Story by Nisson and Levi Krupenia
Illustration by Miri Weinreb
Summer, 2023
The Weiss family decided to go to the zoo in honor of Levi finishing learning Masichta Sanhedrin. As they got close to the zoo, they heard the lions roaring very loudly, the donkeys braying wildly, and the cows mooing sadly. Then they saw the reason for all the chaos. Inside the lion’s cage were bales of hay! And the donkeys had large chunks of meat to eat! And the bears’ cage had hot peppers and pickles inside, for the bears to have for lunch!
Little Hadassa asked, “Who gave the bears that food?!” The rest of the family was wondering the same thing.
Then Nisson remarked, “Hey! Since when is Tzakok a zookeeper?”
They all saw Tzadok feeding the elephants some dead, squished cockroaches. Now the family realized why all the animals had their food mixed up...
Suddenly, a worried looking Tzadok came running over to the family and cried out: “I can’t figure out what I did wrong! So, what if I gave the horse a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and the giraffe a tuna patty. What’s so bad?!”
Every Creature Has its Own Menu
Tatty answered Tzadok, “Rabbi Avigdor Miller, ZT”L used to teach a very big lesson about food. He would say that Hashem gives worms to fish to eat. But you don’t like worms, so Hashem gives you bread to eat. Everybody gets what he likes. ל חי רˆון̆ומ ביע כל. Each creature has its own menu.
There are hundreds of thousands of different customers and hundreds of thousands of menus!
“Think about it - Why did Hashem make it like this? For what purpose? The answer is this: Yes, of course everybody could say that this world is a world of chessed. It’s easy to say that. But to actually FEEL that this is a world of chessed, and more chessed, and more chessed, we get that feeling from the experience of eating. When we see the HUGE variety of food Hashem made, we are supposed to think: This food is so good, thank you so much Hashem, I love you, Hashem!”
Rav Volender’s Parshah Shiur
Tzadok started to jump up and down. “Yes, this week I just heard that from Rav Volender in his parshah shiur. It says in Parshas Re’eh, 'ו‡ם◌ כל... ̆ו ם◌ מח לפני ה. It’s so much fun to eat, it’s delicious, it’s nutritious! All types of flavors for all types of tastes! Thank You, Hashem!”
He then said out loud, “I gotta run fix my mistakes now...”
“Wow, all this talk about food is making me hungry,” said Chani. As Mommy took out the food, Tatty announced “Let’s thank Hashem for all the options of spreads you can put into a sandwich.” The kids all gave ideas. Peanut butter, jelly, cream-cheese, butter, lox, white fish, dill dip, hot sauce, matbucha, egg-plant, egg salad, tuna, guacamole, sliced cheese, chumus techina...”
Tzadok came running over to the family and said breathlessly, “The food here smells so good. I think I’ll make myself an ultra-sandwich, including all the spreads at once! This way I don’t think I’ll ever forget the lesson we learned today!” And so, it was.
Have A Wonderful Shabbos!
Takeaway:
When we eat all different types of yummy delicious foods, we think of the Goodness of Hashem. And every time we eat, we feel it more and more and more.
Reprinted from the Parshas Re’eh 5783 edition of Toras Avigdor Junior based on the Torah teachings of Rabbi Avigdor Miller, zt”l.
