We continue to discuss the topic of Savlanut , which we translated literally as to carry, to tolerate and to be patient with situation s that not to our liking. The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat brings the following braita: Those that are disgraced and don't disgrace back, that hear their disgrace and don't respond, that serve God out of love and are happy with yisurim/suffering. So these are three areas of tolerance; being tolerant of insults, or disgrace or tolerating suffering. And on them, it says the pasuk in Shoftim - And those that love God, it will big will be like the sun in its full shining. We mentioned in the past that the sun is the fullest expression of energy, yet here the person is seemingly not doing anything, he’s being quiet, but that quiet has the greatest of energy. Rabbenu Bachye in Parashat Vayikra (perek א pasuk ב ) explains as follows: He says that, as we know, the sun and moon were originally equal. Then the moon complained and said we can't have two equal kings. So what did God do? God made the moon smaller and the sun bigger. Rabbenu Bachye says that we see from this that the sun didn't respond, and because the sun was quiet while the moon was disgracing, it, the sun was rewarded and the sun shined. Therefore we say of the people that keep quiet, God will reward them with shining. The Chida says something very interesting ( Vayikra 10,13). He quotes from the Mesorah, which is an early Midrash that lists certain times that words show up on a rare occasion, always a theme. The word under discussion is Vayidom , which means to be quiet . The word Vayidom only shows up twice in Tanach - once in Vayidom Aharon, and another in Vayidom HaShemesh. Vayidom Aharon is when, lo alenu, Aharon loses his two sons on the opening day of the Bet HaMikdash, and he's quiet. He doesn't say anything. He just, so to say, tolerates that difficult situation. And Vayidom HaShemesh/ the sun was silent when Yehoshua stopped the sun. Why does it say the sun was silent? Because the sun, just by following its regular orbit, sings praise to God, is praising God. When it stops, the praise stops. So the sun is silent from its praise, so to say. That's the simple explanation. But the Chida has a deeper explanation, and says that the commonality between the two is that just like the sun was silent way back when, in creation, the moon asked how there could be two equal kings (the moon wanted to be in charge, but the sun was quiet), and because of that, the sun ended up shining, so too for Aharon. When he had this great challenge in life, in the words of the Chida, “ Due to his great piousness and humility, he didn't have anything to say. He was just quiet. ” And therefore, Aharon HaKohen ended up shining like the sun. Aharon HaKohen was shining because of the fact that he, like the sun, was Sovel/ tolerant, patient and held onto his difficult feelings. He was tolerant, patient, and held on. We add one more piece, from the Kurazi, written by Rav Yehuda Halevi as a conversation between the king of the Kuzars and a rabbi. In it, the rabbi says that Hashem says, “ I’m proud of the Jewish people.” And the king says, “ How could that be? How could God be proud of people? That doesn't sound right.” And the rabbi explains, “ If someone said, ‘God is proud of the sun,’ would that bother you?” And he says, “ No, that makes sense. Look what the sun does. Look how powerful the sun is. The whole world is living from the sun, the plants…everything needs the sun. Of course God should be proud of the sun.” So the rabbi says that the human beings that are spreading the word of God, the human beings that are acting in greatness, they're greater than the sun. And if God can be proud, so to say, of the sun, he should surely be proud of people. After the Rambam quotes this Gemara in the laws of De’ot, perek ה , he says that a person should be from the people that are insulted and and not respond, etc. And he says on them, the pasuk says, “ You are the Jewish people that I'm proud of. ” So God is proud of the Jews. When is he proud of us? He's proud of us when we're quiet and we tolerate. Have a wonderful day.