This Yiddish saying has been a staple of Jewish optimism. It has helped us get through everything.
Let’s look at the story of Miriam, the prophetess who’s passing is discussed in this Torah portion of Chukas. She was the one who asked her father to remarry her mother in the times of Egyptian slavery in which they were throwing the baby boys in the river and the men had decided to separate from their wives so they wouldn’t have more children. But Miriam had prophesy and knew that they would have a son who would save the nation. Those who lived in those days must of thought she was crazy and must of thought ‘why bring children into the world to live under such horrible conditions.’ But Miriam saw the light, not the darkness and in this way she saved a whole Nation.
The Gemara tells us that Miriam’s well can be seen until today as a bubbling sieve from Mount Carmel. But wait, can a sieve (strainer) hold water at all? No, but that’s only true when the sieve is on the “chol” (sand). If that same sieve is in water, the more holes it has, the more water it holds. H”S is telling us through this, “when your attitude is “chol” (sand) mundane your faith can hold no water. But if you are a sea of faith, and your entire life your thinking good, even if your sieve is full of holes, the water will remain with you.
Miriam is personified by the words -Rachash Libi Davar Tov- “my heart overflows with a goodly matter”(Tehillim 45:2)
Even in times of tragedy, even in the face of death, keep the faith!
The big lesson of Chukas is that every impurity is followed by purity and that everything H”S sends our way is good, and if we truly believe it then when we “think good it will be good.”
Some excerpts taken from “Yemima Mizrachi Speaks”
www.livealittlehigher.com
