Shabbat comes in 8.01 pm: goes out 9.04 pm
In Parshat Va’etchanan, we read: “Only: take care, take exceeding care for yourself, lest you forget the things that your eyes saw, lest you
turn aside in your heart all the days of your life; make them known to
your children, and to your children’s children: ” (Deut. 4:9)
The Torah is making a point here that in a quick reading you might miss. Some people only worry about educating others, in this case their children, but they forget about improving or educating themselves. Thus comes the warning: “Take you care… lest you
forget…and make them known to your children.” In other words, that you worry about improving your children and forget about yourselves. (Taught by Rav Y.Y. Trunk of Kutna)
The story is told that the great rabbi, the Hafetz Hayim once chastised a famous head of a Yeshiva who stopped eating meat every day so that he could save it for his students, so they would have enough. He said to him: “Besides the many matters entrusted to the Yeshiva head, there is another matter which is worthy of his attention, and it is that the students have a healthy Yeshiva head.”
We are required to take care of others, to feed, to nourish and to teach. But that always begins with caring for ourselves.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Paul Arberman
