B"H

Tuesday, Tammuz 13, 5776 / July 19, 2016 - Hakhel year

In the Diaspora, we will read Parshat Balak this Shabbat, in the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar). 

Balak, King of Moab, solicited the services of Bilam to curse the Jewish people, hoping that if Bilam curses them he would be able to fight them and win.

But G-d warned Bilam not to curse the Jewish nation. No matter how much he tried, G-d didn’t allow Bilam to curse the Jewish people. In the end, G-d placed words of blessings in Bilam's mouth and he blesses them three separate times. 

In one of the passages of Bilam's blessings to the Jewish people, he says, "He [G-d] has not beheld sin in Jacob, nor has He seen perverseness in Israel.  The L-rd his G-d is with him."

Rashi explains this to mean that even when the people of Israel sin, G-d is not extremely strict with them. He doesn’t abandon them even when they sin. He overlooks their flaws and sees their good.

G-d commanded us to, “Love your fellow as yourself.”  This implies, that just as we tend to overlook our own faults, so too, we have to overlook other people’s faults and focus on the good in them.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Barditchev was one whose unconditional love for his brethren was legendary.  Rabbi Levi Yitzchak always saw the good in everyone.  He was able to look beyond the person's external acts of the moment and see the essence of the Jew's neshama-soul. 

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was once walking in the marketplace and saw a Jewish coachman in Talit and Tefillin praying and at the same time greasing the wheels of his carriage in preparation for a trip.

Someone else would have scolded the coachman for his lack of respect for his prayers. Not so Rabbi Levi Yitzchak.  He lifted his eyes upward and exclaimed, "G-d, see what a great people you have. How devoted this poor coachman is to You.  Even when he's greasing the wheels of his couch he cannot refrain from praying to you!"

Some find fault with others even when the other person is performing a good deed. Then there are those who see only good in others, even when they may be doing something deemed not so good.

As a small child, the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, of blessed memory, asked his father, “Why did G-d create a person with two eyes? One eye is enough to see."

His father replied, “A person needs two eyes so that with the left eye, he should look at himself in order to find his own faults and correct them.  At another person, however, one should always look with the right eye - with compassion and kindness."

HAVE A VERY GOOD, HAPPY, HEALTHY AND SUCCESSFUL DAY