Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Echad b'Yisrael

Many years ago when I was a gabbai in Dallas, I asked a guest (marginally religious Israeli) if he was cohain or levi.  When he said he was not, I joked, "Oh, just a yisrael, huh?"  He sat straight up, held up his forefinger and declared proudly, "Lo! Echad b'Yisrael!".  Since that day I have never thought of any Jew as "just" anything.

This morning I learned a new dimension the meaning of echad b'yisrael from R' Dovid Siegel, shlita, who is visting from Eretz Yisrael on his annual trip to the US.  Rabbi Siegel showed me a startling Gr'a (Shnos Eliyahu, Brachos, 5:1).  The Gr'a holds that it is forbidden (yes, that is a direct quote) to daven for oneself in shmone esrei.  Shmonei esrei is a t'filla for the needs of klal yisrael; one's personal needs/bakashos may not be addressed until elokai n'tzor.  Rabbi Siegel explained to me that the the Torah was not given to an individual, it was given to klal yisrael -- that is, HaShem's connection to this world is via klal yisrael, not through a lot of Jews.  A person's heart, liver, kidneys, etc are vial organs and the person cannot live with out them, but each on its own is both unimportant and, in fact, not even survivable.  So to each of us are vital to the survival and vitality of Klal Yisrael, but our importance is entirely that we contribute to the health and functioning of the klal.

Why put the personal requests at the end?  Maybe I would daven better for the klal after I had taken care of my own needs?  The answer is that I can't really know what my needs are until I recognize that I am part of that larger community.  Only then can I daven properly for myself and even for other individuals; only then do I appreciate that "needs" are those things that enable me to fulfill my mission as Echad b'Yisrael.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק