Why You Must Be Squeezed to Find Your Greatness | Rabbi Michael Khaimov

We just read Parashat Tetzaveh. The Torah told us that Tetzaveh Israel you shall command the Jewish people and they shall take for you Shemen Zayit Zach, pure olive oil. It has to be crushed for illumination. And this pasuk the Midrash explains that the Jewish people are comparable to an olive. And the Midrash explains and the Gemara says this as well, that just as an olive will not give you its oil unless you squeeze it, so too a person will not attain greatness unless he is squeezed. David Amalech [music] compares himself to an olive. He writes I am like a Zayit Ra'anan, a olive tree full of leaves in the kindness of Hashem I have trusted. Says the great Rabbi Rabbi David Abuhatzeira, he says why does David Amalech compare himself to the olive? And what gives him that power to compare himself to the olive tree? Says the great Rabbi that Amalech compares himself to [music] the olive tree because the olive tree doesn't shed its leaves whether it's in the summer or whether it's in the winter. >> [music] >> And David is saying that I too I don't falter under pressure whether it's times of summer which are good days in my life or whether it's times of winter which are difficult days and it's windy and it's uncertain times. David Amalech says what gives me that power to go strong? It's that emunah that I have in Elohim, the emunah that I have in God. If we pay attention says the great Rabbi, this word Elohim it connotes strict judgement [music] and still David Amalech is saying that even when Hashem is behaving towards me with strict judgement, he says I have faith and my faith is what enables me to understand >> [music] >> that what? That Hashem is with me and he's elevating me and when you squeeze an olive it gives you that oil and so too when we are squeezed when we're put under pressure it's not here to break us it's here [music] not on the contrary to build a person, to bring out his greatness, to bring out his ko'ach, to bring out his manifestation [music] into the world. And may we merit to realize that when we go through difficult situations, when we're being squeezed, that sometimes we have to realize that that squeezing, that pressure that we experience, it's really here to enable us to manifest a greater power into the world.