• October 14, 2021
• 1 comment

We know that each one of us is supposed to ask, מתי יגיעו מעשי למעשה אבותי? When will my actions reach the level of the actions of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov? Many of us probably don’t even ask ourselves this question, because it seems so obvious that our actions will never begin to compare to the Avos and Imahos. But I’d like to share with you an idea from the Alter of Slobodka, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, who brings this question to life and is especially relevant to mothers. He says that in order to compare our actions to the Avos we first have to understand the Avos’ actions. What made Avraham so special? We’re told that Avraham looked around the world, he saw the sun shining,the moon glowing, the rain falling, and he asked, “Could all this exist without a Creator? And so he came to know Hashem. The Altar says there’s much more to see here. Lots of people saw the creations of this world and asked who created them. That’s not what made Avraham special. What made him special is that he didn’t only look superficially, but he thought deeply about the creation. Avraham didn’t only see the sun, moon, and rain, he thought about them and he realized that they existed only for the sake of doing good to people. The sun shines to give us light, energy, and heat, and gets nothing back from us for doing it. The rain gives us vegetation, food, water, and again, does it without any payment. And so much more. Avraham looked at everything in the world and realized that it was all a form of chesed, kindness to us. And many of the kindnesses in the world are things that human beings would never have realized they were lacking if they never had it. Beautiful colors, delicious flavors, scenic views, Avraham didn’t simply see the world, he thought deeply and understood it is all an expression of Chesed, kindness. And Avraham learned from that that he too was supposed to be a person of chesed, giving without receiving reward, giving people things they didn’t even know they were missing. The Alter says, when we say, “when will my actions reach the actions of the Avos?”, we’re not talking about big, grand actions, but rather, that our regular, normal actions should have thought and meaning behind them. Lots of people saw the world and asked, “Could this exist without a Creator?” That isn’t what made Avraham, Avraham. But he didn’t stop there. He thought about the world, he realized that its nature was chesed and he patterned himself on the Creator to also give chesed above and beyond its need. The Altar says we all do acts of chesed, but we don’t all think about what we’re doing and thereby they lose so much value. He gives an example that we say “Good morning” or “Good Shabbos” to people - that is really a bracha, a blessing that you should have a good morning or a good Shabbos. What a lovely chesed - to give someone a heartfelt bracha for a good morning! But we don’t even realize what we’re saying, and we lose the opportunity for that greeting to be a moment of deep chesed. All day long, mothers are doing chesed. And it’s true chesed, often not noticed or appreciated, and certainly not rewarded. We do chesed beyond what is needed. How many of us are cooking for Shabbos today more than is absolutely necessary for our family to not starve? And to reach the level of the Avos, the Altar tells us, we don’t need to work on doing bigger and better things, just to pay more attention to the good things we already do. We can imbue all our Erev Shabbos preparations today with kavana, intentions of love and kindness. And in so doing, we will be copying Avraham Avinu. Conversation Point: How do you try to bring intentionality into your work as a mother?