And Yisrael encamped there opposite the mountain (Shemos 19:2)

This past week, my family and I visited Legoland Florida for Yeshiva Week. For those who do not know, many yeshivos have vacation either the last week or the second to last week in January and therefore, Florida is swarming with Jews. There were at least three yeshivos which organized a trip to Legoland for families this past Monday, and since it is a time of year when the park is not normally very crowded, everywhere you turned there were Jews. Actually, my wife was asked twice by strangers, “What Jewish holiday is it?” because there were so many of us.

The park closed at 5PM and sunset was at 6PM, so a short time before 5PM, I began asking random Jewish people if they knew about a Mincha minyan. They said to meet at the front of the park at 4:50, so I went there and found a group. I looked around after davening and I noticed there were many different types of people there. Normally, we would have all davened in different shuls, but we joined together this time. It was because there was no other choice and when faced with no other choice, we join together with people we normally do not.

Look around the world… we have no other choice than to join together now! The world situation is serious. It is time to stop saying, “Oh, he wears a different type of yarmulka than me,” or “he has a different custom than me in this certain thing.” Who cares? We are all Jews!

Rashi points out that when we came to Mount Sinai, we were all together as one. This encampment was as one man with one heart. There were three million Jews at the receiving of the Torah and there were certainly differences among them, but they stood together as one. Now is the time to stand together as one again. Let’s try to look past our differences like was done this past week at Legoland.

There are over fifty million Lego blocks that were used at Legoland in Florida. Each block by itself is not much. A thousand blocks together make a nice creation, but by itself, no one would go out of their way to visit it. Even for a million blocks people might not pay to see. But fifty million blocks together is a sight to see! The same is the with the Jewish people. If we are only connected to the few Jews like us, it’s not that great, but if we connect ourselves to all of the millions of Jews in the world, then this is a great sight to see and Hashem will visit us!

Good Shabbos!
-y.e.s.
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