A friend of mine emailed a beautiful message to me this morning… thank you to Rabbi Nitzan Bergman of Baltimore for the following thought. The week’s Torah portion paints the following picture of the success promised to the Jewish people when they come close to the A-lmighty (Leviticus 26:8):
When battling the forces in conflict with our relationship with the Divine, we are promised success such that “5 will pursue 100 and 100 will pursue 10,000.” Let’s do the math — if 5 pursue 100, shouldn’t 100 be able to pursue 2,000 rather than 10,000?
The answer is that each one of us, by attaching ourselves to G-d, can cause an exponential addition of power to our collective reserve! It’s a powerful message of how much the individual can accomplish when united with his brethren in living a G-dly life.
Take a look at my favorite synagogue on earth. A place where everyone is welcome to come, AND DOES.
Good Shabbos!
Rabbi Mordechai Dixler
Program Director, Project Genesis – Torah.org