Thursday, August 08, 2013

// // 1 comment

Who Are You Like?

by Reb Gutman Locks


     Is there anyone in the Torah you see yourself mimicking, at least to some degree? Surely, if you have a Biblical name you associate with the person you are named after. This is proper since your parents were given a bit of prophecy when they chose your name. This means that you came into the world with a potential to be somewhat like the person who first made that name famous.

     But beside your namesake, do you seem to be more like one Biblical character than the others? Do you find yourself in somewhat similar situations as that person was? Surely it will be watered down, but still, there is some extra feeling of mutuality. Think about this and see who you come up with.

     For me, there has always been only one person I feel like. When the Temple was standing, from time to time, the Holy of Holies required repair. The problem was that only a Kohen Gadol (High Priest) was allowed to enter that special area, and surely the Kohen Gadol was not a skilled repairman who could make the required repairs. So, they would find a skilled repairman, preferably a kohen, but if a kohen could not be found then any Jew would do, and they would lower him into the Holy of Holies from a hole in the roof.

     He would be lowered down in a wooden box with only one side open so he could see what he had to fix, but could not see the rest of the room. They would lower him to the area that required repair, and as soon as he was finished they would quickly lift him back up and out of that most holy place.

     Being a “real” baal teshuva (not always religious) coming from so, so far away, and being so blessed to be in the holy place where I am now, I somehow get the feeling that Hashem has taken someone normally unfit to enter this holy place, and lowered him (me) into it from a hole in the roof.

     One of the major differences between someone who has been religious all his life and a baal teshuva is that the always religious Jew honestly believes that someday there is going to be the “Resurrection of the Dead”. A “real” baal teshuva knows that it has already happened

1 comment:



Related Posts with Thumbnails