The Torah says in vayikra 18:14 “My ordinances you shall do, and My statutes you shall observe, to walk with them, I am the Lord, Your God.”
What does the Torah mean “to walk with them?”
The Ksav Sofer, commented that the words “to walk with them” mean that a person needs to continuosly ‘walk’ from one level to the next. A person should constantly keep on growing and elevating himself. It is not enough to keep on the same level that you were on the previous day. Rather, each day should be a climb higher than the day before. When difficult tests come your way, you might not always appreciate them. The only way to keep on elevating yourself is to keep passing more and more difficult life-tests. View every difficulty as a means of elevating yourself by applying the appropriate Torah principles. This is especially important at this time in the jewish calendar where we are counting the omer, the omer is not just a count of days to mattan torah, it is a count to revive our kedusha as a nation and on a
personal level. After leaving Egypt we were on the 49th level of impurity. Each of the 49 days we count we also look at a quality trait that we have that we might need to improve upon, so that we can be pure enough again to receive the torah. This is done using 7 main emotional attributes every person has: Since a fully functional emotion is multidimensional, it includes within itself a blend of all seven attributes. So each week we focus on one attribute with all the other 6 attributes within that.
1. Chesed – Loving-kindness
2. Gevurah — Justice and discipline
3. Tiferet – Harmony, compassion
4. Netzach – Endurance
5. Hod – Humility
6. Yesod – Bonding
7. Malchut – Sovereignty, leadership Each day we count using the attribute within an attribute, i.e: Day 1 chesed of chesed Day 2 gevurah of chesed Day 3 tiferes of chesed Etc. until Day 49 malchus of malchus At the end of each day, ask yourself, “What did I do today to elevate myself a little higher?”
If you cannot find an answer, ask yourself, “What can I plan to do tomorrow to climb a little higher?”
