Naso

פרשת נשא ד"ה וידבר

Many times we run away from things that are good for us. We run away from new experiences because we are afraid that we will fail at them. The Gemara (Gitin ) says that the only way which we learn is when we fail. We feel that these failures are going to hurt us, and therefore, we don’t try to grow as people. We see certain parts of Yiddishkeit and certain simanim of Shulchan Aruch outside of our grasp. Sometimes we might even think that they aren’t part of Yiddishkeit at all.

Once a person has established a certain way of serving Hashem, they don’t want to deviate from it, even to improve one’s self. This is because they don’t want to have to place themselves in danger again and fight again to conquer more territory and develop themselves.

The truth is that you never lose out when you are growing. Even when it looks like you have stumbled, in truth the mistake was part of your learning and growth process.

In this week’s Parsha, Hashem assures us that we shouldn’t worry to engage in the next battle, lest we fail.

The Jewish peoples’ hardest battles in the desert were simply the journeys from place to place. As they came to each place they had to fight against its character, and that influence can be staggering. Therefore the Jews are counted every day before they leave on their journeys from place to place, to show how each and every element of the Jewish people is precious and nothing will be lost, despite the travels of the Jews, or the personal battles of the Jew.