Strike Back and Move Forward

B”H

A young child in second grade was very frustrated. He had used a pen while taking a test the teacher had given the class and was struggling to erase his incorrect answers with an eraser, just as he had done in the past with a pencil. But to no avail. No matter how hard he tried, he just made the situation worse. 

His teacher leaned over and explained the difference between ink and lead. She then suggested to him that instead of spending so much time trying to erase his mistakes, he could simply run a line through them, add the correct answers and move on. 

After a busy period of holidays and the grand finale of completing the Torah during the holiday of Simchat Torah, we start reading the Torah from the beginning. 

The letter ? was chosen as the first letter of the Torah. If we look at how the letter is shaped we can see that it is closed from 3 sides and is open towards the letter that follows it. 

The structure of this letter comes to teach us that in order to start fresh one must block out the past and any other negativity trying to enter from any other direction and just look forward. 

In addition, the back of the letter has a small line sticking out from the back. This is to remind us to reflect on our past and simply strike out a line through your mistakes in order not to repeat them. 

The things we strike out in our lives can sometimes be a simple gesture of apologizing to someone whose feelings you might have hurt or returning something that you borrowed that didn’t belong to you. 

What is important is that for one to grow he/she must constantly be looking forward. 

One of the fundamental principles in this week's Torah reading is that not only did the Almighty create the world almost 6000 years ago, but he is also recreating the world constantly. This process also allows us to detach ourselves from yesterday's destructive thinking and behavior and recreate ourselves anew every day. 

Chassidus explains that since the world is being recreated every day one should never become complacent with his/her accomplishments of yesterday.

Each day of a person's life is an opportunity to make an impact filled with more personal development, responsibility, success, quality, and abundance than the day before. 

Have a wonderful Shabbos.

Yitzchok Friedman