains in one place: in his mother’s arms. Let’s imagine that the mother is flying overseas. She takes a Nesher from her apartment in Yerushalayim to Ben Gurion Airport, where she boards a flight. After a stopover in Russia, she lands in JFK, and then travels to Lakewood. She made numerous stops, but where was the baby all this time? In one place – enveloped in the security of his mother’s arms. He is totally dependent on his mother.

After experiencing Yetzias Mitzrayim, Mattan Torah, and the hashra’as haShechinah of the Mishkan, Klal Yisrael reached a level of dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu and awareness of His presence in which they realized that the only constant in life, the only real certainty, is Hakadosh Baruch Hu. This realization meant that wherever they went, they were always in the same place.

They probably made plans, and they probably had different ideas about what they wanted to do, but they realized that their plans are totally dependent on Hakadosh Baruch Hu and they can’t do anything without Him.

This is a message that we all have to absorb and digest right now. What a blessing it would be if Klal Yisrael would see this situation as one of עַל פִּי ה’ יַחֲנוּ וְעַל פִּי ה’ יִסָּעוּ! How dramatically our lives would change! First of all, we would gain new appreciation for Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Until now, for example, when we planned a simchah, we would think seventeen steps ahead, taking each step of the way for granted. People will fly in, some of them from across the ocean. The weather will cooperate, and they’ll be able to attend the simchah. But with each detail that we so casually plan, do we appreciate how Hakadosh Baruch Hu is running the show and enabling each step of the way to work out?

The second change would be in the way we cope when things don’t go our way. Because we take so much for granted, and expect that things will work out the way we plan, we often become upset when they don’t. Yes, we know that everything is dependent on Hashem, but do we live that way? We’ve developed an existence where everything is prearranged, and when things don’t follow our plan we experience tremendous frustration and disappointment. But a person who lives with the feeling of עַל פִּי ה’ יַחֲנוּ וְעַל פִּי ה’ יִסָּעוּ doesn’t have expectations of what should or shouldn’t happen. He knows that everything is a gift and that he is totally dependent on Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s will.

Last but not least, perhaps the most important change we can make is to develop a close connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, by absorbing the messages that He is sending us. We can bring Hakadosh Baruch Hu back into the world and into our lives, and live the way a Yid is supposed to live: with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. This situation that Klal Yisrael enjoyed in the Midbar – עַל פִּי ה’ יַחֲנוּ וְעַל פִּי ה’ יִסָּעוּ – wasn’t a coincidence; the feeling of dependence on Hashem goes hand in hand with hashra’as hashechinah. The more we feel reliant on Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the more we don’t seek to take over the world, and the more we realize that true security is only with Him, the more we will feel that closeness.

Today, everyone is experiencing uncertainty and feeling vulnerable. That’s exactly what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants – He wants us to realize that nothing is ever really certain, and we are always vulnerable. We thought we had everything under control; we thought that our flights, our Pesach plans, our bein hazmanim itineraries, were set. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu is showing us that He controls everything.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu is showing His malchus – ותמלוך אתה ה’ לבדך – and that is the ultimate message and purpose of Creation. If we understand this message, we’ll recognize the brachah that we have and the tremendous brachah in this situation – and it will all be worthwhile.

When we understand this, then b’ezras Hashem we’ll be zocheh to all the brachos and enjoy the tremendous connection of hashra’as hashechinah: עַל פִּי ה’ יַחֲנוּ וְעַל פִּי ה’ יִסָּעוּ.

May we all be zocheh to absorb and be receptive to Hashem’s message, and may we greet Moshiach, together with all of Klal Yisrael, במהרה בימינו אמן.

Parsha Preview Audio