* Translated by Janine Muller Sherr
How do you know if a person is truly great? He cares about the little things.
Pay attention to these verses from this week’s parasha. Moshe Rabbeinu describes the glory of God in the following words:
“For the Lord, your God, is God of gods and the Lord of the lords, the great mighty and awesome God…”
But then he goes on to describe the focus of God’s activities and highlights what He truly cares about:
“He executes the judgment of the orphan and widow, and He loves the stranger, to give him bread and clothing.”
The great mighty and awesome God is not distant and detached from our world. He “descends” to our world and listens to, worries about, and loves those people who are often regarded as “invisible” in our society. He helps the orphan, widow, and stranger to obtain their bread and clothing.
People tend to mistakenly believe that the almighty God is so high and lofty that it would be considered beneath His dignity to care about you and what you do. But here the Torah is teaching us a fundamental principle: God is great precisely because He involves Himself in even the “smallest” things.
And if we follow in His ways and pay attention to those “small” details of life that are often overlooked— we too can aspire to greatness.
