This Shabbat we are coming off the high of Shavuot and the receiving of the Torah. The strength of the Torah which gives us the ability and the map and the guidelines how to travel the oceans of the world to travel the paths of the world.
We’re blessed once again this Shabbat. God gives the gift of the priests to transmit and bring down blessings, both financially, spiritually to the Jewish nation.
The first words of the priestly blessings are “Yivarecha Hashem V’Yishmerecha. “God should bless his nation and guard over those blessings.
The commentaries say the first part of the blessing is financial prosperity. And God should bless us with assets, with tremendous financial prosperity. And there Hashem should protect us.
Often when people fall into money, there’s arguments between siblings. Whether it’s inheritance they got from the deceased parents or relative, people fall into tremendous argument and machloket.
Sometimes you need protection from the IRS from the taxes that one has to pay. But sometimes you need protection from yourself. And from the blessings that you get.
We don’t have vessels for it. And the blessings sometimes cause anxiety cause depression, cause a person to start acting recklessly. He doesn’t know how to direct his money in a positive way.
But “Yivarecha Hashem V’Yishmerecha.” Rashi says, please protect us. A person could get the greatest gifts in the world and everyone wants to take it away from him. Everyone wants to destroy it from him. And not allow him to benefit from it. And the gift can’t really be enjoyed.
And so we’ve gotten a gift. After 2,000 years, the gift of Eretz Yisrael.
“Yivarecha” – God has given us a land filled. There’s so much plentifulness, so much bountifulness.
But unfortunately, our enemies are constantly trying to take away that gift from us. Whether it’s through terrorism in Boulder, Colorado, whether it’s through rockets and missiles every week here in Israel. Or whether it is through the attacks on our soldiers and our troops.
“Yivarecha Hashem” – God should continue to bless us. But please Hashem, protect those blessings. Guard over them. Guard over the nation, your people. Guard over Eretz Yisrael. And please God we’ll be privileged to the ultimate culmination of the blessing “Veyasam lecha Shalom.” The vessel that contains all the blessings and can hold all the blessings is Shalom.
And Be’ezrat Hashem, the priests should bring down all the blessings, physically, spiritually and we’ll be all blessed with ultimate peace.
Amen, and amen. Shabbat shalom.
