A Joke With A Lesson
When R’ Yankel Galinsky zt”l was a young bachur, he felt he needed chizuk and spoke to his mashgiach. The mashgiach told him to go to a certain beis medrash at a certain time, and that he would get the chizuk he needed.
R’ Yankel didn’t understand, but he went. He heard in the women’s section a bachur, who later became the Steipler, repeating to himself the words of Chazal with a passion “This world is like a wedding. Grab and eat. If you’re at a wedding, there is the smorgasbord, where you have to serve yourself food; if not, you will stay hungry. The same is with life. It’s up to me to grab and learn!”
The young Steipler kept repeating this Chazal with this explanation and this inspired the young R’ Yankel that it’s up to him.
What’s the lesson? How much money and health you have is decided in Heaven, but choosing to grow in avodas Hashem is up to you. Once you realize it’s in your hands, you will try making the most of your life.
This Connects To This Week’s Parsha:
Money was collected to build the Mishkan. But Hashem didn’t say, “You must donate.” You had to choose to give. Only those who wanted to donate gave.
In life, we are able to grow much more than we can imagine. But we have to choose, try, and not give up.
Once we choose, Chazal already say (Makkos 10b) Hashem helps a person in the way a person wants to grow.
Do your part, and Hashem will send you the help that you need to grow.
Yossi and Chesky went on a business trip to China and were given a room on the 41st floor in the hotel. They tried explaining “Because we’re Jewish, we can’t use elevators on Shabbos. We need a lower floor.”
They didn’t want to give them a different room.
“Don’t worry,” Yossi said. “I’ll tell you stories and jokes the whole way up!”
“I can’t wait,” Chesky said, half smiling.
Friday night, they started climbing. By the 13th floor, they regret staying at this hotel, and by the 30th floor, they regret going on this business trip.
Floor 40. One more to go. Yossi said “I have one final story, but it’s painful. Long story short, I left the keys downstairs. But the good news is, I realized this on floor 3, so I had 41 floors to find a way to say it to you in nice way…”
What’s the lesson? Yossi left the main thing downstairs. One of the main things in Yiddishkeit is the heart; don’t do mitzvahs while forgetting the heart, the emotion, and geshmak.
It’s never too late to start serving Hashem with heart.
Avrumi went to the lunchroom and looked at his plate. “What is this? A science experiment?”
“No, young man,” the cook said, “This is called mashed potatoes.”
“Mashed potatoes? It doesn’t look mashed or like potatoes. I think this never even met a potato.”
The cook, an older man, said, “In Russia, they would have fought over this.”
“Yeah,” Avrumi said, “but back then at least it was still fresh…”
That’s the lesson: Avodas Hashem should be geshmak and fresh. When one understands what Yiddishkeit is, it is always fresh.
Someone once came to R’ Yisroel Salanter zt”l and said, “I don’t really have time to learn. What should I rather learn: a few minutes of Mussar or a few minutes of Gemara?” R’ Yisroel answered, “A few minutes of Mussar.”
“What? Why Mussar and not Gemara?” the kid asked, surprised.
R’ Yisroel said, “Because when you learn Mussar and remind yourself why you are in this world, your heart will wake up. You will be much more motivated and inspired to learn more, and you will then push yourself to make more time to learn.”
What’s the lesson? Every person wants to grow and learn. Just sometimes they are missing the inspiration to do it.
This Connects To This Week’s Parsha:
Hashem said that whoever is inspired should donate to the Mishkan.
Question: Hashem could have made a miracle, just as food, the maan, came from heaven, so too everything needed to build the Mishkan could have rained down from heaven and be ready. Why did Klal Yisroel have to give money?
Answer: One answer is that maybe Hashem wanted to give us a chance and teach us that the way to build something, in this case a mishkan, is by having people who are inspired and willing to donate on their own.
When one is inspired to give on their own, their heart is in the project. Projects (like SWEETER THAN HONEY) can only continue if there are people who are inspired and believe in the project and will then choose to give more because they want it to continue!
If it had rained down money, we wouldn't have realized this lesson! In life, the secret to accomplishing many great things was taught to us by R' Yisroel Salanter: "Become inspired, and you will be motivated to do more."
Just Missing Inspiration. It’s up to you.
