As
I have mentioned in the past, one of my favorite
authors is Rav
Eliezer Papo,
famously known for his sefer Pele Yoetz. He has another Sefer, among others, called Orot
Elim, where he goes through different Gemarot, and adds a line or
two of his own musar.
The Gemara in Masechet Succah (53a) says, “Man’s feet are
his co-signers. They are responsible for him. The
place that he
has to go, they take
him.”
That
means that your feet get you where are you have to go. That’s where
Hashem sends him.
To this, the Pele Yoetz adds,
“Therefore, if someone sends you on
a mission, and something goes wrong on the way (for example, imagine if someone sent you in an errand and you got into a little fender bender,) don’t get upset at the man that sent you. Because man’s
steps come from God. And (by) God,
are set up all the causes.”
These
words may seem simple, but as simple as they are, it is not so simple to live
by them.
On the
topic of eating, the Pele Yoetz says that a person has to be
careful not to get upset at his family members on anything, including food. It may happen sometimes that the food is over
cooked or undercooked. Don’t get upset at your wife or the people in the
kitchen. Firstly because it was decided by God, as we have just said. And secondly, he adds
another factor which is that Iyov said,
אִם־אֶמְאַ֗ס
מִשְׁפַּ֣ט עַ֭בְדִּי וַאֲמָתִ֑י בְּ֝רִבָ֗ם עִמָּדִֽי
וּמָ֣ה
אֶ֭עֱשֶׂה כִּֽי־יָק֣וּם אֵ֑ל וְכִי־יִ֝פְקֹ֗ד מָ֣ה אֲשִׁיבֶֽנּוּ׃
If I have an
argument with my maid servant or slave, what will happen when God gets up to judge me ? And when He checks on me, what will I respond?
He says that basically, God deals with you the way you deal
with others.
We are God‘s
servants. What will God say when we mess up with someone? In the words of the Pele
Yoetz, “Delve deeply into this concept, and
that will cause you to be easy-going and let things go. Because more than your
family and your servants are responsible to respect you, you have to respect, and are responsible to serve your Creator.“
So before we start getting upset and fuming at our secretaries,
employees, or anybody that works under us, we have to ask ourselves this
question. As we mentioned in the past, when
the Ben Ish Chai discusses how things go wrong in the household in Erev
Shabbat, he brings a Gemara in Mesechet
Gittin that says that the Yetzer Hara interferes on Erev Shabbat to get people upset.
Imagine
that it’s a few minutes before Shabbat, and you ask your child to put the
flowers on the table. The child slips and the glass vase shatters, with glass, water and flowers all over the place. Before you yell at
the child, imagine that an angel stuck his foot out, causing the child to trip.
What do you want from the child? It wasn’t his fault. It was supposed to happen.
That is how we
are supposed to think when things go wrong. Man’s feet take them where they are supposed to
go. Hashem gets you to where you are supposed to
go. Don’t
blame anybody else.
To recap,
the Pele Yoetz is teaching us two important lessons:
1-It is
supposed to happen anyway.
2- You’re
getting upset at them? At the way they treated you?
Imagine how Hashem could
react to the way that we treat Him!
Have a
wonderful day.
