In EmunahSpeak:
If You Feel Blessed, we learned
from the Chovos Halevovos that: …if you feel that Hashem has bestowed you
with extra tov you should feel obligated to pay back a little more by adding
something to your avoda, be it an extra twenty minutes of learning, a little
more kavana in davening, or perhaps resolving to put more effort into doing
chesed.
This principle
also works on a national level.
Can anyone deny
that Hashem has given his people, the Am Segula, more than He has given any
other nation in the world? Just to
recite what Hashem has done for us as recorded in Dayenu, which is one of the
Haggadah highlights of every Pesach Seder for both frum and not yet frum Jews
alike, would already be way beyond the scope of this piece.
And that’s just
from the get go.
Are we not the
only member of the ancient nations club that answers present at the roll
call of 2012? Where did the rest pack
out to? Most of them have disappeared
without a trace while we can practically trace every route we’ve taken
on our long march through history.
And yes, even in
this two thousand year most recent golus, with all of its expulsions and
persecution, Hashem has still dealt us a better hand. Rav Miller z”l was wont to point out that throughout
the length and breadth of the this bitterer golus, with the exception of the
local aristocracy which in any case was a miniscule percentage of the overall
population, the Jews always lived better than the goyim amongst who they dwelt.
Therefore, we
have to do better than the other nations of the world towards Hashem because He
has given us more and continues to do so.
Moreover, the fact that we are members of this exalted group means that
we have to factor our national/group identification into the personal hakoras
hatov that we owe to Hashem.
What price tag
do you put on the honor you have every day of saying Blessed are You, Hashem….,
Who did not make me a Goy? For that
alone we should feel obligated to bump up our Avodas Hashem.
But the Chovos
Halevovos is not finished with us just yet.
Having already taught us that if you get more in this world in one form
or the other you should feel the need to ratchet up the practical level of
your gratitude, it now comes to close the circle.
Let’s say that
you married off your last daughter in the midst of a shidduchim crisis without
so much as breaking a sweat or you have never had to give any thought as to
where you would get money for Pesach, even though you are of modest means, and
you took stock of your situation, relative to those similarly situated, and did
the right thing by Hashem by increasing your avodah in which ever way you
deemed appropriate.
What goes around,
comes around is not just merely a saying. It’s a Divine Attribute because the Chovos
Halevovos promises that if you met Hashem’s gaze by responding in kind to the
beneficence He is bestowing upon you then Hashem will continue to shower upon
you that special shefa that distinguished your lot from that of others.
And He will even
add to it.
