In this week’s Torah portion we read about the story of Moses growing up in Egypt. At one point Moses sees a man - who was having an inappropriate relationship with a married woman against her will - beating herhusband.
Moses cannot bear to watch one of his brothers being tortured by such an evil man, so Moses kills the man with his Kabalistic power.
Moses later learns that his act was being publicized and hefeared for his life. The Torah writes "and he was afraid" the commentator Rashi - who only writes on verses in the Torah if they need somebasic clarification - writes on this verse, that it is meant to be takenliterally.
What kind of explanation was that? What lesson can we learnfrom the fact that Moses was afraid literally, to the extent that Rashi felt the need to write in more detail about it in his commentary?
The explanation is as follows: In life there are manysituations that can turn out to the negative. It may be a time we are in adangerous situation, or a job interview that can go either way. Can we effectout destinies? Or is it unless even trying?
The Torah teaches that the mind is the most powerful tool, not only can ones thoughts effect the way they feel about things, but they canactually change the way things turn out for. As the famous Hasidic quote goes"think good and it will be good".
When faced with a fear, your attitude can affect theoutcome. If you become afraid you may be bringing on your own demise. If you stay positive you will bring about a positive outcome.
This is the reason why Rashi chose to emphasis Moses’ fear in his commentary. He wanted to answer a question that many will have; howcould it be that Moses the greatest of men needed to run for his life?
Would G-d not protect him? The answer is "Moses was afraid" he failed in that small moment to have complete trust in G-d and as a result of his fear- the outcome was the need for him to run forhis life.
- Rabbi Schneur Hayes
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