By Rabbi Berach Steinfeld
We find when the sea was split that Moshe Rabbeinu and the Bnei Yisroel sang the shirah. In Sefer Bais HaLevi he explains in depth the concept of singing in appreciation. There are two types of appreciation. The first one is where a person thanks Hashem for getting him out of a troubled situation. For instance, a person that was sick and became healthy. When a person thanks Hashem for extricating him from his tzarah. In this case the thanks are only for getting out of trouble, not for the trouble itself. As a matter of fact if the person would never have been sick he would have been even happier. This is one type of thanks.
There is another type of thanks which the Bais HaLevi says took place at krias yam suf. The thanks were not only for being taken out of Mitzrayim. They also thanked Hashem that because of them being saved there was a ribuy kvod shem shomayim. They were thanking Hashem for having been put in the matzav of shibud in Mitzrayim that thereby the great miracle would come about and thereby being mekadesh shem shomayim. We see that a person must know that any tzarah he is in is really for his benefit!
There is a famous story from the Dubner Maggid with a rich person and a diamond. There was a rich man by the name of Daniel who had lots of money. Among his wealth he had an expensive diamond. It was a very large diamond and the rich man kept it in a safe in a special room. One day his friend begged him to show him the diamond. Initially the rich man refused but after a lot of coaxing he agreed. The rich person took his friend into that room. He closed all the window shades. He took out the box in which was another box. He took out the diamond and it lit up the room. His hand shivered and as a result the rich man dropped the diamond, and the diamond now had a crack in it.
The rich man and his friend started talking to many jewelers to see what could be done to the diamond. The experts all concluded that nothing could be done. The only thing that could be done is that they should cut the diamond where the crack is and make it into two diamonds thereby it would not lose that much value.
The rich man was very upset but his friend told him that before you do something as drastic as this why don’t you go and ask the Rav? The rich man said what does the Rav know about jewelry. Nevertheless, He insisted so the rich man acquiesced. The Rav asked the rich man what is your name? The rich man responded, “Daniel.” The rich man started regretting coming what does this have to do with a diamond? The Rav told him that this crack will serve as the top of the letter “daled” you will get someone to finish engraving the rest of the “daled” and thereby making this diamond personalized and a special diamond. By doing this you will have your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren remember you. Also, the value of the diamond will go up as it will be personalized.
The rich man saw the great chochma of the Rav and thanked Hashem for both the fact that his diamond went up in price but also that the diamond initially fell.
We need to learn from this story and from Shiras HaYam that not only we should thank Hashem for the good but even what appears bad is really, good and we need to thank Hashem!
May we always be thankful and appreciative!
