Reply To: Short & Sweet

Ki Seitzi: Forever Grateful

There is a somewhat surprising mitzva in this weeks parasha: לא תתעב מצרי, do not hate an Egyptian. Despite the fact that they enslaved and made us miserable for hundreds of years, culminating in their throwing our children into the Nile, we can’t hate them.

Why? The passuk continues: כי גר היית בארצו. Because when Yaakov and his sons needed a place to live during times of famine, Mitzrayim took us in. Despite all the terrible things they did to us afterwards, we can never forget the one favor that they did for us when we needed them.

R’ Yerucham Levovitz points out how applicable this is in our own lives. We tend to dwell on the bad we feel people have done to us. And if we even think about the good that they’ve done for us at all, we tend to think it’s been “canceled out”.

But in the Torah view, we should never forget a favor that somebody has done for us, regardless of what happens after that.

There is a incidental benefit to living our lives like this. By focusing on the good people have done, we may find ourselves feeling far more happy and grateful and far less grumpy and resentful.

לע״נ דוד חיים בן ישראל דוב הכהן
לע״נ ר׳ חיים דוב בן ר׳ בןציון שלום