This Shabbat:

Friday Candle Lighting: 6:56pm
Shabbat Ends: 7:45 pm

Torah Message:

Walking with the King

“And He called…” (1-1)

The Vizhnitzer Rebbe zatzal used to say that it escaped him how someone could be charmed by being honored. Surely this honor would just fill a person with acute embarrassment to the extent that he wouldn’t know where to put himself.

He gave a parable to explain his reasoning:

Once there was a king of who appointed an official to govern a provincial town. As the governor of this town, the official received a great deal of respect from the local inhabitants.

One day the king arrived in the town to see how his official was doing. The king had decided to travel incognito and didn’t look like anyone special. Only the official knew the king’s true identity. As they passed through the town, the inhabitants tipped their caps with great respect to the official, and completely ignored the ordinary-looking stranger who was accompanying him. Understandably, the more respect and honor which the official received, the more embarrassed and uncomfortable he became, acutely feeling how this respect should rightfully belong only to the king.

This feeling of embarrassment is the way we should all feel.

We know that all honor is only due to G-d, and it’s only because G-d accompanies us wherever we go that we are respected for the virtues that He has bestowed on us.

Moshe Rabbeinu was the humblest of all men. When G-d told him to write the first word in this week’s Torah portion, Vayikra, “And he called…” — Moshe wrote it with a small aleph. The aleph is the letter of the “I”, of the ego. Moshe wrote the aleph at the end of the word smaller than the rest of the word, and it looks like the word Vayikar — “And He happened upon.” Moshe felt that he wasn’t important enough to be intentionally called upon. Rather, from his humble perspective G-d “happened upon him”.

• Sources: based on the Mayana Shel Torah who heard this from the Sadigura Rebbe in Pashmishel