I practically taught my little brother everything I know, how to read in Hebrew, in English, math skills, language, you name it. Raising a child changes a person from my experience. The bond I share with him is so tight that I worry about the craziest things sometimes. When I’m walking with him outside and he’s two meters away from me, I can’t help but worry what might happen to him. I begin imagining the worst. What would life be like if something happened to him heaven forbid? Just the thought makes me cringe. It’s because he is precious to me, he’s my everything.

Shir Lama’alot is a song composed by King David and he expresses how Hashem shomer Israel (guards the nation of Israel) yishmor et nafshecha (He gaurds their souls) yishmorcha kol ra (he gaurds us from all evil). But Hashem is not the only one who protects. It is our obligation to protect. We have shomer Shabbat (protecting Shabbat) shomer mitzvoth (guarding mitzvoth) shmiras habris (guarding our bris) shmiras halashon (guarding our speech) and so on. Why is shomer so special?

What would you guard in your life? What would you protect? If I make a hundred dollars, I put it in my wallet to protect it. If I make 10,000 dollars, I don’t put it in my wallet, I put it in a safe, because its more valuable, its more precious, I can gain a lot more from it. What happens if I make 50 million dollars? Do I put it in a safe? No, because a safe is not good enough to protect something so precious and valuable. It turns out, that when we are told to guard the Sabbath, the mitzvoth, or anything else, it means that we have to see these things as precious. The more precious something is to us, the more we guard it. There are many people who perform the mitzvoth of Shabbat, and the halachos, but they don’t protect them, they don’t cherish them, its not precious, its something they feel has to be done, like brushing teeth, just a part of life. The same applies to interpersonal relationships. Why is shomer such a huge thing?

Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden to ul’avdah ul’shamrah (to work on it and to protect it). But if you look closely at those words you’ll find that ul’avdah ul’shamrah are in the feminine. Adam’s task was not only to protect the Garden (a garden is referred in Hebrew as a feminine object because it is planted in and produces like a woman), but to also protect his wife, to hold her precious to himself, to never let her go, to see her as the greatest wife in creation, his only wife in creation. What happened in the Garden as we all know? The serpent starts to converse with Eve and talks her into consuming from the Tree of Knowledge. The question is “Where was Adam during this conversation?” He was nowhere near his wife, so he broke one of his first obligations, to hold his wife as precious, he was too distracted by everything else in the Garden. Some Midrashim even say he was asleep during the conversation between Eve and the serpent. And what happens when Adam is confronted by Hashem? Adam says “The wife YOU gave me made me eat” (Genesis 3:12). So not only does Adam blame his wife, not only does he not protect her and hold her precious when being confronted by God, but he blames Hashem for having given Eve (talk about ungrateful). Can you imagine the look on Eve’s face when she’s being scapegoated, the horror and the anguish of being taken for granted by her partner in the world, her other half? It reminds me of the many women who sit quiet in anguish today in the face of an unappreciative husband and vice versa.

But despite Adam’s mistake, despite his destructive nature, Hashem held him precious, and He held Eve precious, because they were His everything. In Hashem’s love for them something new was born, a gift, Shabbas, but specifically shomer shabbas; He gave them a chance to hold each other precious again, a chance to frolic in the Garden once more. The biggest error we can make as a nation is to not hold one another as precious, that’s the reason why the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed and it is unconditional love, a state of holding each other as precious in one another’s eyes, that will bring the third and final Temple. So how can we be more shomer?

The first step is to ask “Do I shomer myself? Am I precious to myself? Do I treat me in a way that expresses my self appreciation, or do I just do things for me out of obligation? What is one tiny thing I can do for me to genuinely express my self appreciation?” The next step is “Do I shomer others? Who do I hold precious to me? Do I treat them in a way that expresses my appreciation for them or do I just do things for them because I have to? What tiny thing can I do for each of them that genuinely expresses my appreciation for each of them?” The final step (if this applies to you) is “Do I shomer Hashem? Do I hold God as precious? How do I perform the mitzvoth in a way that expresses my love of God without just doing mitzvoth out of a sense of obligation? What tiny thing can I do that will express my love for God?” None of these questions require a revolutionary change, just a small positive step forward.

May Hashem, despite our flaws as a nation, constantly guard us from all evil and may Am Yisroel and the world always be His everything.