There is a saying, you can judge a person by his heroes. It is based on one interpetatoion of a Verse in proverbs 27-21. It reminds me of what I once learnt, that Rav Elchonon Wasserman said about the Chafetz Chayim, “The more I got to know him personally, the more I respected him”.

There are many people who have great charisma and ability but whose personal behaviour is not so admirable. In Jewish tradition they are not the people we look to as heroes. We look to people whose character and private behaviour, is on a par with, or even higher than, their public deeds. That is the symbolism of the ark in the Holy of Holies, being covered in gold on the outside and on the inside. In the words of the Talmud “A person`s inside should be like his outside”.

One of my own experiences of this, was with the Ponevezer Rov. He was a world class orator and Talmudic scholar. He rebuilt his prewar Yeshivah, in Bnei Brak; plus orphanages for orphans from the war, besides helping countless individuals. He has to constantly raise fundsto maintain all the institutions he had built. Every year he stayed in my parents home, on his fund raising mission. Once the baby was moved out of a room to make space for him. The baby started crying. He realised what had happened, and moved his cases to a non-Jewish hotel. He stayed in our home except for sleeping. He explained in his smiling, disarming way, he did not want to cause a baby to be unhappy. I have always thought to myself, which secular world figure, travelling around the world, would inconvenience himself, in order not to upset a baby?
The message is, do we spend our time, studying the life stories of sportsmen, film stars, or political figures, whose personal behaviour is often not so wonderful, or of studying life stories of real heroes, whose “inside is like their outside”?

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QUESTION FOR THE WEEK;

Why were the poles of the ark, never removed from the ark, unlike the poles of the other vessels in the Mishkan? See Chapter 25, Verse 15.

ANSWER;

The poles were the symbol of carrying the vessel. The other vessels represented Priesthood and Jewish Royalty, which only have their complete fulfilment in Israel, but the Ark represents learning, which you should take with you wherever you go.

SOURCES; Netziv in Chumash Haamek Dovor.