… “By your life! Your service is greater than theirs, for you will kindle and set in order the lamps” (cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Beha’alotcha 5; see also Nachmanides). (Rashi to Bamidbar 8:2)

We stand at this time thinking about the many things that have happened during the past months. Tragedy after tragedy brought us to a realization that there was a middos hadin on Klal Yisrael. I would like to believe that the present “Gaza War” cease fire allows us an opportunity to stop and reflect as to where we really are right now, and where we should be heading.

This week’s parsha starts off with Aharon lighting the menorah. Chazal tell us that Aharon lit the menorah exactly as Hashem told him – without introducing any changes at all. The Seforim Hakedoshim tell us that it means he lit the menorah with the same exuberance the first time and the hundredth time and the thousandth time. He did not become complacent and take it as just a perfunctory act to be done with sheer boredom. This is a great lesson for our own personal service of Hashem: To continually be enthused and to do our service with excitement.

However, there is another Medrash that tells us that lighting the menorah is a greater service than the offerings of the 12 Tribal leaders from last week’s Parsha. The Ramban explains this is referring to the lights of the Chanukah Menorah: Even though the Beis Hamikdash is destroyed, the service of Aharon haKohen is still in practice on Chanukah. If we put these two ideas together it brings the following thought to mind: When things are good, and Hashem is smiling down on you, to serve Him is wonderful, but not a difficult test. However, when things are not going your way, or you feel that you lost contact with Hashem, to continue with the same enthusiasm is really a challenge. Perhaps we can understand that the Ramban is telling us that the original Chanukah lights were lit at a time when we felt closeness to Hashem, but the lights that we light today are at a time when which we feel distant from Hashem’s warm embrace. Perhaps this is what the Medrash alluded to when it said that the service of the Menorah is the greater service.

But the result of the many examples of Middos Hadin that we all experienced recently has been a realization of Divine Providence in our world right now. From Corona we saw that those who took the precautions were not necessarily saved and those who were lackadaisical were not necessarily stricken. In Meron, there are inspiring stories of those forty-five special people who were a “sacrifice”, as well as many others who were standing next to these “sacrifices” and were saved without any particular reason. Even in this latest Gaza war, the IDF constantly discussed their precise strikes, and yet of the thousands of rockets fired on Israel, there are many stories of how these rockets were guided Divinely to places where no one was injured, or R”L precisely to places where people were injured.

I would like to share with you a story which I heard which happened around World War II. There were two boys in one village who were the best of friends in their cheder, and unfortunately were also both in the same concentration camps together. Both survived the war: One emigrated to Eretz Yisrael and raised a Torah-true home; The other emigrated to America and became irreligious. On the fiftieth anniversary of the end of WWII, the city they came from had a commemoration. The two friends met and embraced and the irreligious one asked his religious friend, “How did you stay so strong through the atrocities of the war?” He answered, “On the contrary, the war proved to me that Hashem runs the world.” Incredulously, his friend challenged, “How so? The chaos of the war is exactly what made me irreligious!”. The religious friend then explained: “When we were in cheder and we learned the Tochacha, I could not believe what we were reading. I asked the Rebbe, ‘This must be an exaggeration.’ He told me ‘No, it is not. Every word of the Torah is exact.’ Throughout the Holocaust I saw each and every pasuk of the Tochacha being fulfilled. This strengthened my belief to the truth of the Torah. Because of this I became even more scrupulous in my observance of the commandments.”

At this time when we acknowledge the Divine Providence and see very clearly that Hashem runs the world and is always with us, we should then react with greater observance and performance of mitzvos.