Ask Around Your Shabbos Table

In this week’s parsha, we see the incredible love that Hashem has for Klal Yisroel by turning Bila’am’s curse into a blessing.

Ask Around Your Table:

Why in the bracha before Shema (of Shacharis) do we say: הבוחר בעמו ישראל באהבה (Who chooses His nation Am Yisroel with love), and not simply: הבוחר בעמו ישראל?

Answer: Rav Yisroel of Rizhin quotes his father saying in the name of the Baal Shem Tov who answered this question with the following mashal:

One person goes to the market to buy fruits. When he looks at the fruits, he finds some defect in every fruit: “this one is missing a bit, this one is a bit rotten, etc.” Another person, however, goes to the same market and right away buys the fruits, even though they are not perfect, because he says about each fruit: “But on the other side it is perfect. How beautiful is this fruit…”

And that mashal explains “הבוחר בעמו ישראל באהבה” - Hashem chooses Am Yisroel with love even though Am Yisroel is not perfect, because Hashem looks only at the positive attributes of Am Yisroel. [ספר עירין קדישין, ליקוטים, נושא תפילה ד”ה הבוחר]