When HaKadosh Baruch Hu chose Moshe Rabbeinu as His prophet, and sent him to take Am Yisrael out of Mitzrayim and to give them the Torah, Moshe Rabbeinu was hesitant, afraid that his older brother, Aharon, would be resentful when he saw his younger brother rising to such greatness. HaKadosh Baruch Hu reassured him and said (Shemos 4:14): “Your brother Aharon...behold he is coming out to greet you and he will see you and rejoice in his heart.”
What a wonderful testimony Hashem gave about Aharon! Fortunate is the person who merits to have his praise written in the Toras Hashem, from Hashem! Aharon, with his pure heart, not only did not resent Moshe’s rise to greatness, on the contrary, he rejoiced in his younger brother’s greatness!
Our holy Torah is eternal and everything written in it is a directive and a lesson for generations. From the description of Aharon’s joy at Moshe’s greatness, we can learn about a custom for generations, and I am referring to a daily practice that we can derive from Aharon’s middos.
What do I mean? When we see a person making a brachah and we approach him and complete his brachah by answering amen, we recognize his virtue, and we express to him to what extent the brachah that he is uttering is important and worthy of being crowned with the answering of amen. Yes! When we go over to answer amen after a friend’s brachah, that is also addressing the virtue of the mevarech, not only the virtue of the brachah itself.
So, with such a simple and easy action of answering amen, we merit to follow the path of Aharon Hakohein. Just like joy filled his heart when he heard about his brother Moshe, likewise, when we see another Yid about to make a brachah – we should recognize his virtue, and through that, we should join him in answering amen, with an ayin tovah and simchah in our hearts.
It is possible that this is what the passuk we say each morning alludes to: “His’hallelu beShem kodsho, yismach lev mevakshei Hashem” (Tehillim 105:3). Those who are mevakshei Hashem are happy in their hearts when they hear someone who makes the brachah and praises Hashem, and they go over to answer amen with joy in their hearts. Thus, they are acting like Aharon HaKohein, of whom it is said, “Vera’acha vesamach belibo.” Indeed, I found an allusion that indicates that this passuk refers to those who answer amen, from the fact that the acronym of the passuk is numerically ישמח לב מבקשי יי equivalent to 90, the number of amens that a Yid ideally should answer each day, as the poskim taught us.
May the image of Aharon and his middos be in our mind’s eye always, and we will merit to rejoice in the joys and successes of others, we will join their brachos and complete them with answering amen, with an ayin tovah and joy in our hearts, with Birchos Hashachar and with all the brachos. In this merit, we should be treated from Above with a middah tovah kefulah, amen.
Good Shabbos
Yaakov Dov Marmurstein
