As we discussed yesterday, there are things that happen that we look at only superficially. The examples that we gave were the food we eat, and the cup of coffee that we drink.
If we think about where it came from, at the maximum, we trace the coffee back to the man in Africa who planted the beans. And if we think about the bread, we would take it back to the baker, or maybe the farmer.
But we don’t go underground to see what’s happening there. We don’t consider the wonders of the seeds and the rain.
There is a deeper lesson here.
There is a mizmor in tehilim that we say every day in Pesukei D’Zimra (147) which starts off discussing rain
הַמְכַסֶּה שָׁמַיִם בְּעָבִים הַמֵּכִין לָאָרֶץ מָטָר הַמַּצְמִיחַ הָרִים
G-d covers the heavens with clouds, He prepares rain for the ground, it causes the mountains to grow the growth.
The purpose of this is,
נוֹתֵן לִבְהֵמָה לַחְמָהּ לִבְנֵי עֹרֵב אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָאוּ
To give food for the animals, and to the raven’s children
The perek then seems to switch subjects.
G-d does not want horses, G-d does not want powerful men.
רוֹצֶה ה׳ אֶת יְרֵאָיו אֶת הַמְיַחֲלִים לְחַסְדּוֹ
G-d wants the ones that fear Him. The ones that rely on Him,
שַׁבְּחִי יְרוּשָׁלִַם אֶת ה׳ הַלְלִי אֱלֹהַיִךְ צִיּוֹן
Yerushalayim will praise G-d because its locks and walls are strong
Then it switches back to the weather again:
הַשֹּׁלֵחַ אִמְרָתוֹ אָרֶץ עַד מְהֵרָה יָרוּץ דְּבָרוֹ
G-d sends His word down, and it happens very fast.
This refers to: הַנֹּתֵן שֶׁלֶג כַּצָּמֶר כְּפוֹר כָּאֵפֶר יְפַזֵּר
The snow is like wool.... and so on...
The obvious question is, why the switch in topics? First, we start off with weather, then we switch to G-d’s salvation and protection of those that hope to Him, and then we go back to the weather again.
The Radak says that the answer is that G-d’s redemption of us is compared to the rain. It happens just like rain happens. We hope for the rain, but we have no control over it. Then rain comes down and causes seeds to grow. The whole geula/redemption process is also a growth process. Just like we can’t see or understand how the seeds become fruit, and we don’t understand how G-d makes the miraculous concoctions of all the food that we eat, and all the chemical reactions that take place underground, so too, we are not able to understand how G-d is bringing our geula.
There are a lot of funny things happening. We don’t understand them, and we wonder where this is all going. But this is all part of the growth process.
Rav Wolbe points out something about two berachot in our Amidah,
1- Bonei Yerushalayim- G-d builds Yerushalayim, and
2-Et Semah David- The Sprout of David, make it sprout fast.
These Berachot discuss the building process and the sprouting process.
What is the difference between sprouting and building? Rav Wolbe explains that building is something that is predictable. You go to an architect to get plans, and you can plot out exactly what will happen, how it will happen, and when it will happen, down to the final detail, and it will get built based on that. There are no surprises.
But when it comes to growth, it’s unpredictable. Nobody can tell you exactly how many leaves are going to be on a given tree, and nobody can tell you how many branches it will have, or how they will spread out. These things happen in a natural, organic, and unpredictable way. That is the difference between building and growing. G-d builds Yerushalayim, but He grows the Geula. It’s a growing process, and therefore it is something that is not going to be understood step by step.
The seed first has to rot under the ground, and then it produces in a way that no one can understand.
That is how G-d is going to bring the redemption. And this is not just the redemption of the Jewish people at large, it applies to individual redemptions as well. As we have mentioned in the past, it is beneficial to think of all personal redemptions when we talk about Et Semach David. Every day we say in our tefilot in Shaharit,
זורע צדקות, מצמיח ישעות
G-d plants righteousness, and grows salvation.
We do good deeds, and G-d takes those good deeds, but there is no immediate reaction. It is a growth process.
He plants the charity and it grows the salvations. Just as a simple, surface person sees the bread and doesn’t see the seeds, so too, people see what’s going on around us, in the daily current events of our lives, and don’t understand that this is a growth process that is being guided in a much more difficult and complex way. It’s much more complex than what a builder does. An architect has a complicated job, with a lot of planning, but planting underground? Nobody can plan that but G-d. That is what is going on now, and that is what we have to appreciate.
The claim against us is,
עמי לא התבונן
We don’t think
We have to think that all of this is bringing forth the Yeshua/ salvation.
B’ezrat Hashem, we should see it come to completion, speedily, in our days.
Have a wonderful day.