Parasha Thoughts
By Rabbi Avraham Moeinzadeh
Mishnah in Masechet Rosh Hashanah says:
ובר×ש ×”×©× ×” כל ב××™ ×¢×•×œ× ×¢×•×‘×¨×™× ×œ×¤× ×™×• ×›×‘× ×™ מרון
And on Rosh Hashanah everybody passes before him like “Maronites.”
Since the word “Maron” is not a familiar name, the Gemarah suggests three interpretations for it. According to all three suggestions the Mishnah is trying to convey the message that everybody is being evaluated individually before Hashem. The three suggestions are as follows:
1) Baby lambs: The mitzvah of Ma’aser requires us to offer one tenth of the cattle that have been born every year as a Korban. The way that the Ma’aser was selected was that after gathering all the newborns in an enclosure, they were passed through a narrow window which only one lamb could pass through at a time. Every lamb that exited the window would be counted and every tenth lamb would be selected for the Ma’aser.
2)Cliff of Maron: A narrow mountain path that only one person could walk on at a time.
3)Army of King David: Before being dispatched to the battlefield, they had to pass one by one before the general and be counted.
All three suggestions revolve around one main idea-individual evaluation. However, each one of these three explanations teaches us another aspect that the evaluation is based on.
Being that Hashem is the “Chafetz Bechayim” (desires to grant life), he considers all the possibilities in which a person can impact and elevate the world( whether directly or indirectly). Some people are granted a position which no other person will have simultaneously( like those who walk on the path of Maron). The second group of people are those that are contributing to the community as a part of a group. Although they haven’t been given an exclusive position, they are not lost in the crowd. Rather, their actions are individually treasured by Hashem (like the army of King David).
Finally there are those who neither have the privilege of having an exclusive opportunity in elevating the community nor being part of any group who is actively contributing to the growth of the community. The first interpretation of Maron (Baby lambs) is coming to teach us that even this group of people can merit prosperity because they can have an indirect impact by passing down Torah values to the next generation or encouraging the other two groups of people(like the lambs who although weren’t chosen, enabled the tenth one to be announced Kadosh).
Shanah Tovah