The Seeds of Redemption
"And these are the names of bnei Yisroel who came to
Egypt . . . " (Shemos 1:1). Rashi explains that
although the sons of Yaakov have already been enumerated in
parshas Vayigash with events that took place in their
lifetimes, the posuk enumerates them again here with
events that took place after they had died, to make known how
deeply Hashem cherished them. What needs to be understood
though, is why the names of Yaakov's sons are mentioned here,
at the very beginning of the enslavement.
The answer to this is that while in parshas Vayigash,
the Torah describes how the Egyptian exile began, here we
learn about the beginning of the enslavement, the hardship of
which brought about the redemption. Bnei Yisroel were
to have been in Egypt for four hundred years but the
afflictions to which the Egyptians subjected them resulted in
their leaving after only two hundred and ten years. [Because
of the role of this suffering in hastening their departure,
this is a fitting place to show Hashem's love for the sons of
Yaakov by mentioning their names again.] Let us consider the
harshness of the enslavement and the redemption which
followed.
The Way it Happened
"And Yosef and his brothers and all of that generation died,
and bnei Yisroel had offspring and swarmed . . . and
the land became filled with them" (Shemos 1:6- 7) --
Rashi explains that mothers gave birth to six children at
once. As a result of their expansion in both numbers and
quality, bnei Yisroel spilled over into Egypt proper.
Hitherto they had been confined to Goshen, which Pharaoh had
given as a gift to Soroh Imeinu. They had lived there in
holiness and purity, within their own separate community.
Once they multiplied, however, "the land became filled with
them." They settled in Egypt and took part in the country's
government and general life. Bnei Yisroel thought that
by so doing, they would be considered full citizens, since
they were no longer living separately, but were taking an
active role in the country's welfare.
In the end, however, the exact opposite took place. "And a
new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Yosef" (Shemos
1:8). Rashi, quoting Chazal, tells us that Rav and Shmuel
disagree over whether this Pharaoh was actually a new king or
whether he was the same person, merely issuing new decrees.
According to the second opinion, this Pharaoh himself said to
Yosef, "There is no man with greater wisdom and understanding
than you," (Bereishis 41:39) and now, when bnei
Yisroel were beginning to fraternize with the Egyptians,
he changed his approach and "did not know Yosef -- he acted
as though he did not know Yosef." This was a sign from
Heaven: Beis Yisroel is unlike all the nations! This
is when the decrees began!
The Turnabout
According to the second opinion -- that we are dealing with
the same Pharaoh -- there is an additional difficulty. How,
humanly speaking, could he undergo such a change in attitude?
How did he make the transition from telling Yosef that none
are wiser or cleverer than he and granting him status that
was only subordinate to his own ("Only in [my sitting on] the
throne shall I be greater than you" Bereishis 41:40,)
to such estrangement and callousness towards Yosef's
descendants?
In the medrash (Shemos Rabbah 1:8), Chazal tell us
that when the Egyptians first came to Pharaoh to complain
about the growing numbers and strength of bnei
Yisroel, he did not want to accept their arguments. He
remembered how Yosef had saved Egypt and he opposed harming
them.
Chazal tell us that they then deposed Pharaoh for three
months during which time he was put to the test, to see
whether he would agree in order to be reinstated. After three
months, he could not hold out. He underwent a transformation
and became a worse enemy of bnei Yisroel than the
other Egyptians. What caused this change? How could it happen
to a person that had exhibited ordinary, decent human
gratitude to someone who had helped him and his country? It's
baffling!
We find however, that when Pharaoh told Yosef, "There is
nobody wiser or more understanding than you" and "only in the
throne shall I be greater than you," what he was
communicating to him was that he would give up everything for
Yosef, with the exception of his throne. Nothing would induce
him to descend from his position as king of Egypt. With this
we can understand why, when his subjects deposed him for
three months, he could not hold out.
"And he said to the people, Let us become wise regarding
them, lest they multiply . . ." (Shemos 1:10). Though
bnei Yisroel thought that things would go well for
them if they drew close to the Egyptians, the opposite
happened, as we have explained. In the same way, when Pharaoh
heard from his astrologers that the savior of bnei
Yisroel would be born and decreed that every male child
be cast into the river, his very own daughter brought Moshe
Rabbenu, who was the one that would save them, into Pharaoh's
house.
The Secret of Survival
"And the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives . . . when
you assist the Hebrew women in giving birth . . . if it is a
`boy'(Shemos 1:15). It's an amazing thing! How could
two delicate women defy a cruel dictator like Pharaoh?
The Torah explains, however, "And the midwives feared Hashem
and they did not do as the king of Egypt had told them." Nor
was that all. "And they revived the children," which Rashi
explains as meaning that they kept the children supplied with
food and water. All this was a result of their yiras
Shomayim -- "And they feared."
Everything stems from yiras Shomayim, the simple
knowledge that one has to fear only the King of kings, and no
creature of flesh and blood, even if he is as powerful as
Pharaoh. The power of mortals is temporal, for ultimately
they will be reduced to worms and maggots. Such has been
Klal Yisroel's history. We have withstood tremendous
suffering and have maintained ourselves with yiras
Shomayim, and with faith and trust in Hashem.
One of our neighbors in Yerushalayim's Sha'arei Chesed
neighborhood was the gaon and tzaddik HaRav
Dovid Baharan zt'l. Reb Dovid had a very fine son who
was known as Reb Nochum MiShefaya, as he lived on the
settlement of Shefaya. Reb Nochum was murdered by the Arabs --
I think it happened as long ago as 5693 (1933). Reb Dovid's
murdered son was brought to Yerushalayim for burial and blood
was dripping R'l, from the bier. At the levaya,
Reb Dovid, the murdered man's father, went around gathering
his own and other people's handkerchiefs because he held that
the blood that dripped from the body had to be buried as
well. Nobody realized that it was the father of the
niftar who was wiping up the dripping blood in order
to bury it. Reb Dovid did this for fear of transgressing the
halocho that the blood must be buried.
Then, at the end of the levaya, Reb Dovid went over to
Reb Nochum's sons -- his own grandsons -- and told them to
make the blessing hatov vehameitiv after saying the
blessing dayan ho'emes, because their father had left
an inheritance, according to Torah law.
Reb Dovid used to daven shacharis kevosikin. Some time
afterwards, during Succos, a certain talmid chochom
noticed that Reb Dovid was crying. When he asked him why, Reb
Dovid told him that while making the blessing al netilas
lulov, he feared that his hadasim had fallen to
the ground, from the woven pouches where they were placed. He
was afraid that the hadasim had not been in his hand
when he made the brocho, rendering it a brocho
levatoloh. This was why he was crying. His questioner
pointed out that according to one opinion, it is possible to
fulfill the mitzvah of arba minim by taking the
different minim one after the other, so even if he had
picked up his hadasim after the brocho, he
would have done a valid netiloh and the brocho
would have been kosher. Reb Dovid acknowledged this to
be the case but responded that the halocho did not
follow that opinion.
This behavior demonstrates true yiras Shomayim. At his
son's levaya, he was not thrown into confusion by his
personal tragedy and he concerned himself with adhering to
halocho. And when taking lulov, he wept from
the fear of having made a brocho levatoloh. This is
yiras Shomayim! It is fearful and awesome!
It is also related that when Reb Yosef Zundel of Salant
zt'l, had his teeth removed in his old age, he wept
when the last tooth came out. When asked why he was crying,
he responded by asking how he would eat a kezayis of
matzo without teeth?
And so it has been with all of Klal Yisroel. In our
exile we have gone through seas of blood and tears. Where did
we find the spiritual strength to withstand it all? It is
only yiras Shomayim that has enabled us to survive all
the decrees that have been passed over us, may Hashem save
us. This is how the Hebrew midwives were able to stand up to
Pharaoh -- only in the merit of yiras Shomayim. "And
the midwives feared Hashem . . ."
A Firm Decision
Now we will see this in the case of Pharaoh's daughter also.
"And Pharaoh's daughter went down to wash at the river.."
(Shemos 2:5). In the medrash Shemos Rabbah
1:23), Chazal explain the words al haye'or, which
literally mean that she went to wash "over the river," as
alluding to the fact that she went to cleanse herself of the
idol worship of her father's house. In other words, she
decided to make a break with idolatrous practices.
The posuk also tells us that "her maidservants were
going by the river." Chazal tell us that they wanted to stop
her from saving the teivoh and they said to Basya,
"Mistress, usually, when a king makes a decree, his people do
not keep it but his children and household do, whereas you
are about to transgress your father's command." Immediately,
the medrash tells us, Gavriel came and pounded them on
the ground -- in other words, he killed them.
When Pharaoh's daughter saw that her servants had been
punished by Heaven, she immediately put her arm out in her
great desire to take hold of the vessel. In fact, she was far
away from it, but in her eagerness, she still stretched out
her arm and Chazal tell us that her arm extended one hundred
amos. Here was another miracle which she witnessed.
"And she opened, and she saw him, the child . . ." From the
superfluous word es hayeled, Chazal learn that she saw
the Shechina with Moshe Rabbenu.
Our master and teacher, the gaon HaRav Yehuda Leib
Chasman asked, how much time elapsed between Basya's going
down to wash and opening the teivoh? Perhaps fifteen
minutes? And in such a short time she, who had been involved
in idol worship, a sin equated with murder and immorality,
and had been mired in its filth, merited a revelation of the
Shechina! How did a woman who had clung to avoda
zorah merit to climb so quickly to the level of seeing
the Shechina?
This teaches us a very important principle about the
greatness of a human being. What is the power through which a
man, who was made from the earth, can rise to such levels?
The power of decision -- bechiroh. If a person
resolves, completely and utterly, to break away from
idolatry, or from any other kind of uncleanliness that he is
tainted with, he can rise in the space of a few moments to
the level of a mal'ach, as we see.
The posuk (Bereishis 2:7) says, "And Hashem formed man
[out of] soil from the earth" -- man is made out of earthly,
physical materials and can thus descend lower and lower by
pursuing worldly pleasures. Chazal explain the name Nimrod as
"knowing his Master and intentionally rebelling against Him."
Our master and teacher HaRav Chasman asked: How, if a person
truly recognizes his Master, can he possibly intend to rebel
against Him? He answered that there is one type of desire
that is harder to overcome than all other types, namely,
intentional rebellion; being knowingly defiant even when one
recognizes one's Master. That is the extent of the power of
the "earth from the ground" that is within a person.
Yet [that is not the only ingredient in man]. "And He
breathed into his nostrils, a soul of life," a Divine spark --
through which a person has the power to elevate himself in
the space of a few seconds from the level of serving idols,
to the level of the mal'ochim, through the power of
resolution, rooted in the neshomo.
To Hear Yet Not Understand
There are some people who claim, "I do want to pull myself
higher," yet we see that they do not succeed. The reason for
this is that in truth, they don't want to. If they were to
make a firm decision, they would merit assistance from Heaven
to carry it out and would be granted strength to do so which
they don't ordinarily possess. The novi Yeshaya says
(6:8-10, "And I heard the voice of Hashem saying, `Who
shall I send and who will go for us?' and I said, `Here I am,
send me.' And He said, `Go and say to this people, "Shimu
shomo'ah, you hear [all about the miracles which I
perform for you yet] you do not listen!...The heart of this
people has grown fat and its ears have grown heavy and its
eyes screened..."'"
What novel message does this prophecy contain? Our master and
teacher said that it teaches us that a person can be in a
situation where they hear -- and they can even be listening
very carefully, shimu shomo'ah! -- yet they will not
understand because their hearts are fat and heavy. The
commentators explain that this is the argument of the
yetzer hora. This is the power of the "soil from the
earth" from which man was made.
The following parable illustrates the extent to which this
aspect of human nature can influence a person. If someone
feels chest pains, he can go to the doctor and receive
medication that will give him relief. If he chooses to ignore
his symptoms and continues to eat fatty foods, which are
proscribed for heart patients, he is endangering himself.
Such is the power of the yetzer hora. "The heart of
this people has grown fat!" The yetzer hora makes the
heart grow fat and thick so that a person doesn't see the bad
traits in his character. He carries on thinking of himself as
a tzaddik, as having already achieved perfection. This
is how he can listen, carefully even, yet not understand and
thus fail to make any resolution about changing. If Pharaoh's
daughter could cease to be an idol worshiper in one firm
decision, certainly someone who already fulfills Torah and
mitzvos has the power to pull himself up ever higher by
boldly and firmly resolving to change and sticking to his
resolution.
Two Decisions
A great talmid chochom told me that one of the
students in his yeshiva became a ba'al teshuvah -- and
has since developed into a talmid chochom and yirei
Shomayim -- because of the following experience.
This talmid was serving in the Russian Army, in
Afghanistan. He was sent with his comrades, who were not
Jewish, to the front, in the forests and wastelands of
Afghanistan, a place where giant and poisonous snakes abound.
This Jewish soldier was fond of snakes and each day, he would
feed the snakes, putting food into their mouths. This went on
for as long as they were stationed in that location.
When the order came to move on, our ba'al teshuvah
went to part from his snakes and to give them food once
again. As soon as he put the food down before them, one of
the snakes pulled itself right up in front of him, into a
very dangerous position. With a snake thus poised, it can be
fatal to make a single move. The soldier remained standing
where he was, without moving a limb. The snake stayed like
that, raised in front of him, for approximately eight
hours.
After eight hours had passed, the snake lowered itself and
lay on the ground again. The soldier went to rejoin his
battalion and found that every one of his friends had been
killed R'l in a bombing attack that the enemy had made
on their position. He had been saved by a miracle, because he
had been detained in feeding the snakes.
When he understood what had happened, he realized that he had
experienced Hashem's direct intervention and that this meant
that there was a G-d and that he had to try and find out what
G-d, having saved him from certain death, wanted from him. He
decided to leave the army and go to a rabbi who would teach
him how to conduct his life. I think that the rav told him,
"The posuk (Tehillim 144:9) tells us, `And His mercy
is over all His creatures.' Because you had mercy on the
snakes and fed them, Heaven sent that snake to save you." As
a result of his decision, this ba'al teshuvah arrived
at Yeshivas Or Somayach and today is a great talmid
chochom.
I want to tell you what I heard from one of the teachers in
Boy's Town, in Yerushalayim, which is a Torah and vocational
school. One of the students was an only son. His parents were
very distant from any connection to their religion and the
way in which he himself had grown close was amazing. As a
result, he had come to learn in Boy's Town.
As time passed, he became stronger in his observance but he
suffered greatly from the fact that he was unable to eat and
feel comfortable as a religious Jew in his parents' home. He
eventually succeeded in getting his parents to agree to
kasher their utensils, so that it would not be quite
so hard for him. However, his parents themselves did not
change in one iota -- his father had not set foot inside a
shul for over thirty years. One day, two years after
he had become observant, the boy was astonished to see his
father arrive at Boy's Town on erev Shavuos.
"What are you doing here?" the boy asked his father.
The father replied, "It's over thirty years since I entered a
shul and I decided to come and see how Shavuos is
celebrated."
The father stayed and joined the students in prayer and at
their meal. Afterwards, he stayed awake with the
bochurim all night while they learned. Towards
morning, they began to say mizmor 119 of Tehillim,
posuk by posuk. When they reached the last
posuk, "I wandered like a lost sheep; seek out Your
servant for I have not forgotten Your mitzvos," the boy's
father collapsed in a faint. They hastened to splash cold
water on him to revive him and when he came round, he burst
out crying and mumbled, "I wandered like a lost sheep, I
wandered like a lost sheep . . . May the merciful One save me
and steer me to the path of Torah and mitzvos, for I have
decided that is the correct one!"
Let us also take upon ourselves, in prayer and with
resolutions, to improve our ways bli neder and may
Hashem come to our assistance, Omein!
