The Keys To Life
By: R’ Mordechai Young
Once I saw my friend Shaya looking around. I asked him what he was looking for and he said his car keys. He checked in shul, outside the shul, then he realized his car was newer and doesn’t need the key to be turned in the ignition. The proximity sensors inside the car detect when the fob is inside the cabin and will ignite the car. His key was near his front door and was close to the driveway, so his car started when he left—with no keys on him at all!
The Midrash in this week’s parashah Ki Tavo (Devarim 28:12) says, “Hashem will open up for you His good treasury.” Quoting Rebbi Yochanan, the Midrash says, “Hashem has three keys that are not given to any messenger. They three keys are for Techiyas Hameisim (resurrection of the dead), childbirth, and rain.”
You think about this and wonder, what’s the purpose of Hashem holding on to these three keys? I was thinking to strengthen us in our prayers. When rain is needed, we go directly to the source, not to any messenger. A successful childbirth reminds us to pray stronger to Hashem. Rabbi Shimshon Pincus zt”l once had a person come to him looking for chizuk. He’d been married for a while and didn’t have any kids. He spoke to him about davening, telling him how the tefillah needs to come from the depths of one’s heart. He told him, “Meet me at a certain street in the evening and I’ll take you somewhere.” They met and he took him to the desert where he told him to pray fervently. No one was around, just the young man and Hashem. He returned 30 minutes later and saw the man had no tears. He said, “Hashem is the only way you will have a baby. So put that clear in your mind and beg, praying with pure bitachon that the salvation can only come from Hashem and He will give you good results.”
Baruch Hashem, that year he had a baby. So, this area needs strengthening in prayer. They key for Techiyas Hameisim is interesting. We don’t pray for the resurrection of the dead. It’s mentioned in the Shemoneh Esrei as part of praising Hashem, but not as a request. So why is this key part of the other two? Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l said in a shiur I heard that when we pray those words (mechaye meisim), we should think of relatives who went to Olam Haba whom we look forward to seeing again. We see Yaakov Avinu asked to be buried in Eretz Yisrael and Rashi explains that it was because he didn’t want to have to roll from Mitzrayim to Eretz Yisrael at the time of Techiyas Hameisim. So, you see a tzaddik was thinking of Techiyas Hameisim, even in this world. Also, the berachah ends in the present tense, not the future tense as in “He will bring back the dead.” Why is that? You might be able to say that sometimes a person is down and needs something positive infused in him. Hashem is constantly renewing us in that way, bringing salvation and happiness, so we pray for that as well. We daven that those who are down should be given happiness. We know it all comes from Hashem, so why specifically for these three things did Hashem keep the keys? It could be all three have the common denominator of life, and we say Hashem is Mechalkel Chaim, he gives life. Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l also said in a shiur that when the Chofetz Chaim would see rain, he would imagine people coming down from the sky. The rain comes, makes the food grow, and that gives people energy and sustains them to help their families grow. So, you see each of the three keys is connected to life and Hashem is the creator and sustainer of life, so He keeps those keys. We can gain from the knowledge of knowing that Hashem has the three keys, by strengthening our emunah in Techiyas Hameisim. Just as the rain is real and babies are born, we see and know that. But we have to try and conceptualize the resurrection as mentioned above, just as Rabbi Avigdor Miller and Yaakov Avinu did. Let
us pray with great strength in life, realizing it’s all from Hashem.
Written as a zechus for a refuah shleimah for R’ Aharon ben Rivka.
Have a great Shabbos!
R’ Mordechai Young can be reached for comments at [email protected].
