And Yaakov went on his way and Angels of Hashem met him (Bereshis 32:2)

Our Sages tell us that when Yaakov entered Eretz Yisrael he was met with two camps of angels – each camp was 600,000 angels. One was taking leave of him, as they accompanied him outside of Eretz Yisrael. The other was to welcome him to Eretz Yisrael and they would now stay with him. The question is asked why there were so many angels to greet him? Over a million angels is a nice greeting!

The answer given is that Yaakov spent twenty years with a wicked man, Lavan, and although he was surrounded by impurity, he remained righteous. He continued to keep all of the mitzvos in this spiritually dangerous atmosphere. For doing this, he merited to have 1.2 million angels greet him. Imagine the feeling Yaakov must have had.

A few months ago, Derek Jeter played his final game as a New York Yankee and tens of thousands of people cheered for him as he did his final at-bat. In baseball, Jeter accomplished a lot and, although his final game was in Boston – the biggest rival of the Yankees, the fans gave him a standing ovation. Imagine how Derek Jeter must have felt. Now, multiply that many times and you get the feeling Yaakov must have felt with 1.2 million angels greeting him.

I think if we imagine this, this can be a great motivation to improving our middos (character traits/behavior). If you are about to get angry, imagine you are standing in a stadium with thousands of angels and they are all watching you. If you get angry, they will start booing at you and mocking you. If you are successful, they will cheer for you.

Your alarm goes off and you wonder if you should get up and go to minyan or sleep late. A million angels are watching you! What would you do?

You can imagine being in a stadium full of angels with any situation which is a test in your life and they all want to cheer for you. Yaakov shows us that there are angels and they want to cheer for you. So, whenever you are in a difficult situation, imagine yourself surrounded by 600,000 angels. How will they respond?

Good Shabbos!
-y.e.s.
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