By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
Thank G-d, this week I got my second shot of the Moderna vaccine in Brooklyn NY.
The nurse who administered the shot told me that it is not unusual to get adverse side effects after the second dose. I knew it was a standard line. She must have made that same comment hundreds of times that day.
I thought to myself why does she have to presume that there would be uncomfortable side effects? After all it is not as if everyone suffered those symptoms.
I was praying that I would be spared those symptoms.
Yet, by early afternoon the next day I was feeling horrible I was feverish and had aches all over. I now understood and was thankful to the nurse for repeating her quick disclaimer. For now, I was not worried about my feverish condition and and knew that it was simply the aftereffects of the vaccine.
It was an interesting discovery. Sometimes sharing a possible negative consequence is quite a positive thing. In this case is served to reassure me that all was going according to plan.
I did a quick google search and educated myself as to what was going on. Why was I getting a reaction like this.
The way I understood it was like this.
The vaccine had told my body that there was a virus attack and the body’s immune system was fighting off the attack. By building a force of response to the virus my cells were storing the knowhow and building antibodies to ward off any possible future attack, may G-d protect us.
This gave more meaning to my aches and pains. It made it much more bearable. I know understood that a strong adverse reaction was not a sign of weakness. On the contrary it showed on a healthy immune system that was kicking and fighting in the effort to fight off the attackers.
It got me thinking on how this concept applies to our lives.
Just like being passive in the face of attack is not the way to go when it comes to viruses. We expect our G-d given immune system to rile up the forces and fight the would-be marauders. Similarly, we need to be prepared to fight when it comes to things that are important and dear to us in all aspects of our lives.
Remaining apathetic when something is challenging your core, is a sign of weakness and unhealthiness.
When one is vigorous and strong, a threatening negative influence is confronted head-on with resistance and unyieldingness.
Nobody in their right mind remains passive when someone intrudes on their personal space with nefarious intentions.
Hashem expects even more of us. It is not enough to be active and vigorous in saving ourselves and our own interests. We need to learn to be just as motivated when it comes to saving someone else.
There is a mitzvah in this weeks Parsha that says ‘don’t stand by the blood of your brother’. When someone’s life is in danger and you have the ability to do something to save them, don’t just stand idly by.
TAKE ACTION.
Do something to try and save the other person.
And this rule can be extended to mean not just saving someone’s physical life. Saving someone’s spiritual life is equally important.
When you see a fellow Jew who is missing out on engaging in his Judaism and thus withholding the vital life sustaining energy that his Jewish soul thirsts for, help him or her do a mitzvah!
By doing even one mitzvah, the spiritual energy within the Jew will be activated and more will follow.
Hence the ‘Mitzvah campaign’ that the Rebbe prescribed as being the way to preserve and enhance Jewish continuity.
I am feeling better thank G-d. Back to my usual routine.
But I am happy that I had the experience of the side effects.
First of all, because I now have a deeper appreciation and thanks to Hashem for protecting me from the virus. The ‘taste’ of the virus was so horrible that I got a small little peek into what having the full-blown sickness may have felt like.
My feelings of thankfulness to Hashem are more complete after having a small peek into what could have been G-d forbid.
And the experience of observing and feeling the battle of my immune system left me wiser and more motivated about the need to put up a fight for things that are dear and important.
This coming week, on Monday we celebrate a ‘minor’ holiday called Pesach Sheni (literally ‘Second Pesach) that emphasizes this very point.
A year after the Exodus, G‑d instructed the people of Israel to bring the Passover offering on the afternoon of the fourteenth of Nissan, and to eat it that evening, roasted over the fire, together with matzah and bitter herbs, as they had done the previous year just before they left Egypt.
“There were, however, certain persons who had become ritually impure through contact with a dead body, and could not, therefore, prepare the Passover offering on that day. They approached Moses and Aaron . . . and they said: ‘. . . Why should we be deprived, and not be able to present G‑d’s offering in its time, amongst the children of Israel?’” (Numbers 9:6–7).
In response to their plea, G‑d established the 14th of Iyar as a day for the “Second Passover” (Pesach Sheni) for anyone who was unable to bring the offering on its appointed time in the previous month.
These Jews who were disqualified didn’t take their rejection without resistance. They deeply cared about being part of the Passover offering and they put up a ‘fight’. They asked, ‘why should we be deprived’?
This is a pivotal teaching.
Nothing is ever lost. There is always a second chance.
But this second chance was not taught initially as part of the Sinai revelation. It needed to be asked for by the Jewish people.
G-d was waiting for this kind of passionate indignance.
They needed to show how much they really cherished G-d’s commandments. I.e., that doing the Passover offering was not a burden in their eyes that they would like to be absolved of. On the contrary, they considered it a privilege to do a mitzvah of Hashem. Thus, when they heard that they wouldn’t be able to do it because of impurity (they had been involved in a mitzvah burial, so they were actually to be commended for their being impure) they complained.
And G-d listened. He gave them a second chance.
Let us be passionate about our relationship with Hashem!
And let us join our voices to the chorus of the many generations who have pleaded before G-d, ‘Why should we be deprived of the great G-dly light that will illuminate the world with the coming of Mashiach’.
(I will be giving the JLI course on the topic of Mashiach ‘This Can Happen’ starting on Sunday morning Thailand time. Details below.)
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor
PS on this holiday of “Pesach Sheini’ Nechama and I celebrate our 28th arrival-in-Thailand anniversary. 28 in Hebrew is ‘KOACH’ which means ‘power’. We pray to G-d that we be blessed to be able to continue our shlichus mission with power!
And we pray to the Almighty that everyone in Thailand be blessed to have GOOD HEALTH and POSITIVE SPIRIT as well as the blessings of financial stability and all the other blessings needed to overcome the current medical challenges.