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Dear parents and NCSYers,
I hope that you had a great week. Let's recharge our batteries while enjoying a dvar torah by the one and only Kevin Rhine:
In this week’s parsha, the first thing Hashem tells Avraham is to start a new life, leave his family and homeland, and to travel to an unknown land. This is where Avraham will be the father of a brand new religion. The pasuk says, “Go for yourself, from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.” One can ask, why doesn’t Hashem just tell Avraham to leave, why does He have to specify “from your land, birthplace, and father’s house?” Just tell Avraham to leave and go to this new land?
One can answer that although Avraham did not have the best upbringing for a Jew (his father worshipped idols), it was still hard for Avraham to leave his house. He had to uproot himself from the place where he grew up his whole life, and, maybe hardest of all, to leave his family and start anew. Hashem knew it would be difficult to just drop everything and travel to a strange place. Therefore, Hashem told Avraham little by little, not telling him all at once. This gave him some time to reflect and think about what he was about to do and give him time to realize what he must leave behind. Hashem did not want to startle Avraham, and, at the same time, He wanted to give Avraham the chance to be excited and have a positive outlook on the journey that was ahead of him.
The sensitivity that Hashem had for Avraham is a lesson that we can learn from. We have to treat people with sensitivity as well. When we see someone, we need to give him the respect that we would want for ourselves. If we know that a friend is upset about something, we should try and help him out and talk to him in a sensitive way. If we know that our parents want us to do something, we should be sensitive to their needs and do it, even though it may be hard. Hopefully through thinking of how to be sensitive and thinking about other people, we can mimic this character of Hashem and come closer to Hashem.
Have a stupendous S-H-A-B-B-O-S! (and that makes one)
P.S. If anyone would like to write a dvar torah for the weekly e-mail, please contact ydeutscher@gmail.com. There will be an awesome prize in camp next summer for any NCSYer who writes one! |
