GUARANTORS

  Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to  get ahead of ourselves - to break our own records and to out strip our yesterdays by our todays. To take this philosophy one step further, we need to obey the voice within- it commands us to give of ourselves and to help others. As long as we have the capacity to give, we are alive. 

   These are my thoughts as we approach the greatest spiritual experience of Jewish History, the Revelation of G-D at Har Sinai, as He gave the Aseres Hadibros to the  Jewish People. 

  At this great moment Hashem tells Moshe " לך אל העם וקדשתם היום ומחר "Go to the People and sanctify them today and tomorrow". This directive is so meaningful for all eternity. It is relatively easy to sanctify oneself on the day of the great miraculous events of Matan Torah. However, we are challenged to sanctify ourselves on the many tomorrows that follow, the days and years after that great and magnificent spiritual expierence. To live  a true and exciting Judaic way of life we must feel that everyday is a new Matan Torah. Judaism beckons us to be מקדש החול, to sanctify the mundane and to live a life of Kedusha infusing our daily life with a greater calling, encouraging us always to climb higher and higher spiritually. 

  It is in this light that many have the Minhag of the Maharam M'Rottenberg, to stand during the reading of the Torah.  By doing so we are reinacting that great moment at Har Sinai, as בני ישראל stood and responded נעשה ונשמע, "We will act and we we will do".  We have that self same immense feeling of loyalty to our Torah and to the exhilarating feeling of Yiddishkeit. 

 These are times that demand of us and especially our children, acknowledgment of G-D's gift to Am Yisrael, a gift that will serve our people for eternity.

  The Rav relates how Hashem asked our forefathers at Sinai for sureties before giving the Jewish People the Torah. Hashem wanted to gurantee that the Torah would be observed and that it would become the cornerstone of the Jewish national existence.

   בני ישראל responded to G-D’s request . They offered the Patriachs as their guarantors and Hashem rejected the offer.

  Then they offered the Prophets and again Hashem rejected the offer.

   Finally the people said: “Our children will be our guarantors and only then did G-D accept their offer.

 This is our מתן תורה - this is our נעשה ונשמע.  Hashem looks towards our sureties and then and only then is our future guaranteed .

   As we read the עשרת הדברות this Shabbat, I ask you to remember, "The only thing that stands between a person and what they want in life is the will to try it and the faith to believe it possible”. 

                                         שבת שלום.  Have an inspirational Shabbat.