Emor

‎
‎‎A posuk in Parshas Emor states: ולא תחללו את שם קדשי ונקדשתי בתוך בני ישראל ,you shall not defile My holy name, and I shall be sanctified among the Jewish people. 
Rashi explains this seeming redundancy; for if there is no defilement, you will have sanctity. He says that it teaches us that we should surrender ourselves to sanctify Hashem's name. ‎Besides sacrificing one's life for Hashem, one’s daily living can also be a sacrifice to Hashem.  ‎

When the ארי"זל  was asked how Moshiach could come in our generation when he didn't come in previous generations which were much greater than ours, he answered that the challenges of our generation are much greater. It's the mesiras nefesh that Hashem looks at, not the piety of the individuals.  With the number of outside influences we of this generation have, anything that we do to break our nature for Hashem is considered a sacrifice. In addition, when we act the way Hashem wants us to, even when no one is around to arouse our conscience, the sacrifice is so much greater. 

There was once a talmid chacham who went with his family on vacation up north. They stayed in a hotel overnight & when they left in the morning the man's car hit another car that was parked. The man got out & saw the damage. Even though it was small, he knew that he had to pay for what he had damaged so he took a paper, wrote out in detail what happened, what had to be done to fix it & left his address & put it on the windshield. 

A few hours later, upon hearing a knock on the door, he goes to open it; before he has a chance to say anything, the man standing there takes out a camera & takes a picture of him. He says, “you’re the one who left that note on my car. You should know that, when I saw the note, I told my wife that it was some kind of scam because there aren't people in the world that would write a note like that. 

However, when I went to check the car & saw the damage, I knew that it was real. My first reaction was that I need to take a picture of this person, who surely could have gotten away with it, but who was willing to pay money to someone who wasn't even aware of what happened.” At that moment, the talmid chacham got a word in, and said, “What do you mean that no one was asking for the money? Hashem is asking me for it, for the Torah says you have to pay if you damage something!”  “That is exactly why I had to take a picture of you” the man said, “so I can look at it & remember that there are still good people in the world!” The next day he went & got an estimate; the talmid chacham  paid him for the damage, & they went their separate ways. 

A few weeks later, there's a knock on the door a few minutes before Shabbos; standing there is a couple, the man whose car had been hit with his wife smiling at the chacham. They said that, after a few weeks of family discussions, they had decided to become religious; “if your actions were because of the Torah, then we're in!” 
That's how we have to conduct ourselves. We have to cause people to say "wow, these people are exceptional, & if that's what the Torah teaches them, then we want a part of it.” Our goal has to be to have Hashem's name sanctified by us. The harder that is, the greater mesiras nefesh we must display.  It's the mesirus nefesh of our generation that is going to bring Moshiach!
‎‎