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But then I asked myself, “What if G-d had never finished the Book of Exodus?” When we started reading it a few months ago, the Jews had just become slaves in Egypt and suffered greatly under their cruel oppressors. The End!
No, thank goodness it didn’t end
there. The Israelites’ cries reached up to Heaven and their story was just set
to begin. And indeed, this week’s parasha truly is a grand
finale to the second book of Moses and worth waiting for as the Israelites were now
a free people, ready to worship their Gracious G-d in a Divinely designed
Tabernacle.
For the past several weeks we
read about the construction of the Tabernacle. Now that it was completed, Moses
blessed the nation. Indeed, blessings
are most potent in things that are completed and whole, not merely started.
Imagine a pilot who makes a great take-off but forgets to land!
Interesting to note in Hebrew the word Shalom, which
means peace and is also one of G-d's names, also contains the word shalem,
which means complete — implying that where there is peace and completion G-d
can reside.
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How many things in our lives do we
begin but never complete? Most of the things which we start, other than
chocolate cookies, remain unfinished: diets, workout regimens, language
courses, our vows to be better Jews and better people, etc. One of the main
reasons that this happens is because we allow our evil inclination to take the
helm. He caters to our weakness: “Just stay in bed and sleep more, you work
hard”; “Just eat it, you’ll start your diet tomorrow”; “Don’t go to synagogue
or give charity, you’re nice enough as you are….” The evil inclination succeeds when you
fail.
The threat of Amalek, the nation
perpetually set to destroy the Jews through the generations, is not only a
physical enemy but an inner enemy as well. It attempts to cool our religious
fervor, our spiritual aspirations, and our yearning for self-improvement. Thus,
it is our job seven days a week to give ourselves an extra push and not be lazy
or distracted and thus to snatch victory from the insatiable demonic jaws
salivating in anticipation of our defeat. We have to stop starting and
start finishing what we already started.
Indeed, when we take on a new
mitzvah, we must complete it. Although it was Moses who found Joseph’s bones
and took them out of Egypt, it was the Israelites who got credit for doing so
because they were the ones who buried Joseph’s bones when they arrived in the
Promised Land.
In addition, we should not rely on the
laurels of the past. Even if we did good yesterday, it can’t sustain us
forever. Moses had to disassemble and reconstruct the Tabernacle every single
day. Each one of us is like a Tabernacle. It is only through the continual
building and deconstructing of ourselves that we become aware of the components
that make us who we are. Every time Moses went through the process of erecting
and dismantling the Mishkan, he invested us with the strength to
rebuild ourselves: to learn from our failures and to reinvent
ourselves in better spiritual formation.
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Laziness and procrastination must be
the first casualties in our efforts to live a healthy, purposeful and holy
life. We must never be afraid to start, even
if we fear we can’t complete the task. As Rabbi Tarfon said in Pirkei Avos
(2:16): “It is not your obligation to finish the task, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”
Dash the excuses that begin with,
"Just this once I won't," and "Just this once I
can't." We must never give up nor allow the last comment on our lives
to be stamped with the word: “Incomplete!” We would never tolerate a book
where each chapter had great opening paragraphs but the author decided not
continue the story line. So why, my friends, would we accept that to be the
story of our lives? Shabbat Shalom!
I really like this very much indeed.
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