Every large, respectable synagogue has its regular beggars. They come every day, stand on duty for a few hours, and reward the public with almsgiving.
At the famous Chabad Beit Midrash - 770 in Brooklyn, there is a group of elderly beggars from Russia. They have been there for decades, they are part of the landscape of the place.
The yeshiva students once asked one of them: If you won the American lottery for hundreds of millions of dollars - what would you do?
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The man answered without hesitation: I will give each of my beggar friends a million dollars so that they will not come anymore and leave me alone with the entire synagogue.
Funny, right? I call it diaspora consciousness.
Even when a poor person becomes rich, he thinks like a beggar. A person with a redemptive consciousness will not go back to being a beggar after winning the lottery.
But don't we think like that in our lives? Do we know how to at least dream, beyond our limitations and diaspora conventions? How many times do we want to do something, but are certain in advance that we won't succeed? And how many times do we not even dare to dream about something because it is beyond our concepts?
But if we adopt a redemptive consciousness, we can see that we are capable of much more, perhaps even daring to dream big.
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In his commentary on the beginning of Parashat Shemini, Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Lunschitz, author of "Kli Yakar," explains that the number eight is above nature, as the nature of the world since its creation is linked to the number 7.
The world was not created in seven days and continues to operate in cycles of 7.
He adds and cites the words of Chazal in Tractate Arachin, that the violin of the days of the Messiah will have eight nimin.
As I understand it, the Levites' harp in the Temple had seven strings, while the one that will be in the days of the Messiah will have eight strings.
Why eight? Because the death of the Messiah is essentially a supernatural state.
Well, there is no more appropriate time than this Shabbat to observe things, examine our consciousness, and try to manage a mindset of eight, a redemptive mindset.
Think like a homeowner and not like an employee. Because otherwise, even if we win the lottery, we will return to being beggars.
