From my email:
"Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is believing that you are worthy of the trip"
SHAAALLLOOMMM SWEET BELOVED FRIENDS!!!!!
Some food for thought for Rosh Hashana [dip it in honey and say a Yehi Ratzon if you like].
How did Coronavirus get to the US? Well, the story told is that a Chinese man who was afflicted with the virus went from Wuhan, a shtetl so tiny they don't even have a Chabad House, or a kosher mikva or a JCC, to Washington State. [Whether this was intentionally intended in order to spread the virus is the subject of much debate and I am NOT going there. This email is super apolitical....] From there it spread and the rest - as they say - is history.
What is the lesson???
Here is one [besides that people shouldn't eat dead bats
]: Look at the impact ONE PERSON can have!!! A guy who probably can barely speak English changed the course of America for years and years to come [not to mention the over 100K dead and the many more who become ill - may Hashem save us].
Chazal tell us that מדה טובה מרובה - The good is MANY times better than the bad [one opinion in the Gemara - 500 times. The other opinion - thousands of times]. So imagine how much one person can impact the world for the good???
THAT is the avoda we do on Rosh Hashana. We view the entire creation as if it depends on OUR Tefillah, on OUR Teshuva, on OUR recognition of Hashem.
So yes, there are billions of people besides us but we can't just take "herd immunity" and think "I'll be OK. Safety in numbers!"
NYET! NO!!! The attitude must be - "I have to save the world. I have to bring down the bracha. I have to make the world worthy".
This is not MY opinion. This is actually a HALACHA.
?????
They didn't teach me THAT Halacha when I was in school. [Or maybe they did but I was busy listening to baseball games on the radio.]
Says the Rambam. Scholar, leader, doctor, scientist, man who gets hospitals, schools, streets and shuls named after him. [But some claim that he didn't speak Yiddish which I find PREPOSTEROUS. Such a Gadol spoke no Yiddish. Can't be!]
"Accordingly, throughout the entire year, a person should always look at himself as equally balanced between merit and sin and the world as equally balanced between merit and sin. If he performs one sin, he tips his balance and that of the entire world to the side of guilt and brings destruction upon himself.
[On the other hand,] if he performs one mitzvah, he tips his balance and that of the entire world to the side of merit and brings deliverance and salvation to himself and others. This is implied by [Proverbs 10:25] "A righteous man is the foundation of the world," i.e., he who acted righteously, tipped the balance of the entire world to merit and saved it." [Teshuva 3-4]
The message is - YOU matter and what you do matters. Not only to you but to the entire cosmos. It feels better to know that your life has meaning than to have a hundred million dollars in the bank and feel that your life is meaningless. So we basically won the lottery. We are here and we matter. Big time!!! This can help us get through the challenges we are all facing.
Don't sell yourself short. The Mishna [Sanhedrin 37] says that everyone is OBLIGATED to say that world was created for ME. So we have both the honor, dignity and value of knowing that it would ALL have been worth it just for ME but also the colossal responsibility to make ourselves and the world worthy of existence.
Swweeeeeetest friends!!!!! My bracha is that we all feel our worthiness and also justify Hashem's confidence in us.
A delicious new year to you all!
Bi-ahava rabba 
,
Me
