Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Pride in Being Chosen

Let me tell you how I feel about Nebraska.  If you were to ask me, "Which is worse, driving through Nebraska or chemotherapy?"  I would answer, "Obviously there is not comparison.  However, chemotherapy is also pretty bad."  In fact, my wife and I once cancelled a reservation and drove an extra two hours after a long day of driving with two toddlers for one reason: so we would not have to wake up in Nebraska.

That being said, while waiting at LAX for my plane home, I saw Miss Nebraska.  No, I do not collect Miss State cards.  So how did I know it was Miss Nebraska?  She was wearing a sash that said so.  Jeans and t-shirt like every other teen/early 20s in the airport, but also a bold sash emblazoned with "Miss Nebraska".  I couldn't imagine why she thought anyone in LAX would care that the duly appointed representatives of the great state of Nebraska had chosen her to bear the responsibility of that lofty title.  Given the nature of beauty pageants and their contestants, I decided that she really didn't feel a heavy responsibility to represent Nebraska.  Rather, she wanted us to know that someone (anyone, I would guess) had chosen her for something she feels is important -- beauty and personality.

The Torah tells us to put tzitzis on our four cornered garments.  Tzitzis is not a mitzvah like t'fillin; the Torah requires Jewish men to wear t'fillin.  Tzitzis are only a requirement if you happen to have a four-cornered garment.  One the details of the mitzvah is "u'r'isem oso"/that they [Klal Yisrael] should see it (the thread of t'cheles in particular, but also the tzitzis in general).  That injunction does actually require the tzitzis to be seen, instead it means that tzitzis are only required to be worn during the daytime hours (when seeing is a possibility).  That is why women are exempt; tzitzis is a time bound, positive mitzvah/mitzvas asei sh'z'man grama.

Four cornered garments are not the usual style, yet we go out of our way to contrive four cornered garments just so we are able to perform this mitzvah.  Just wearing the garment fulfills the requirements of the mitzvah; it doesn't have to be seen at all.  Yet, many of use do wear them out.  The Mishna Brura says that one should wear them out, because: "If one were a member of the king's elite guard, he would wear his uniform with pride.  All the more so, we, chosen by the King of kings, HaKadosh Baruch Hu to be His treasured nation should wear our tzitzis out in the open and with pride."

Wherever you are, whatever else you are wearing, tzitzis is a banner displaying to the world that we have been chosen and we want everyone to know.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more