This week we welcomed a new month, the month of Nissan, the month of our birth as a nation. We are approaching Passover, the time when G-d rescued us as a people, body and soul, from utter destruction and subservience to the forces of darkness. He then brought us into His warm embrace as He led us through the desert, our food falling from Heaven, protected and cared for by the Clouds of Glory and Pillar of Fire. G-d led us to His mountain, Mount Sinai, and gave us the most precious gift of all, the Torah, and thus the Jewish nation was born.

This week’s Torah portion is named Tazria, meaning conception. We learn about the conception of a child, beginning with the words, ‘a women who conceives...’. The process of conception and birth mirrors the Divine union that G-d and the Jewish people formed at Mount Sinai. The Jewish people are compared to the bride while G-d is the groom. The Jewish people have been given mitzvot, commandments, which are like seeds, each carrying the potential to bring tremendous light and healing to the world. The seed is planted, the marriage union occurs, and this potential opportunity for life and growth is nurtured by the soil, by the womb. The birth, the growth, brings forth life that is above and beyond what the potential seed seems to contain.

This is the relationship between G-d and the Jewish people. We may ask ourselves, ‘what difference can I make, I am just one small person?’ G-d is telling us that our efforts, the seeds we plant, the mitzvot we perform, have ripple effects that are far beyond what we can imagine. As we gestate, the potential of our actions is still hidden within the concealment of this physical world, the womb of creation. We must remember that the day is coming when we will reach our full potential as a nation and all of humanity along with us. The time of the final and complete redemption, when we will reap the fruit of our labors, when we will see that every good deed and every charitable act, has grown beyond our wildest imagination.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zushe Cunin