You Are Important
Pictured: The Rebbe is seen giving a dollar to a young child to distribute to charity during the weekly “receiving lines”
Eli Groisman grew up in Curaçao, a Caribbean island, in the early 1980s. Since there were no Jewish schools on the island in those years, he attended a Protestant school, where he had a difficult time. Despite his non-observant upbringing, he refused to participate in religious services, leading to daily conflicts with other students while the teachers and principal sided against him. By seventh grade, things escalated, and he started skipping school to play golf, returning just in time to meet his father Chaim at dismissal.
One day, the principal informed Chaim of his son's truancy. Eli's father gave him an ultimatum: conform to the school's expectations or leave school and work with him. He chose the latter, which strained his family's relations with the community due to legal and social repercussions.
His father was terribly upset about the situation, but he didn't know any way out. One night he had a dream. He saw himself near the age of three sitting on his grandmother's lap. She was saying to him, "Liuvu (Russian for 'my love'), anytime you are in trouble, the one who can help you is the Lubavitcher Rebbe." This was the first time he had ever heard of the Rebbe. The next morning, he made his way to the nearby synagogue and he poured his heart to G‑d.
Meanwhile, two thousand miles away in NYC, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, a member of the Rebbe's staff, received a telephone call at home from the Rebbe's senior secretary, “The Rebbe wants you to go to Curacao immediately”, he was told.
Without hesitating, Rabbi Kotlarsky, accompanied by a friend, took the next flight to Curaçao and arrived at the local Synagogue just as Chaim had finished his prayer. Hearing his story, Rabbi Kotlarsky comforted him and assisted with enrolling Eli in a Jewish summer camp and eventually a Jewish school in NY.
Expressing his gratitude in a heartfelt letter, Chaim thanks the Rebbe for extending help to "a small Jew" in a remote location. In response, the Rebbe wrote back, emphasizing that "there is no such thing as a small Jew," as we each contain a divine soul which is a “part of G-d” and that a Jew should never underestimate their immense potential (see here for more on this story).
In this week's Torah portion, Bamidbar, we learn about G-d's instruction to Moses and Aharon regarding taking a census of the Jewish people.
Being that G-d is the creator of the universe and is intimately involved in every detail of the world, He of course knows all that transpires. So why would He need a census?
One of the foremost commentators, Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki), explains, “because they were dear to Him, He counted them often”.
Counting something is a way of showing that we value it. By counting how much of something we possess, we express how much each unit of the aggregate whole adds to the value of the whole and how indispensable each unit is to the whole.
In this census, the fact that each Jew counted for one—neither more nor less—indicates that every Jew is equally dear to G-d, as an individual. Every Jew possesses this invaluable worth by virtue of his or her unique soul-essence. By virtue of this essence, which the simplest Jew possesses no less than did Moses, all Jews are all equally G-d's children. When we recognize this, we, too, will cherish and never dismiss or overlook any individual.
Next week we will be celebrating the holiday of Shavuot when we commemorate and relive the very moments when we stood at the foot of Mount Sinai to receive the Torah over three thousand years ago. It is a Mitzvah to listen to the reading of the Ten Commandments in Synagogue and eat dairy foods (see here for more on these traditions).
The Torah portion of Bamidbar, which discusses the census, is always read prior to Shavuot. This is to serve as a reminder that at Mount Sinai, each of us, without exception, was chosen and entrusted with a special mission to fuse together the spiritual and physical and create a home for G-d in this world through the teachings of the Torah and performance of Mitzvot. On Shavuot, we were transformed into a holy and united nation. In order to fulfill our responsibility, we must recognize that each of us is an indispensable part of the Jewish people.
The Torah depicts the Jewish people's encampment at the base of Mount Sinai, eagerly awaiting the receiving of the Torah, as being "like one man with one heart." By acknowledging our inherent self-worth, we can genuinely come together and unite as a cohesive nation.
We have the responsibility to educate ourselves, our families and our friends to recognize the G-dly potential we each possess and to utilize it to transform this world, one Mitzvah at a time.
As Maimonides famously states, “the entire year, a person should always look at himself as equally balanced between merit and sin and the world as equally balanced between merit and sin… if he performs one mitzvah, he tips his balance and that of the entire world to the side of merit and brings deliverance and salvation to himself and others”.
Just as the Jewish people stood at Mount Sinai united as one, so too, let us unite and prepare the world for the ultimate Redemption with the coming of Moshiach when all nations will live together in peace and prosperity.
