Rosh Hashanah entry times in Holon: the holiday enters and the lighting of the candles at 6:03 p.m., Shabbat and the holiday exit (Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat are connected together this year): 7:01 p.m. This week we read the parashat: Listen.
“The innocent have acted because all his ways are judgment”
(Chapter 12, verse 4)
Parshat Hazino is the almost last part in Sefer Deuteronomy, the fifth and last Pentateuch. In this parable, Moses instilled in the Israelites the belief in G-d. We know him well and see him once that “the righteous and the wicked and the wicked and the good”, that is, good and righteous people suffer, while bad and sinful people enjoy all the good that this world has to offer. Sages said , this is what Rabbi Gamaliel HaCohen Rabinowitz states in his book ‘The Nature of the Pearls’, that “just as we will be freed from the wicked in the world to come even for a minor offense that we commit, so we will be freed from the righteous in this world for a minor offense that we commit” (Taanit 11). In other words, nothing goes Lost. A righteous person has done a good deed, his rights are preserved in the next world, while if he committed a minor offense, he will be punished in this world so that he will arrive in the next world free of transgressions.
Once a bank clerk had to take his son to work. The son saw that a man came in with a lot of money and brought it to his father. The father counts the bills and in return gives him a sheet on which he signs. Then another man arrived, without bills. The father, the bank clerk, brought that man all the money he had previously deposited with him. The boy wondered: the first customer had so much money and now he had nothing left and the second one had nothing and now he is leaving with his hands full. The father explained to him that he is not like that. The first, who deposited his money in the bank, did not give a gift to the bank but will accumulate handsome profits and the second, who was forced to take a loan, will return the money he took plus interest.
So it is with the wicked and good for him and the righteous and bad for him. Although it seems that the tzaddik should be pitied, the truth is that he is accumulating mitzvot and rights for the next world.
This week as part of only one ‘Kabbalah per week’, we will take it upon ourselves to accumulate as many mitzvos as possible. And this right of good acceptance will be given to Aliya ben Siglit (Cohen) and he will return home soon.
Happy New Year and Shabbos Shalom.