Written by R’ Avrohom Hillel Reich based on a lesson and story by Harav Ben Tziyon Sneh Shlita
Pesach concluded only a few short weeks ago but its lessons abound. One of the most important lessons learned from Kriyas Yam Suf was that each of us has a unique gift to share with the world:
וישם את הים לחרבה ויבקעו המים )יד, כא(
The waters of the sea were parted and the nation of Israel walked through on dry land.
We’ve talked about it here in this column before. Yiddishkeit today can hardly be accused of encouraging too much originality. Our Yeshivas and Bais Yaakov’s stay comfortably within the box, being “different” is not a plus. Current trends and fashions spread like wildfire with multitudes of followers only too happy to conform. It’s scary to think that we might go down in history as the “cookie cutter generation.”
Torah is growing, chesed is unprecedented, but does all this come at the cost of the loss of our own individual identity? What is the cost of this conformity? And more importantly does Hashem really want us to constantly look to one another rather than develop our own unique personality? As our tradition teaches, the Red Sea parted into 12 different paths, when it was split. This was done to teach an important lesson. Each tribe was given a different path, in recognition of their special qualities.
The Mechilta goes one step further and tells us based on the words in the shira- Ata forrarta b’zzcha yam, that the sea was split into many small paths - pirurin. There were more than six hundred thousand paths! One for each Jew that crossed on dry land. The symbolism engendered by this thought is amazing. Every Jew counts. Every person was worthy of the entire sea splitting for him! Each person had the merit of carrying his whole nation, should the need arrive.
Harav Shimshon Pincus zt”l picks up on this thought (Tiferes Shimshon Bamidbar) and brings it home. Every Jew, R’ Pincus tells us, has one quality, one strength by which he is stronger than anyone in his generation! And furthermore – Hashem does not look at each individual as only being part of a nation... Hashem looks at every single Jew with a specialness, as a parent would look at a ben yachid, his only son. Everyone has something unique to contribute to this world. We must try and find out what our special strength is for without our contribution, this world is missing an important and vital dimension - our talent!
All this helps us understand a well-known chazal (Sanhedrin 37a)- “Each person must tell himself- the world was created just for me- “Beshvili nivra ha’olam”. The word “beshvili '' means - with my path, Rav Pincus says this famous chazal is making reference to our Mechilta; the paths on the Red sea that Hashem cleared for each one of us. He did this to show us how important we all are!
We were all born with tremendous talents from our Creator. We must encourage and develop our own unique talents and sense of self! Becoming proud and passionate in our Avodas Hashem. The world is waiting for our symphony!!
