Shabbat Shalom from Bangkok!

It started off sounding a little nostalgic. A girl who once spent shabbat with us was back in town and wanted to meet.

Little did Nechama and I know that this meeting would provide a peek into the workings of Hashem's wondrous world and lend insight into the foresight of the Rebbe’s sending of Shluchim around the world to engage with Jews wherever they may be.

Hi. My name is A. R. Twenty-one years ago, I was in Thailand as an exchange student. And, when I came to Bangkok, my family didn't want me to stay in a hotel because I was only 17. And I stayed with the Chabad, if I remember correctly, it was with you and your family.

I just wanted to let you know, just how much of an impact that visit made on me. I got to celebrate my first really traditional Shabbat, and it really sparked within me a joy and interest in Judaism that I hadn't had before.

So now it's been twenty-one years and I try to have Judaism be a much bigger part of my life. I attend and work at Chabad events in my hometown. I host Jewish events at my home in N. especially for study abroad students. 

So, I just wanted you to know that you made a huge difference in a kid's life, and I wanted to thank you for that.

The story touched us deeply.

Because of its simplicity. What we had done was nothing out of the ordinary. Just helping a doting mother who wanted her teenage daughter to be hosted in a safe and secure environment. 

Yet, this act set off a host of results that constitute the ingredients of Jewish Continuity.

I am certain that you who are reading this article have similar stories. Where you did something that didn’t seem extraordinary, but the long-term chain of events that was set off ended up being quite phenomenal. 

There is a funny joke that highlights how one thing leads to another.

An old Jewish man and a young Jewish man are traveling on the train. The young man asks: "Excuse me, what time is it?" The old man does not answer.

"Excuse me, sir, what time is it?" The old man keeps silent.

"Sir, I''m asking you what time is it. Why don’t you answer?!"

The old man says: "Son, the next stop is the last on this route. I don''t know you, so you must be a stranger. If I answer you now, I''ll have to invite you to my home. You’re handsome, and I have a beautiful daughter. You will both fall in love and you will want to get married. Tell me, why would I need a son-in-law who can''t even afford a watch?"

One thing leads to another.

Especially when it comes to ‘things’ that are not just things but infinitely meaningful and holy things – G-d’s commandments – Mitzvot.

Our Sages taught us ‘a mitzvah pulls with it another mitzvah’.

Every mitzvah that you do has the power to be a ‘gateway mitzvah’ that brings with it deeper connection to Hashem and ever widening and deepening G-d’ly attachment.

I am deeply and wholly immersed in preparing for Pesach right now. 

Raising the funds and setting up the teams of rabbi’s, Yeshiva student volunteers, and food service staff to provide more than ten thousand seats at Pesach Seder dinners throughout Thailand.

Sometimes when you think about large numbers you can lose sight of what that truly means to each guest on a personal and individual level.

Exactly during this most busy and strenuous time, Hashem has sent me an uplifting reminder of what one Jewish experience by one guest can spark in themselves and in their extended families and beyond.

I share this with you to remind to remind all of us that each of us has the G-d given ability to not just to impact ourselves, but to have an influence on other people around us. 

This story reemphasizes the importance of doing what you can, even if it seems small and trivial, to help someone else have a meaningful Jewish experience. 

In this weeks Parsha the Torah describes the detailed accounting of the construction of the Mishkan. 

The Midrash describes a poignant part of the parsha where Moshe accounts for 100 heavy bars of silver that had been collected by each Jewish household giving a half shekel but is unable to account for 1775 shekels.

While it was only .005% of the amount collected, there were murmurings among some of the people about this.

A heavenly voice rang out from heaven. ‘The 1775 shekels were used to fashion the hooks for the curtains of the courtyard’.  

I am thinking out loud here, how many percentage of your clothing do the buttons represent? However minute a percentage, if you don’t have buttons where you need them, the clothing may be unusable. Hooks, where they are needed, are crucial. It may be only .005% of the structure, but it is absolutely and majorly impactful.

In an allegoric way, this may happen to us in our lives as well. Perhaps sometimes Hashem sends us heavenly signs to remind us that while we may not recognize the impact of our deeds, there is value in continuing to follow in Hashems path step by step. Little action by little action.

A young Chabad rebbetzin shared a story about her disappointment in one of her students who had not followed through on fully implementing the mitzvah of Family Purity that she had studied with her. 

In the very same conversation she shared how another student had called her a few days earlier to thank her for the meaningful lessons and guidance and how much joy the mitzvah of Family Purity was bringing to her and her husband.

She didn’t notice the juxtaposition of both stories that had been shared during the conversation. I noticed it and pointed out to her that these two stories may be very related. It seemed to me that it was plausible to say that Hashem had prepared the uplifting feedback in advance of the disappointing one.

When presented in that way, the young rebbetzin agreed and felt much better about continuing her outreach classes in Family Purity.  

There was a great Jewish sage who when asked about how he achieved his great knowledge responded ‘it took me five minutes’. What he meant to say was that the five minutes that most people consider too short of a unit of time to allocate to study, he utilized for Torah study. How often do we look at the watch and say ‘I don’t have enough time to start studying’. If one were to utilize all of those minutes, the result would be astounding.

The takeaway is very simple.

Keep on studying Torah, doing mitzvahs and helping people.

Action by action. 

Minute by minute.

Penny by penny.

Not only does it accumulate to a big amount but even the small amount may have a big effect.

May all of our collective deeds throughout the generations join to reach the tipping point of Mashiach coming NOW.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

PS. To host a guest for an uplifting Pesach Seder, please click here. 

We did our best — would it work?
A Torah thought for Parshat Pekudei.

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