Ki Savo: Drasha for Sheva Brachos (#3)

In this week’s parsha, Ki Sovo, the passuk (26:16) says היום הזה ה' אלהיך מצוך.... On this day, your God is commanding you. Rashi says that this is the source for the famous expression בכל יום יהיו בעיניך חדשים, the Torah should feel fresh and new to you each and every day. The Netziv, on the other hand, says that pshuto shel mikra, the literal meaning of the passuk, is that it refers to that very day, the day that Hashem told them He was making a covenant with them, the covenant called the Bris of Arvos Mo’av.

But Eilu ve’Eilu--Both are true. It is easy to be enthusiastic and confident on the day that you sign a covenant. But as years pass, people change, and the enthusiasm wears off, and one day, people decide that the iron clad covenant needs to be renegotiated. The point of the passuk is that you, Klal Yisroel, know how excited you feel today. You are absolutely sure you are doing the right thing, you are determined and have no doubt. I want you to hold on to that feeling, to remember how you feel today, so that twenty years from now you will remember it and remind yourselves about the permanence and eternity of the covenant.

In fact, Rashi repeats this idea later in the Parsha, and emphasizes just this point. In 27:9, the Passuk says "היום הזה נהיית לעם...." Rashi says "בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כאילו היום באת עמו בברית." Every day let it be in your eyes as if it were today that you entered into the covenant with Him." We, Klal Yisroel, benefitted personally from this as well. Many years later, the Ribono Shel Olom said (Yirmiah 2:2), זכרתי לך חסד נעוריך אהבת כלולתיך לכתך אחרי במדבר בארץ לא זרועה. I remember the day that you said na’aseh ve’nishma, that you followed me into the dessert with love and faith. When I, Hashem, remember that moment, I am filled with love for you, Klal Yisroel.

Every chassan and kallah have a magical moment. Sometimes, the chassan needs to be dragged to the chuppah, and his (or her) tears are not tears of joy and awe and holiness but instead tears of holy terror and panic. But then he puts the ring on the kallah’s finger, and there it is, the magical moment. For some people, it’s the badehken. For some people, it’s when they’re in the yichud room and the Chassan gives the kallah something to eat before he takes a bite. Whatever that moment is, it needs to be remembered forever. The love that a couple has at the beginning of their marriage is a resource that must be tapped throughout their relationship, and when hard times come they need to remember and rekindle their romance.

This is the bracha of " וארשתיך לי לעולם," (from Hoshea 2:21) which we say every morning when we wrap the tefillin around our finger, like a ring on the finger of a Kallah. Eirusin is the temporary precursor to Nisu'in, and certainly does not last forever. But if a person is zocheh, the perfect joy and shleimus of eirusin, of the moment the Chassan puts the ring on the finger of the Kallah, can last forever, le'olam. We give the chassan and the kallah a bracha that "בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כחדשים," that you should always remember chesed ne’urayich, and ahavas ke’lulosayich.