Parshas Yisro: One Who Sees Should Sieze

Rabbi Aron Shear

“ועתה אם שמוע תשמעו בקולי ושמרתם את בריתי והייתם לי סגלה מכל העמים כי לי כל הארץ” (שמות יט:ה)”

“And now if you will listen well to Me and observe My covenant, you shall be to Me the most beloved treasure of all peoples, for Mine is the entire world.” (Shemos: 19:5)

Hashem prefaces the giving of the Torah with this promise: if you accept the Torah, you will be the עם סגולה, the chosen nation. But what is the purpose of the extra word ועתה, “and now?”

I heard a beautiful explanation from one of my Rabbeim, Rav Eliyahu Steinhardt. Hashem is telling us that we need to accept to do each מצוה immediately when the opportunity arises and not push it off to a more comfortable or convenient time. This is for two reasons. First of all, that perfect time will never come. There will always be another thing that comes up to make “now” an inopportune time to do the mitzvah. The Yetzer Hara has an unending bag of tricks that he constantly throws at us, so we must not wait for a perfect time which will never come. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, even if that perfect situation does come, that was not how Hashem wanted the mitzvah done. Hashem knows what He is doing when He sends us a mitzvah opportunity. He wants it done specifically in that exact situation, with the specific challenge that is there at the time the mitzvah opportunity presents itself. The same action, done later, may look like the exact same mitzvah, but the new surrounding circumstances make it a completely new and different mitzvah. In truth, the first mitzvah, in its particular “now,” is lost forever. As I once heard, "One who sees an opportunity should seize it before it ceases.”

This idea is brought out in the Sefer Alei Shur. He quotes Rabbeinu Tam who said that there are two types of days. There are good days, on which we wake up to the sun shining, birds chirping, the coffee is fresh, and we feel like today we can change the world. Then there are bad days, when waking up is hard, it's dark and gloomy, the coffee is burnt, and we have a pit in our stomachs that today will be rough. One might think on those days to just roll over and go back to sleep, hoping that tomorrow will be better. But, says Rabbeinu Tam, it is specifically on those days that our mitzvos are worth so much more. It's specifically on those dark feeling days that we can show Hashem how special we consider our relationship with Him.

So the next time we wake up and it's dark and snowy, and maybe -36 degrees outside, and nothing seems to be going right, remember that the time is “Now!” If we can dig deep and do every mitzvah that comes our way, then we will hopefully merit to see much needed salvations from Hashem.