And Hashem said to Yaakov, ‘arise, go up to Bais Keil and dwell there and make an altar to Hashem that appeared to you when you fled from Eisav, your brother (Bereshis 35:1)

What made Harry Potter such an exciting book series to read? People read it over and over and over again. Why? It is because there are so many details perfectly arranged. Sometimes there is one sentence in one book which is significant, but it seems unimportant the first time you read it. Harry was successful at the end of the book because of all of the details that came before it. Many of them included much suffering and hardship. The same is with our lives.

Peninim on the Torah quotes Rav Avigdor Miller on the above verse stating that Hashem wanted Yaakov to stop here temporarily so he could take an accounting of what had occurred up until that point in his life. Yaakov should think about the events that happened and see all of the amazing things Hashem did for him and his family.

This is what we need to do also. Every event in our life is another detail that brings us closer to success of our ultimate goal in life, even the events which seem to do the opposite. Take time and think about everything that happened in your life which brought you to where you are today. Sometimes it is easiest if you focus on one specific thing.

I’ll give a quick example. I once thought about how I met my wife. When I began thinking about it, I realized that it all began actually nine months before I met her. I will spare you of all of the details (I once wrote it out and it was 12 pages long), but many different things happened over those nine months, not all of them were happy moments. Actually, some of them were very embarrassing and depressing. But all of these events needed to happen before I met my wife or else we might have not gotten married.

J.K. Rowling put in many details in the thousands of pages of the Harry Potter books and many of them were needed for the story. There are millions of details in our life and all of them are needed. Think about the details in your past and realize how they go together. When you think of the past, you can live happier in the present knowing there is a purpose to everything that happens.

Good Shabbos!
-y.e.s.
please send any comments or questions to: [email protected]
to see previous Divrei Simcha on the Parsha, please go to www.divreisimcha.com OR www.chesedclub.com > Torah Study