D’var Torah by Rabbi Kasriel Gewirtzman
In this week’s Torah portion, it says: “It is the same Aharon and Moses to
whom the LORD said, “Bring forth the Israelites from the land of Egypt, troop
by troop”.
Rashi says on this verse that in some places the Torah mentions Moshe
before Aharon and in other places it mentions Aharon before Moshe. This
teaches us that both were equally great.
This is puzzling, since the Torah itself says that Moshe was the greatest
prophet who ever lived; how can it be said that Aharon was equal to him?
In God’s eyes, achievement is measured by whether a person fulfills his own
personal mission, regardless of size. One who has a small mission but
completes it, is just as great as one with a big mission who completes it.
Aharon achieved the absolute maximum of his potential; he fulfilled God’s
will perfectly just as Moshe did. The difference was that Moshe had more
missions, which meant that he had more responsibilities. Still, since they both
did as they were commanded in accordance with their abilities, they were on
an equal level.
People can tend to get disheartened that they cannot accomplish as much as
their counterparts. If a person doesn’t have the intelligence and capabilities
of others, he has to understand that more talent simply means greater
responsibility. Rav Yisroel Salanter was known to say: “I know that in many
ways I have the capacity of 1,000 men, but because of this, my obligation to
serve Hashem is also that of one thousand men.” As long as one is
maximizing his potential he is just as great as everyone else.
Shabbat Shalom,
The JET Team
