It would be fair to say that many of us have personal peeves and dissatisfaction with our People. We, as a People also freely admit that we have much room for improvement.

There may have been a time when we tried fixing matters, but soon gave up because we found that our influence was minimal. After all, it is only great leaders who have the ears of audiences that can bring about change.

But this could not be further from the truth!

The Talmud Yerushalmi (Berakhoth 9:4) teaches us that if one sees that the Jewish People are lax in the performance of commandments, one should take action in his/her own way to inspire them to improvement.

At a time when the Jewish People were lax in making Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Elkanah would go out of his way to collect people on his own Pilgrimage.

It is not just the great leader that has the duty to inspire positive change in the Jewish People. No matter how insignificant the individual Jew may think himself to be, his influence is in fact significant even if unlike Elkanah’s it does not turn out to be broad and far reaching!

No matter how small our sphere of influence and no matter how profound the change we seek, our individual efforts are very much notable.

May we take greater interest in the well-being of our People and bring about their perfection! (Michael Linetsky, www.torateretzyisrael.org)