Bo: Those Who Control Nature

“This month shall be for you the beginning of the months” (Shemos 12:2).


Rav Chaim Palagi writes in Kaf HaChaim (34:23) that it Is meritorious to make a seudah on Rosh Chodesh for talmidei chachamim, and that doing so brings a person success and tranquility throughout the ensuing month.



Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein explains, “This month shall be for You." It is through the Sanhedrin (talmidei chachamim) that the months are declared and the calendar is fixed. It is through talmidei chachamim, that nature and time is controlled.



“The reason," says Rav Zilberstein, “that talmidei chachamim have control over nature is because they elevate themselves above nature by devoting themselves entirely to performing the will of Hashem."



When my wife was expecting our youngest, there were several issues that came up in the last trimester in which we needed expert advice and expert help. However, since we do not live in the center of the country, such advice and help are hard to get to. We did speak to several doctors and other experts in the field, but we were not feeling comfortable with what we were hearing. Given that there were halachic issues also at hand, their advice was not so simple. So, on a friend’s advice, my wife worked hard to get in contact with a well-known expert in medicine and medical halacha, and a close student of Rav Elyashuv. After telling over the information, he asked her to be in touch with him in a few more days. When she called back, he told us exactly what to do, who to contact, where to go, when to go, how to go, etc. If everything would go according to plan, hopefully, everything would be fine.



So, we did exactly what he said. And guess what! Nothing worked according to plan! Like … nothing. In fact, it worked better than the original plan was. It literally could not have worked out better even under normal circumstances. The reason it worked out was that we did exactly what he said, which put all the pieces together for Hashem’s plan to work out instead. It was really spooky to experience.



That’s not the only time we’ve seen things like this happen.



Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes you don’t see the brachos, or sometimes it takes a long time, but when you do get to see it, it’s quite amazing.



That’s why when my wife and I were discussing getting the vaccine, and our worries about being the guinea pigs for the world, we turned to the same talmid chacham (who told us to … which I did that day).



You can lose out heavily when you rely on the newspapers and television to make your decisions for you. But when you go to a REAL talmid chacham, sometimes they have an “in” that the rest of us do not have.