Q:
What should we think of when we say amen yehei shmei rabah?
A:
What should you think when saying amen yehei shmei rabah?
I’ll just tell you one thing now, just to be brief. A man has to be able to look back on his life and to see what Hakodosh Boruch Hu did for you. If you don’t do that, then you can’t say anything. You won’t say yehei shmei rabah properly or anything else.
Now, when a man looks back on his life and he sees that Hakodosh Boruch Hu spared him so many troubles that he noticed occur to other people in this world, and that he is perfect, without, almost without any blemish…
Some people never broke a bone in their lives. If you’re one of these people, it’s a remarkable history. You never broke a bone in your life? Think how many people broke bones. They had casts at least for a few days or a few weeks. You never broke a bone in your life?
How many people never had a fire in their homes even once in their lifetime. You never had a fire? So many had fire in their homes. How many people were without work, didn’t have a job for some time? You never were unemployed? Never in your life were you unemployed?
How many people had trouble, serious trouble in their houses, marital troubles that either he ran out of the house, or his wife ran out, and it was a great to-do before they reunited, an embarrassment and tzaros? You never had that in your life?
So when you look back and you see how Hakodosh Boruch Hu spared you, so you start thanking Him. But you’ll never get through. There’s so much. There’s so much, so you say, “יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ, I have to thank You, Hashem, and bless You, לְעָלַם – forever, וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא – and ever and ever. No matter how much I’ll say, I won’t live long enough. In the next world, I’ll continue to thank You and praise You forever and ever. There’s so much to be grateful for.”
Of course, if a man’s mind is empty of gratitude, so it’s just empty words. It’s easy to sign a blank check. He gives a check, a blank check, or he writes a check even for a million dollars. You don’t have a penny in the bank, however. What good is a check like that?
A man says, “I thank You, Hashem, forever and ever and ever and don’t bother me anymore.”
But the man whose heart is overflowing, when he says it, let him think of at least one thing. Next time another thing. “Yehei shmei rabah mevorach, forever, that my child wasn’t born defective.”
Here’s a woman pushing a big baby carriage and who’s sitting inside? A big boy, a Mongol boy. It’s a pity to see. A great big boy sucking on a lollypop. The boy, had he been a normal boy would have been let’s say in college already or lehavdil in the yeshiva, and here’s a mother pushing him in the street and he’s sitting with a vacant stare. You know what a tzarah that is, sentenced all your life, chas v’shalom, to have that in the house? And she likes it too, which is better than nothing. At least a son, but what a son that is.
And you’re spared that, and you have a normal child. So can you ever get through thanking Hashem for that? That’s one thing to think about. How many things like that? About ten billion. I’m not exaggerating. Ten billion things in your life to thank for! So yehei shmei rabah, forever and ever and ever! You can never get through saying all the things that Hashem did for you in the past.
Ilu finu malei shira kayam – if our mouth was full of song like the waves of the sea are singing all the time, we would never be able to express all that you did for us in the past. That’s part of the thought yehei shmei rabah. There’s more to it than that.
And just one more thought. Another thought is, Hashem, I want the whole world to recognize You. Forever and ever. Not I alone. I pray that the whole world should wake up and speak about You. We want Your name to be mivorach forever and ever. Like ה’ ימלוך לעולם ועד, we want all of mankind to get up and shout, “Hashem melech,” like we do on Rosh Hashana. We get up and shout, “Hashem melech, Hashem moloch, Hashem yimloch.” We want everybody in the world to do it.
We want all the blacks in Africa and all the Chinese and all the Germans and all the Russians, and we too, of course, we should all stand on our feet and shout, “Hashem melech,” forever and ever. That should be our fervent prayer. So we want the whole world together with us. That’s our prayer for kvod Shomayim b’oilam.
(February 1983)
