Shnayim Yomi - Vayeshev - D'var Torah

[Music] one of the heroes in this week's sedra is ruu because ruu attempts to save yose from the designs of his brothers uh from being U from being killed or being uh sent to the pit and worse being killed um and the Mish in Rus comments on ruan's actions and the M says mitzvah if a person wants to do a Mitzvah person should do it with a full and complete heart with great Verve with excitement with a passion shouldn't just do a Mitzvah half-heartedly and the example or one of three examples that the medish gives us is ruu what does the medish say had ruu known that his actions would be recorded for all time in the Torah by Hashem in the Torah for eternity he would have done this very same action with much greater uh with much greater passion and with much much greater fullness he would have taken Yosef on his shoulders and marched him right back to to Yakov ainu so this matress does not seem to be uh praising Ruan this actually seems to be somewhat critical of Ruan because what it's basically seems to be saying is is that ruen was only doing this because you know he thought he would have only done it with a greater uh with with a greater sense of purpose and he would have done it in a more fome way had he known that he was going to get credit for it he didn't know that he was going to get such credit so he did it in a in a half in a Half Baked way that doesn't seem to be much of a sh toen um RAB friend suggests that in the context of the other examples as well that the Mish says that uh this the medish is pointing here to a uh to a human Frailty and that is that we often tend to look at what other people are thinking about us whether they're going to be critical of us or how they're going to take how they're going to perceive our actions when we know what we're what we're doing is right and when we tend to be hesitant about it now yo uh ruvan did something extraordinary he he tried to save his brother he knew it was the right thing and yet he saw all his other brothers uh he had to contend with them they could be critical of them he critical of him and that made him somewhat hesitant had he known that Hashem was going to endorse his uh actions he would have done it even more so but what he did was extraordinary in and of itself and the message here is clear we have to do what we know is right we have to do what we know is right when it's the right time uh when it's the right time to do it despite the fact that there's so many pressures from what we believe other people are viewing us somebody once said to me when I was young a a statement an idea person says when I'm young I thought uh I cared what people thought about me then I got middle-age and I decided I don't care what people think about me and then as an older person as a senior citizen I realized nobody had been looking uh all the time and that's how we have to go about life we have to do what we do we have to do our midst us regardless of whether people are going to be critical or going to deride us for doing what we do what what we believe is to be the right thing and to be of hasem with great pride regardless of the of of the ridicule and Scorn that might come upon user offers a second view of Kasher says that in fact what the uh the medis is telling us here is that Ruan acted extraordinarily had he realized that what he was doing was so amazing and so fantastic and so heroic that it would be written down for the ages he would have done it with a much greater Gusto he would have marched yose right back home to to Yakov on his shoulders but he thought what he was doing was just you know par for the course he didn't see it as being such a big deal he's a hero but he didn't look at himself as a hero and that's the extraordinary the extraordinary Legacy of Y of of ruu to realize that really nothing that we do is small uh a kind gesture to another person a smile a hello just acting menl in the in a store with a person ahead of you in front of the line there is nothing which is small everything has the capacity to be transformative to another human being that you're dealing with and therefore if we only realized how powerful we are how extraordinary our actions are and the impact that we are having on our children on our family on our community on our friends and that it has a ripple effects who knows how how far down the the line if we only realize that about ourselves we would take ourselves and what we're doing with much greater seriousness of purpose and do our mitzvos and even the things that we consider to be insignificant with much greater Verve much greater alacrity much greater Zess much greater excitement much greater purpose that's the legacy of ru we should be Z to carry it on with uh uh with appropriateness um and we should do it well good [Music] us