Contained Within
(Picture courtesy of chabaddch.com)If everything is hasgocha pratis, then when you get an aliya to the Torah there is certainly a reason why you were called for that particular section and a message tailor-made for you at that precise time in your life.
How many of us attempt to decipher the message Hashem is sending us at this time?
How many of us later record the aliyas we receive over the course of a year and sit down with a Chumash to see whether there is a reoccurring theme that is contained within them all?
5 Comments:
Well, I actually do attempt to find the message. I have never thought of recording a whole years' worth, but it sounds like a good idea.
Over Simchas Torah the aliyah that I received turned out to the same laining as the one my son got later that day (our shul's minhag is that any boy in second grade or above gets an aliyah on Simchas Torah).
it's definitely a good idea to pay attention to the Torah of the aliyah you get, for any special messages..
then again, it's a good idea always to pay attention to the Torah whenever it's being read for special messages that might apply specifically to you.. as HaShem is always broadcasting on your frequency.
There periods of my life (and it definitely still happens) that I would arrive late to shul and find myself saying psukei d'zimra while the Torah was being read... i would simultaneously listen to the Torah and the words I was reading and there would always be a very direct connection... it would be so powerful that it became overwhelming and after a while i'd have to stop praying or stop paying attention to the Torah..
but we should definitely always be listening to the Torah to hear what messages HaShem has for us.
i do pay attention to the specific aliyot i receive, but when you put it like that it made me realize i should be listening for personal messages all the time, not just when my aliyah comes.
the truth is that not everything is hashgara pratit (see Rambam Morei Nevuchim)
Shavua Tov
A couple of years ago, my elderly parents decided to move to a Jewish assisted living facility in NJ from their former home on Staten Island. Soon, there was a change of management, and the old management took back their sefer Torah from the small shul on site. The shul's rabbi had to borrow a Sefer Torah each week for the reading on Shabbos. This bothered my father, who found a solution.
Our family had belonged to one shul on SI since before World War 1, and, while it had recently closed, the building still contained the congregation's Sifrei Torah. So my father started a long negotiation with the remaining board members to obtain a Sefer Torah for his assisted living facility (with help from the facility's new manager).
The sale was finally completed, and the Sefer Torah was checked and fixed by a sofer and brought to the facility's shul (there was a big party for the dedication).
My father got an aliya this year for Parshas Korach, his bar mitzvah parsha, and recognized this as the same Sefer Torah he had lained from at his bar mitzvah 77 years earlier!
Just to correct one point in my story above: The manager at the facility who helped my father was not new there herself but was now working for the new owners.
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