אם ירצה ה׳
3️⃣ AI Created, Human Full Structure (explanation)
See Only the Good: The Sacred Duty to Honor Every Soul as a Sefer Torah
(A Drash Inspired by Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l)
Rav Avigdor Miller zt'l
Chiour
(Recorded shiur titled "See Only the Good in Your Parents")
Beloved friends in Torah,
Rav Avigdor Miller זצ״ל delivers a thunderclap of mussar wrapped in love: every Jew is a Sefer Torah, even the one who sometimes stumbles. Our job is not to edit the scroll — but to read it with eyes wide open to its kedusha and deliberately blind to its smudges.
This teaching is far more than beautiful sentiment. It is a complete spiritual operating system — halacha, kavanah, mussar, hashgacha, and the daily mental avodah we are commanded to perform.
📜 Halachot – The Concrete Obligations That Bind Us
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Kibud av v'em reaches presidential (even royal) levels of honor (Shemot 20:12).
Rav Miller paints the image: paving stones in the mud so your mother's feet stay dry on the way to shul. That is the standard. -
Kriah upon seeing any observant Jew pass away (Y.D. 340:5).
Why? Because every mitzvah-observant Jew is a living Sefer Torah. When a Torah scroll is burned, we tear our garments. The same applies here — even for the "ordinary" Jew who sometimes fights for an aliyah or speaks lashon hara. -
Historical practice: Chevra Kadisha members kept deliberately tattered garments from constant kriah.
Death was a family-and-community ceremony at home — not a sterile hospital handover.
🧠 Kavanot – Directing the Heart Toward Hashem's Design
When we honor parents, we intend to mirror Hashem's chessed — they were merely His shlichim in giving us life.
When we eat a slice of watermelon, we are obligated to pause and ask with real curiosity:
- Why is the delicious part red and the rind green?
- Why are the seeds so slippery they shoot out and replant themselves?
These are not cute questions. They are kavanot of gratitude — recognizing deliberate divine engineering in every detail so that our enjoyment becomes an act of yichud.
⚖️ Mussar – The Ethical Hammer That Refines the Soul
Children are famously selfish — they demand to be seen, yet rarely see their parents' ma'alos.
Even when the father is a genuine gadol, his own children often remain blind to his greatness.
Rav Miller's rebuke is sharp:
"To the faults of your parents you must be blind.
I don't care what you'll say about that — I'm telling you what you have to do."
This blindness-to-faults principle extends to all benefactors:
Learn to love even their necktie, their nose, their ears — because gratitude demands we magnify the good and shrink the negative.
Modern convenience (hospital deaths, quick phone calls: "He's gone") robs us of sacred shared experience. That too is a mussar wake-up call.
🌟 Hashgacha Pratit – Seeing Hashem's Hand in Every Watermelon Seed
Nothing is "plain."
No Jew is plain.
No parent is plain.
No slice of fruit is plain.
Hashem loads us with constant kindnesses — every one intentional.
The red pigment appears exactly where we eat and nowhere else.
The seeds are lubricated precisely so they escape our fingers and fulfill their mission.
When we eat and fail to ask "Why is it designed this way?" we miss the opportunity to turn physical pleasure into intellectual and emotional hakaras hatov — the engine that binds us to the Borei.
🧭 Duties of the Mind – The Non-Negotiable Mental Mitzvos
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Invest real time studying the specific virtues of parents, Rebbe, Rosh Yeshiva, even the fellow in the next seat at shul.
Wholesale "everyone is holy" is too easy — intimacy demands specificity. -
Dwell lifelong on those ma'alos — make them big in your mind.
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Practice deliberate blindness to idiosyncrasies and faults.
Gratitude requires this selective vision. -
Actively query creation — turn every mundane experience into a question that reveals wisdom.
That questioning itself is avodas hamochin. -
Magnify the good in everyone who benefits you — because the more you focus on virtues, the more natural love and respect become.
In one sentence, Rav Miller's message boils down to this:
The more gratitude you feel, the more virtues you are obligated to see —
and the more you see, the deeper your gratitude becomes.
May we all merit to read every Sefer Torah — in our parents, in our neighbors, in the watermelon on our plate, and above all in the endless kindnesses of Hakadosh Baruch Hu — with eyes that only see good.
Baruch Hashem for such piercing, loving mussar.
🙄💠🌐