Vayelech Parsha Lesson- And to walk in His ways...
For Year 3 of Parsha Lesson, I will be focusing on one area of character
growth, to think about in the week ahead and the benefits that a person
would have from becoming better in that area.
Background
At the beginning of this week’s Parsha we are told that Moshe finished up his final speech and that ‘Moshe went.’ Where did Moshe go? The commentators tell us that Moshe went around the camp of the Jewish people, from tribe to tribe, to ‘inform them that he would be dying now and that they should not be afraid and they should be strong.’
Question
Moshe, in the last few hours of his life, this is what he is doing!? The greatest human being to ever walk this planet, the only person to reach such a level of closeness to Hashem and to travel to Heaven, while alive, and learn the Torah from G-d himself, he is going around and reassuring the Jewish nation and giving them ecouragement!?
This was the true ‘greatest generation’! The generation that entered into the land of Israel were the most righteous, the most connected to Hashem, and therefore the most developed and perfected people in all of history. If any group of people needed to be calmed and encouraged about impending change- this generation needed it least!
Didn’t Moshe have more lofty, spiritual matters to attend to in his final hours on this world? Why would he waste precious time travelling around the camp to each and every group of people in order to calm their fears? Especially considering that whatever fears the Jewish people did have were presumably not very great- being in Hashem’s cocoon of the desert in the clouds of glory, having seen the hand of Hashem clearly many many times before, and on and on.
Answer
Hashem’s very essence is kindness to others. Man’s job in this world is to emulate G-d as much as possible, thereby coming ‘closer’ to G-d. The greatest kindness a person can do is to encourage and spark the life and spirit of another person. As Shlomo Hamelech teaches us in Mishlei (18:14) ‘A man’s spirit can sustain him through illness; But low spirits—who can bear them?
To gladden another person, to make another person feel honorable, valued, less scared, more settled in their thoughts and emotions- these are no small matters, these are the most important things in the world.
Therefore, for Moshe in the final hours of his life, you can be rest assured that he involved himself in the most important involvement possible for a person to be involved with: raising the spirits of the Jewish people.
Lesson
How important it is to do kindnesses with others! Particularly, to encourage and raise the spirits of those around you. Conversely, we also see from here the greatness of the damage of insulting, putting down, discouraging someone else.
If one wanted to improve, become a better person, what would that mean? Our Rabbis teach us that the shortcut to becoming an overall better person is to improve one’s self in their inter-personal dealings. The more that others around one’s self are bettered and improved for their being around them, the more that the person is improving and becoming more like Hashem.
Benefits of this...
When you do kindness with those around you, you become a more kind person; when you raise the spirits of those around you, you become a more giving person. When you act in this way, which is the way of G-d himself, you are becoming closer to Hashem. This will mean someone who is becoming more developed and of more perfect character in all areas of life.
It is therefore clear, that while you may be helping others, the true beneficiary is you, yourself.
Have a wonderful Shabbos!
Rabbi Eli Meir Kramer
