Good Midot Are Infectious

After Yakov had experienced the miracle of קפיצת הדרך, where he arrived in חרן in record time, he met the shepherds by the well. ( A friend of mine told me that the chief rabbi of Turkey told him that he could show him that exact well where Yakov met Rachel. חרן was in Turkey.)

He rebuked the shepherds for not giving water to the flocks. They told him about the heavy rock covering the well. Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsh wrote that the rock was there in the first place, because the shepherds didn’t trust one another, and were afraid there wouldn’t be enough water for themselves. In essence Yakov was rebuking them for their bad character.

Rabbi Twerski commented that good Midot are infectious. When one surrounds himself with good people, their goodness will spread to all those around them.

Trust and diligence go hand in hand. The same is true of distrust and laziness. This is but another example of lessons learned from an apparently trivial incident.