By Rabbi Shimon Raichik
This week Shabbos falls out on the day after the 7th of Marcheshvan, the 8th of Marcheshvan. What is unique about the 7th of Marcheshvan? It’s the day we add “v sein tal u’matar” in davening in Eretz Yisroel. It’s the day that we begin to daven for rain (In the rest of the world we begin to say “v sein tal u’matar” in early December). The reason we wait until the 7th of Marcheshvan is to allow enough time for the last person to arrive home after spending Yom Tov in Jerusalem. The entire Jewish people delay to pray for their basic necessity of rain so as to not cause difficulty to even one Jew who is traveling. Even that Jew himself has his own fields and also needs the rain! Nevertheless, we do not want to cause suffering to even one Jew as he travels. This is an important lesson in ahavas Yisroel that we learn from the 7th of Marcheshvan.
We also learn in halacha that we are still connected to the Yomim Tovim of Tishrei until the 7th of Marchshvan. The real “Yaakov halach l’darcho” only begins after the 7th of Marcheshvan and usually falls out in the week of parshas Lech Lecha, which discusses the travels of Avraham Avinu.
What significance is there for us to learn today in 2013 about Avraham Avinu’s travels, something that occurred 3 ½ thousand years ago? Because the Torah is everlasting, and word Torah means horah-lesson, the Torah is speaking to each one of us in every generation, including this one. Every Jew is likened to Avraham. We all travel on a path with a shlichus from Hashem to reveal Hashem, and make this world a fitting dwelling place for Hashem. The Torah instructs every Jew: “Lech Lecha- leave, go out; m’artzecha, m’moladitcha, m’beis avicha- from your land, your birthplace, from your father’s house.”
Why didn’t Hashem tell Avraham Avinu where to go? He was very clear about where he should leave from, but where he should go to, he left unknown, only a place; “That I will show you”. Usually you need to know where you are going to pack accordingly.
Also, the order seems reversed. The order to tell someone to travel is from the closest to the furthest. It would seem best to begin by first saying to leave your father’s house, then the town you were born, then your entire country, here the Torah’s order is the exact opposite?
Chassidus explains that this is because the Torah is not just speaking about physical location, but more essentially, about spiritual location. “Lech lecha!”, go to yourself, your essence, reveal who you really are. First, leave your eretz, your land. Eretz is the same root as ratzon-will, meaning leave your personal desires of ‘I’ want this or that behind. Next, leave behind “moladitcha”, the emotions and senses that you have arrived at or given birth to from your intellect and your situation. Then also go away from your father’s house, meaning from your intellect, which is likened to parents, wisdom and understanding that raise children, emotions, in their ‘home’, meaning under their influence. We need to go away from all of that. Where do we go? We go to Shul, we go to the way of Torah and mitzvos, and we go to do mivtzoyim. Then and only then will I show you your true essence. In this way each of us is like Avraham Avinu leaving Terach’s house.
This is why Hashem didn’t explain to Avraham the details about where he was going. It is because the essence is to leave your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house. They may even be the correct at times but they are all motivated by you. Hashem told Avraham, go wherever I tell you, it doesn’t matter where, just that your going where I send you. Be ready to let go, listen and follow, and then you will reach the Promised Land.
Once R. Yisroel Gordon told over a vort that he heard from the Prevoius Rebbe at a fabrengen on the pasuk; “Ana Hashem, ki ani avdecha- Please Hashem, because I am your servant”. “Ana Hashem”, (don’t read ‘please’, instead read ‘wherever’.) Hashem, wherever you want I will go. Why? “Ki ani avdecha”; because I am your servant.
This is our goal, we desire Hashem’s path, and this is what we go with on our way, the Jewish way of Yaakov, “Yaakov halach l’darcho”. As the Yiddish saying goes; “nisht men geit, men feirt”; we aren’t going, we are being led.
May we immediately see with our physical eyes the return of the Shechina to Yerushalayim, the Beis Hamikdash and the entire world, led by Moshiach now to the geula ha’amitis v’hashleima, to the land that He will show us.
Good Shabbos