PARSHAS Tetzave 5784
Why Me?
Rabbi Dovid Yachnes
Men's Programming
Why me? This question I suspect many of us have asked at some point in our lives: as humans, we crave to understand why things happen. The public is always curious to know what the “motive” was behind a tragic event. This is our nature. We want to understand. The truth is we should try to understand. We were indeed blessed with intellect and it is a responsibility of ours to do our best to gain clarity.
Actually, one of the benefits of understanding why things happen is that it gives a helpful awareness for how we should proceed and deal with future situations and circumstances. Yet sometimes we get stuck. Why is this happening to me? Why is my loved one sick? Why is my relationship struggling so much? Why me?
A couple of years ago, Harry Rothenberg shared a beautiful insight with those of us visiting Yad Vashem in Israel, on the JOIN-Shalom Orlando Momentum Men’s Israel trip. You can imagine the silently passionate cry as we painstakingly trudged through one of the most heart wrenching eras of our people’s history. WHY???
The Hebrew word for “why” is “la’mah” spelled לָמָה. However, these same letters using different vowels spell the word “li’mah” לְמַה – meaning, “for what”?
Sometimes as much as we try to understand “why”, we also need to ask “for what”. For what purpose is this circumstance here? What can this propel me to do? How can I become a better person through this?
I may not have an answer for “why”, but very often I can come up with the right answer to “for what”. Which areas in your life can you ask yourself לְמַה – for what?
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