She said, "Drink, my lord, and she hastened and let down her pitcher upon her and gave him drink" (Genesis 24:18).
A young girl gives a thirsty man a drink, then helps water his camels. This is hardly an earthshaking event, but it determined the course of Rebecca’s life and made her a Matriarch of Israel.
We often minimize the small things in life. The media make us aware of so many great events: man walking on the moon, a scientist winning the Nobel prize for a revolutionary discovery, a human being born as a result of in vitro fertilization, a person having his heart removed and replaced. These are indeed great events. What significance can there be in little things in the kinds of things we do day in and day out? They do not move mountains nor shake up entire populations.
Sometimes we become bored with what we consider a life of trivia. We tend to forget that life is not made up of firework displays. Most often the only things that shine outdoors are the street lights; rather boring, but providing the necessary light. Come to think of it, for all their dazzling brilliance, how much useful light do fireworks provide?
Our job is to do what is right and proper. How much impact any given act will have is not for us to consider, because that is out of our hands. G-d wants us to do the "little things," too.
One young girl gives a thirsty man a drink of water, and changes the course of history forever.
comments: [email protected]
For more Divrei Torah on the parsha click here
Dedicated in memory of Yaakov Aharonov z"l
This wek's Dvar Torah is by Rabbi Eldad Zamir Former shaliach (Cape Town, 1997-1998), senior Instructor at the Nativ ’Giyur” program in the IDF
Torah MiTzion stands in the forefront of the battle for the future of the Jewish people in the Diaspora, offering religious-Zionist Torah scholarship to Jewish communities throughout the world and strengthening the bond between the Jewish people in the Diaspora and in Israel via the study of Torah.