Nishmas Day 25 - Rabbi Yossi Cohen | You're Under Oath
כִּי כָל פֶּה לְךָ יוֹדֶה, וְכָל לָשׁוֹן לְךָ תִשָּׁבַע, וְכָל בֶּרֶךְ לְךָ תִכְרַע, וְכָל קוֹמָה לְפָנֶיךָ תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה
“To You every mouth gives thanks, every tongue pledges allegiance, every knee bends, and every upright spine bows before You.”
Serving Hashem is not limited only to the neshamah. It’s meant to involve the entire person — every bone, every limb, and every movement.
The Gemara in Niddah tells us that before a person is born, the malach who accompanied him for 9 months makes him take an oath:
תהי צדיק ואל תהי רשע – “Be a tzaddik and do not be a rasha.”
More so, even if the entire world tells you that you are a tzaddik, you must recognize how much more you can become”.
Every day, three times a day in Aleinu, we remind ourselves this promise: וְכָל לָשׁוֹן לְךָ תִשָּׁבַע.
Because even when we feel proud of what we;ve accomplished, we are under oath.
When people compliment us, admire us, and tell us how wonderful we are, we are still under oath.
No matter how far we’ve come, we still have opportunities to grow.
The מדרש תנחומא in פרשת פקודי says that the end of a person’s life, the very same malach who sent us into this world with a mission, with potential, and with an oath, will be there to greet us.
Hopefully, the malach will be smiling, and will say:
“You stayed loyal to the oath. You kept striving to become who you were capable of becoming. ”
Iy”H, after 120 years, we should all merit hearing those words, and experience the endless oneg and reward prepared for those who never stopped striving upward.
