And the Lord uprooted them from upon their land, with fury, anger and great wrath, and He cast them to another land, as it is this day. (Devarim 29:27)

During my sophomore year of high school I ran on the cross-country team. My team began our season against our rival school, Cedar Ridge, which we knew would be the toughest match of the season. We lost. After the match our coach was very upset. He was not bothered that we lost; he could deal with that. He yelled at us because on the bus ride to the race, we were fooling around. He was angry that we did not take the meet as seriously as we should have. He said that is why we got the loss.

Now let’s change this story a little. Our coach was not at the meet. On the bus ride home, a man from Iowa was sitting with us to review the race. When he reviewed the race, he didn’t yell and scream. Actually, he didn’t even look upset by our performance.

What’s the difference? It is that my coach cared about us while the man from Iowa did not really care about us. My coach wanted us to do our best and he knew how well we could perform. The man from Iowa had no idea how good or bad we were and he did not want to spend time to know this. He did not care.

The Jews have been tortured probably more than any other nation on this planet. We have gone through more hardships than anyone else. Why? I thought we were Hashem’s Chosen People?

The answer is we are the Chosen People. We are more treasured than anyone else in the world and this is why we have suffered more than anyone else. Hashem cares about us and loves us. That is why we get punished. It is only when someone does not care that a person does not get punished.

It is the High Holiday time of year and some people get very nervous. Some people think, “I’ve done so many sins; how can I possibly think I have a chance?” Remember, Hashem loves us very much. Of course, we need to sincerely pray to Him and do tshuvah but a person should never lose hope. Hashem cares about you very much.

My cross-country coach did not yell at us because we failed at winning the race. He yelled at us because we misbehaved on our preparation to the race. Later in the season, we lost another meet against a different school. This time, our coach did not yell at us. That is because although we lost, we prepared as best as we could. And at the end of the year, we had a pizza banquet and everyone was smiling, even though we did not have a perfect record.

Hashem does not expect us to be perfect. He does want us to properly repent though. Let’s make our proper preparations in these last days of 5772 and hopefully in this coming year we will have the ultimate banquet, to welcome Moshiach and see the building of the 3rd Bais HaMikdash.

Kasiva V’Chasima Tovah!
Good Shabbos!
-yes
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