The pure and holy nature of the victims, one after another, is now known to Jews all over the world
Shavuos is fast upon us, and I am once again reviewing Rav Aaron Lopiansky’s marvelous adaptation of Rav Yosef Ze’ev Lipowitz’s commentary Nachlas Yosef on Megillas Rus, entitled Seed of Redemption. I expect this review to be an annual event.
Rav Lipowitz’s principal theme is chesed, as set forth in the Midrash (Rus Rabbah 2:14): Rabi Zeira said, “This Megillah has no laws of ‘clean and unclean and no laws of prohibited and permitted.’ So why was it written? To teach me how much reward lies in store for people who perform deeds of kindness.”
All of Creation is founded upon Hashem’s middah of chesed. And the coming of Mashiach and the realization of all our hopes will only come through forebears who exemplified chesed: Rus and Boaz.
I AM ANTICIPATING an explosion of chesed in Klal Yisrael in the wake of the terrible tragedy at Meron. It seems as if each of the victims has become in death a teacher of chesed, as we learn the details of their lives. One after another, we are hearing of how they specialized in what Elazar Yitzchak (Azi) Koltai, 13, used to call “micro-mitzvos,” such as thanking the street cleaners every time he passed by for their work.
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