5771 פרשת וארא

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah explains how God spoke to Moshe Rabbeinu after Pharaoh made the work that Bnei Yisroel had to do even harder by making them find the straw they needed to make the bricks. At this point in time Bnei Yisroel did not feel any hope that they would ever get out of Egypt. God told Moshe that he should tell Bnei Yisroel that they should believe that they will be redeemed for three reasons as explained by the Siforno. The first one of the reasons is that the Avos until this point in time had not experienced the fact that God changed nature in such a way where something that is an integral part of nature is changed for the benefit of Bnei Yisroel. This is something that Bnei Yisroel never learned from their ancestors and therefore it was worthwhile for Bnei Yisroel to be redeemed so they can learn this lesson which will assist them to be become the nation of God.

 The Siforno then continues and explains that the merit through which Bnei Yisroel was to receive Eretz Yisroel was their realization that God will deal with them with special Hashgacha as they are the nation of God. The Siforno further continues and explains that the reason that the generation of the exodus from Egypt did not merit to go into Eretz Yisroel was that they were not able to bring these ideas into their heart.

 If we look at these commentaries of the Siforno a little bit more closely we can ask the following questions:

1. We know that Bnei Yisroel did not merit to go into Eretz Yisroel because of their sins during the time they were in the Midbar which culminated with the sin of the Meraglim, so how could the Siforno say that Bnei Yisroel did not merit to enter Eretz Yisroel because they did not bring the idea that God would change nature for them?
2. Furthermore, why would this belief or lack of belief be a requirement to inherit Eretz Yisroel?

 We can answer the first question the following way. It can be that in essence it was this inability of Bnei Yisroel to truly believe that God will change nature on their behalf that caused them to constantly test God and what led them to the sin of the Meraglim.

 In order to answer the second question we can explain that Eretz Yisroel is the land that God watches constantly and relates to it with a special level of Hashgacha which no other place in the world merits. In order for a nation to merit living in Eretz Yisroel they have to be on the level where they see God’s hand in their daily lives.  

5770 פרשת וארא

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the conversation that God had with Moshe in response to Moshe’s query as to why God had sent him to Pharaoh if it only seemed to make matters worse for Bnei Yisroel and not better. In the midst of God’s response to Moshe He tells him that when He appeared to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov it was with my name of Shakay but I did not appear to them with the name of Hashem.

 The commentaries discuss what it is that God was telling Moshe. The Ohr Hachayim explains that God was explaining to Moshe why he was being sent to redeem Bnei Yisroel before the end of the exile. Moshe knew what was passed down through the generations that the exile in Mitzrayim was supposed to last for 400 years and that period had not yet ended. To this God responded that when He told the Avos that Bnei Yisroel would be in Mitzrayim for 400 years that was using the name Shakay which represents the word Dai meaning enough. God had told the Avos that no matter what happened the exile would end after 400 years but what he didn’t tell them is that the exile could end earlier if Bnei Yisroel asked for mercy from God which is what Bnei Yisroel did and therefore Moshe was sent to redeem them before the official end of the exile.

 If we look at this Ohr Hachayim a little more closely we can ask the following question. If God did not tell the Avos that the exile could end through the prayers of Bnei Yisroel for mercy which would seem to be the case as Moshe Rabbeinu who was the acknowledged leader of Bnei Yisroel did not understand this idea, then how did Bnei Yisroel themselves know to ask for mercy to end the exile? They should have assumed like Moshe that there was nothing to do to end the exile early and therefore they should not have thought to ask for mercy.

 The answer could be that if Bnei Yisroel were acting based on true intellect, they would have not bothered asking for mercy as they would have understood that there was nothing they could have done based on the information they had received as to when the exile was supposed to end. However, Bnei Yisroel didn’t turn to God based on intellect but rather because they were going through tremendous suffering. When they were going through the suffering they understood that there is nowhere to turn but to God to help them ease their pain and that is what they did. Even though they might have thought that the exile wasn’t going to end at that time but perhaps the suffering would be less and it was that action of turning to God that was so powerful that it caused the exile to end earlier than it was supposed to.

 We can learn a great lesson from here which is that even if there were decrees against Bnei Yisroel or even against individuals that were decreed by God to last for a set amount of time, true prayer and turning to God for mercy has the potential to cause God to totally remove the decree even before it was supposed to end.

5769 פרשת וארא

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us seven of the 10 plagues that God brought on the Egyptians. The Torah tells us that before almost of all of the plagues God gave the Egyptians a warning through Moshe Rabbeinu. When discussing the warning that Moshe Rabbeinu gave before the fourth plague the Rabbeinu Bechai gives the following explanation for the reason behind giving a warning before each plague as found in the Midrash.

 Unlike a king of flesh and blood who if he wants do something bad to his enemy, he will surprise him, God warns Reshaim before he brings bad to them in order for them to have the chance to repent.

 If we look at this Rabbeinu Bechai closely we can ask the following two questions:

 Firstly, why does the Rabbeinu Bechai only wait to bring down the Midrash explaining the reason for the warning by the fourth plague, there were warnings given by the first two plagues also?

 Secondly, who are we talking about? I can understand giving a warning the first time and the second time or even the fifth time but God kept warning Pharaoh through the last plague of the death of the firstborn. We know that Pharaoh wasn’t affected by any of the other plagues, so why did God continue to warn him with the hope that he would repent and not be subjected to the plagues?

 Let us try to answer our second question first and with that we can try to answer our first question too.

 The basic idea is that God wants us always to repent and not require punishments. Even if in the past we had warnings and did not repent, God will give us opportunity after opportunity. This is why God kept warning Pharaoh time after time even after he showed many times his total disregard for the plagues and his lack of desire to repent.

 We can now use this idea to explain why the Rabbeinu Bechai waited to bring down this Midrash until the fourth plague. We know that the first two plagues were imitated by the magicians of Egypt through their magic. Due to that it could be that Pharaoh did not fully appreciate the hand of God in the plagues and for that reason did not repent. However, after the third plague where the magicians of Egypt could not replicate the plague and they admitted that it was the hand of God, Pharaoh would seemingly have no excuse not to repent. Nevertheless, as we know Pharaoh continued in his stubborn ways and refused to repent. God nevertheless, warned Pharaoh before the fourth plague. It is precisely at this point that the Rabbeinu Bechai brings down the Midrash. At the point where Pharaoh reached a level where there would seem to be no hope that he would repent God continues to warn and give him chance after chance to repent.

In our times we do not have prophets to constantly remind us to correct our actions and repent. However, God is constantly sending us messages and if we pay attention to what is going on around us we can’t help but see them. Chazal tell us that even thunder was created to straighten out the crookedness in man’s heart. Even if we haven’t been listening to the messages that God sends to us on a constant basis, we still have a chance. God wants us to repent and come close to him and he will continue to send us his warnings to help us get there. Chazal tell us that the weeks of Shovavim starting with Parshas Shemos and ending with Parshas Tetzaveh is a very opportune time for repentance. After the events that recently occurred in Eretz Yisroel where even though the enemy shot hundreds of rockets at us and had so many traps planned for our soldiers, we only lost 13 people, you can’t help but see both the warnings and the miracles God preformed for his nation. We see with our own eyes how much God loves us and wants us to come back to him let us take advantage of this time and work on our actions and come closer to God. 

 5768 פרשת וארא

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes seven out of the ten plagues that God brought against Egypt. One of the plagues that the Torah describes is that of  frogs. The Torah describes the plague the following way:

 And they will go up into your house and into your bedrooms and on your beds and in your ovens and in your baking dishes.

 There is a famous Gemara which says the following:

Tudus from Rome learned the following. What was it that Chananya Mishael and Azarya saw that made them give up their lives to sanctify the name of God by being thrown into the furnace of fire? They learned it out from the frogs during the plagues in Egypt. The frogs, who were not commanded with a Mitzvah to sanctify the name of God, threw themselves into the fire, we who are commanded to sanctify God’s name should certainly throw ourselves into the fire and sanctify the name of God. This is learned since the Pasuk says that the frogs went into the oven and the baking dishes. The baking dishes are only near the oven when it is hot, which shows us that the frogs jumped into fire.

 If we examine this Gemara more closely, the following question can be asked.

Firstly, we know that there was no requirement for Chanaya, Mishael and Azarya to throw themselves into the fire. We see that from the fact that they needed to learn from the frogs that they should be thrown into the furnace. If it was a halacha they would just learn it out from the Torah. If this is the case, we need to try and understand what they saw from the frogs to convince them to jump into the furnace. We know that God only gave man the power of choice and the ability to decipher what is right and wrong. All other creatures live by instinct and do what God requires of them. If God tells them to jump into the fire, do they have any ability to consider if that is a good thing to do or not. They do what God tells them to do. If that is the case, how could Chananya, Mishael and Azarya learn from them that they have to sanctify the name of God by throwing themselves into the fiery furnace?

We may be able to us the explanation Rashi gives on this Gemara to understand what the kiddush hashem that Chananya, Mishael and Azarya saw in the actions of the frogs.

Rashi explains the Gemara the following way:

This thing (the action of the frogs) is a great wonder and sanctification of God’s name more than if it were any other animal since the nature of frogs are to be in the water and to distance themselves from fire, nevertheless to be the messenger of God they sanctified themselves not to run away from the oven.

 Rashi was bothered by why God picked frogs to go into the ovens over any other animal. The explanation that he gives is that there is no greater sanctification of God’s name than having an animal whose entire nature is to live in water and stay away from fire to be the messenger of God to jump into the fires in the ovens.

With this Rashi we can now understand what was the kiddush hashem that chananya, mishael and azarya saw from the frogs and how it impacted their decision.

God creates every being with natural instincts, tendencies and character traits. We understand those feelings to be unmovable. The most inherent instinct a person has is the desire for self preservation. Chananya, Mishael and Azarya had a question, there is no requirement to be thrown in the furnace and God put into us a natural instinct to stay alive, what is the correct course of action? They looked at the actions of the frogs and saw their answer. God took the frogs whose natural instinct is to stay away from fire at all cost and had them jump into the fire to teach us that instinct, even though God put it into us, has its limitations. The action of the frogs was a tremendous kiddush hashem which showed the mastery of God over nature. Chananya, Mishael and Azarya realized then that sanctifying God’s name takes precedence over all the natural instincts that God put into us, even though in many other situations (where it is not required by הלכה to give up your life) it would be proper to follow our natural instinct for self preservation.

This idea is not limited only to kiddush hashem. Many times we feel that it is too difficult to change our bad character traits since they have been ingrained in us since birth. However, from this Gemara, we see an incredible idea about the potential of a person to go against his nature to serve God. If a person can give up their life, of which its preservation is the most basic instinct we have, to fulfill the will of God, then surely a person can change his character traits for the better.

 5767 פרשת וארא 

 In this week’s Parsha we find a very interesting Sipurno. The Pasuk says the following:

And Moshe was 80 years old and Aharon was 83 years old when they spoke to Pharoh.

The Sipurno asks why does the Torah mention the ages of Moshe and Aharon? It is not the way of the Torah to just toss in facts if they are not to teach us something. The Sipurno answers as follows:

The Torah is telling us the praise of Moshe and Aharon that even being as old as they were they still got up early and rushed to do the will of God.

Let us examine this Sipurno a little bit closer. There are 3 questions that that we can ask:

1. Let us try to compare what occurred to Moshe and Aharon to a possible situation in our lives. Let us say we are home in bed with the flu and the president of the Company we worked for called up and said I need you to be at the office at 6:00AM for a very important meeting- we would make sure to be there. Now take it a step higher the mayor calls you, or the governor, or the president, is there any doubt at all that you would attend? If that is how we would react in relation to other people who hold higher positions than us, surely Moshe and Aharon would react that way when they were given a direct command by God?
2. Let us see who we are talking about here. This is Moshe and Aharon whose whole lives were devoted to serving God. The Torah when discussing the death of Moshe Rabbeinu says:  and Moshe the servant of God died. The Torah does not describe anybody else that way. Moshe Rabbeinu served God as a perfect servant whose whole life was dedicated to one thing and one thing only – the service of God. Is it possible for that someone on the level of Moshe and Aharon not serve God with all their strength?
3. If both of the above questions are true then why does the Torah feel the necessity to show us this “great action” of Moshe and Aharon – it is natural and expected?

The answer is that we underestimate the  character trait of  laziness and the power of the yetzer hara when he makes use of that trait. The Mesillas Yesharim tells us that the nature of man is to be heavy since man was created from the ground our natural tendency is towards inertia (i.e. a body at rest tends to remain at rest). We know that one of the many tricks of the yetzer hara has is to get us to rationalize that a wrong action is actually correct. The yetzer hara will work with our natural tendencies to trip us up. For example, the yetzer hara can convince us that it is a mitzvah to sleep late and not daven with a minyan so that we could learn better later. The yetzer hara uses our natural tendencies towards laziness to get us to do sins.

 This is why it was such praise for Moshe and Aharon since they were older the yetzer hara is able to try to convince them not to get up early since they need their strength and they could do it later. To be able to defeat the yetzer hara and to conquer the trait of laziness is surely reason for praise. It is a difficult thing even for someone like Moshe Rabbeinu who is the ultimate servant of God and even in this case where they were responding to a direct command of God.

 We, in our every day lives come upon these tests every day. Should I get up early for davening, should I stay up late and go to the shiur, or should I do this act of chesed? These questions arise every day. The answer we very often give is I am so tired; I had a long day at work; I will do it later or tomorrow. When that answer enters our mind, we should stop and think, is this the correct response or is this just my yetzer hara talking.

If we can work on defeating our trait of laziness, we should all merit being able to run and greet mashiach.