Now, there's a lot to be gained from appreciating what’s being said here, so listen to this principle: Hakadosh Baruch Hu needs in this world what we could call ‘victims’. He needs sufferers, people who will display to the world what it means to experience hardship.
Now, we’re not talking only about sinners, someone who deserves a punishment. That’s why I used the word ‘victims’ – Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants in this world some victims who undergo suffering. Sometimes they deserve it – I imagine many of the bechorei Mitzrayim did – but sometimes not; sometimes it’s for a certain benefit, and sometimes it seems like something that we can’t understand. But we’re not talking now about the reason it happened to him and not to someone else. That’s a different story. Right now our concern is this principle; that Hashem wants the world to witness suffering.
Victims For the Weak Minded
One of the biggest weaknesses of mankind is that they never appreciate their happiness while they have it. It’s an unfortunate fact but it’s true. And even though people who frequent this place have heard something about it already, you must know you didn't begin to hear. You didn’t begin yet living successfully.
You want to know what it means to live successfully? Listen now because it might surprise you. When you go through life and you are really happy that you don't have chas veshalom a sarcoma, a tumor in the knee, that’s called living successfully. We don’t realize how lucky we are.
The Happy Populace
Here’s a man in his hospital room and he’s sitting by the window. He’s getting chemotherapy treatments – he has cancer in his bones – and he looks down at the happy populace walking through the streets carefree. He sees the top of the heads of people moving around, rushing here and there, and he envies every one of them because his legs are not functioning anymore. What would he give to be in their place! But they are oblivious.
And ‘they’ means us, all of us sitting here. We don’t know that there’s a man looking down at us wishing he could be ‘walking the street like they are;’ we don’t think about it at all! We have no idea how fortunate we are.
And so how will we ever understand how fortunate we are when we stand up after this lecture and we stretch? After Maariv we’ll all stride off into the darkness. We’re gliding; everything is functioning and we walk along without thinking about ָבֶרּהַמֵּכִין מִצְעֲדֵי ג, the One Who so contrived that our joints function so effortlessly as if they were lubricated with oil in between the moving bones.
The Wonderful Mucus
You know, there are bones that almost touch each other, only there's a thin layer of mucus tissue that's constantly lubricated. Miracle of miracles – by just drinking water and eating ordinary foods! The water and food is processed into a certain lubrication – it’s called synovial fluid – that causes the joints to rub against each other without chafing.
Now all of you, I pray to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, will live off all your lives, a career of 120 years, and never experience any discomfort. Wonderful! But it's a wasted career! If you don’t enjoy your knees and you don’t feel happiness and gratitude and ahavas Hashem because of that, it was a big waste. And therefore Hakadosh Baruch Hu in His pity does what the possuk says: ְָרֶךַּדָּאִים בִּי וֹרֶה חַט – He teaches the chatoim the path (Tehillim 25:8). He shows us pictures so that we can walk on the right path, the path of gratitude and ahavas Hashem.
