פרשת ויצא
The passuk says in this week’s parshah ותהר עוד ותלד בן ותקרא את שמו יהודה … – And she (Leah) bore another son and she called his name Yehuda. Rashi brings a Midrash which explains the reason that she gave her baby this name is that she wished to express her gratitude to God for giving her this son, so she named him Yehuda which means Thank you.
The Gemorah in Berachos (דף ו) says that from the day that God created the world, nobody was successful in thanking God until Leah came along. This Gemorah requires explanation for certainly the three forefathers must have expressed a certain amount of gratefulness, as the Chumash says that they offered sacrifices of gratitude.
I saw that the Kesav Sofer deals with this problem by bringing a very cryptic Gemorah which says that if a person says Hallel every day, it is as if he has cursed and blasphemed God. He explains this bizarre Gemorah by saying that usually Hallel is said to commemorate great miracles such as the redemption from Egypt or the splitting of the Reed Sea. By saying Hallel so frequently, a person seems to belittle the “small” miracles which occur each and every moment of our lives. When one goes about day to day life without recognizing that even his “mundane” bodily functions are constantly miraculous, he is in a sense blaspheming God.
The forefathers merited to see “big” miracles and certainly were successful in praising God for them. However, Leah was unique in that she undoubtedly could have looked at her fourth child as a simple fact of nature. After all, many women have four children. However, she chose to view her seemingly natural birth to Yehuda as “miraculous”. For this, she received the title as “the first person since the creation of the universe to praise God.”
Truth be told, Leah was not the only one in this week’s parsha to show gratitude toward God. The Midrash in the Parsha says that Rachel Imenu named her child Yosef for she knew that only when a woman has a child, does she have someone to blame certain household mishaps on. That is why she named him “Yosef” which mean to gather, for God “gathered” and removed her humiliation.
This midrash seems bizarre for two reasons. Usually a name contains in it the entire essence of any object as we explained in previous shiurim. Was this aspect of Rachel having somebody to blame for her mishaps on the entire essence of her holy son? Secondly, is this what she wanted her son to be remembered for throughout the generations?
Perhaps we could explain this midrash along a similar vein. Not only was Rachel Imenu keenly aware of the kindness that God did for her by allowing a barren woman to become pregnant, but she was even sensitive to this “trivial” kindness that God did for her that she would now have an outlet to blame her “household mistakes” on. Perhaps she hoped to convey to all future generations this need to thank God, even for the day-to-day “small” kindnesses that he does for us.
In truth, there is a famous Ramban that alludes to this concept. The Ramban in Parshas Bo says that the “foundation of the entire Torah is the ability to notice and appreciate the ‘hidden’ miracles.” He adds that a person does not have a portion in Moshe’s Torah unless he recognizes that there is no such thing as nature and that everything that befalls him is by God’s doing. Why then does God perform “open” miracles if every daily event is miraculous? The Ramban answers cryptically, “In order to allow us to notice the small miracles.”
I would like to attempt to shed some light on some aspects of this esoteric Ramban. What does the Ramban mean when he says that the “large” miracles allow us to notice the small miracles? Perhaps we could explain that when we witness large miracles, by witnessing the awesome power of God, we engender a strong feeling of humility and recognition that we are completely dependant on God and that He is in complete control of the entire world. This feeling of God managing the entire world single-handedly will also allow us to be more sensitive to the constant “small” miracles that are going on around us and that God is in control of those too.
From the time we left Egypt, we experienced a plethora of outright miracles. The Kabalistic Sefer “Leshem” asks, why did God show us so many miracles (40 years of ‘em) during this period? He answers by saying that in addition to the “necessary” miracles that God performed for us, (i.e. taking us out of Egypt and splitting the Reed Sea), God nonetheless wanted to enact a few “unnecessary” miracles (i.e. The manna and the Moving Well of Miriam) for us in order to express His love for us. What I think he means to say is, had God only performed the “necessary” miracles for us, perhaps we could have claimed that God only intervenes to “change” nature when His people are in trouble. But by enacting the “unnecessary” miracles as well, God is conveying the message to us that even when it is not completely warranted God will still perform wondrous acts for us. Similarly we should accept that our simple daily needs that He provides for us are in fact miraculous.
Based on this explanation, it is clear that this type of life could not continue for we would lose sight of the purpose of the “revealed” miracles. Once the Jews got to land of Israel, God ceased to perform “outright” miracles for them and began the normal way of life where the miracles are “hidden” in nature. Nonetheless, Israel is in fact the land where the “hidden” miracles can be perceived the best.
There is a verse in Devarim which says that the Land of Israel cannot be compared to the Land of Egypt. Egypt receives unlimited water from the Nile, whereas Israel has no assured water source. The Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh explains that this is in fact a praise of Eretz Yisroel. I would like to explain this puzzling Ohr Hachaim by saying that although Egypt had more plentiful water then Israel as the Nile River constantly irrigated the land, Israel who requires rain to survive recognizes that every drop of rain is given to its inhabitants directly by God. This system is very conducive to recognizing the constant goodness that God bestows upon us and that is the praise of the land of Israel whose sole purpose is to increase our connection with our creator.
May we be Zoche to be sensitive to all the goodness that God constantly performs for us and to demonstrate our vast appreciation to Him.