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Behar

" For the Children of Israel are servants to Me, they are My servants, whom I have taken out of the land of Egypt -- I am Hashem, your G-d" (Vayikra 25:55).

Living in a free, Democratic society, we sometimes forget that when Hashem took us out of Egypt, the House of Bondage, we switched from being Par'o's servants to Hashem's. We are expected to serve Him diligently and unquestionably, just as we served our oppressors. The only difference is that Par'o was a tyrant who demanded impossible things and punished us when we failed them. Hashem, on the other hand, never asks of us what we cannot do.

In volume two of his fabulous book, Bemechitzasam, Rabbi Shlomo Lorentz tells that when the Kapitshnitzer Rebbe ztvk"l came to Israel for a grandchild's wedding, he visited his relative by marriage, Reb Shlomo Zalman Auerbach ztvk"l. After the visit, they ordered a taxi but it was late in coming. Reb Shlomo Zalman, who was twenty years younger than the Rebbe asked someone to bring out a chair for the Rebbe. However, he refused to sit. When Reb Shlomo Zalman insisted, the Rebbe replied, "My father taught me to imagine that every move I make is being photographed in Heaven. All of my life, I've tried to stick to that simple rule. I ask you now," the Rebbe concluded, "How embarrassing will that shot look of me sitting and the Gaon, Reb Shlomo Zalman, standing next to me?"

Reb Shlomo Zalman was so impressed that, at every opportunity, he related that there is someone alive who never forgets that every move of his is "being photographed" by Hashem.


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