Leadership
Qualities
Parshas Shemos
Posted on January 4, 2021 (5781) By Rabbi
Naftali Reich | Series: Legacy | Level: Beginner
Moses, the chosen messenger of the Master of the Universe, came
riding out of the desert into the fabled kingdom of Egypt. With nothing more
than the staff in his hand and his brother Aaron at his side, he strode into
the royal palace, confronted Pharaoh and demanded, “Let my people go!”
Thus began the spectacular story of the Exodus. Time and again,
Moses confronted the belligerent Pharaoh, and after each refusal, he visited a
shattering new plague onto Egypt until it was beaten into submission, and the
enslaved Jewish people were finally free. As for Moses, he has come down to us
as the greatest leader of all time, the man who single-handedly took on the
might of the entire Egyptian kingdom and prevailed.
But let us stop and think for a moment. Wherein exactly lay the
greatness of Moses in his mission to Egypt? Every step he took, every word he
spoke, every move he made was choreographed by Hashem. Hashem told him exactly
when and where to go, exactly what to say, exactly what to do. All Moses had to
do was follow his instructions faithfully. He had no personal input into any
aspect of his spectacular performance. Why then is Moses considered such a
towering figure in the history of the Exodus?
The commentators explain that the one critical element that would
determine the success or failure of his mission was entirely in Moses’s
control. “I want you to know,” Hashem said to him, “that you are going on the
condition that you perform my wonders in front of Pharaoh without fearing him.”
Without fearing him. This was the key.
As Hashem’s chosen messenger, Moses enjoyed full divine protection,
and he knew full well that Pharaoh could not harm him. But it is one thing to
know this intellectually and quite another to feel it in one’s heart. According
to the Midrash, Pharaoh’s throne was surrounded by snarling lions and fierce
warriors, and Pharaoh himself was an exceedingly intimidating tyrant. No matter
how sure Moses was that he would come to no harm, could he enter such a
scenario without a twinge of trepidation in his heart? And yet, if he had
exhibited the slightest tremor in his voice, the slightest flutter of his
heart, the slightest blink of his eye, he would have compromised his entire
mission. Hashem had sent Moses to demonstrate His absolute mastery over
Pharaoh, to show that Pharaoh was utterly nothing, putty in the hands of
Heaven. Therefore, had Moses felt any fear, he would have acknowledged Pharaoh
as an adversary, albeit an infinitely weaker one, and thereby doomed his
mission to failure.
Here then lay the greatness of Moses. He saw clearly that there is
no power in the world other than Hashem, that Pharaoh in contraposition to G-d
was a total nonentity, unworthy of even the slightest smidgen of fear.
Therefore, when Moses walked fearlessly into Pharaoh’s palace, everyone,
Egyptian and Jew alike, knew that Hashem was in absolute control.
A
great general, who was in the process of mounting an invasion of a neighboring
country, called a meeting of his most trusted advisors. “Gentlemen, I have a
problem,” the general began. “I had hoped to win fame and glory for our armies
during this campaign by thoroughly trouncing the enemy. But wherever my armies
appear, the enemy flees. We have still had no opportunity to engage them in
battle and destroy them. How can we get the enemy to stand and fight?”
“We take hostages,” said one advisor. “That will force them to
fight.”
“We plan ambushes,” said another. “We cut off their escape routes.”
Other advisers suggested yet other ruses to force the enemy to
fight.
“You are all wrong,” said one old advisor. “If the enemy flees
whenever your armies appear, what greater glory can there be?”
In our own lives, we often face trials and challenges that strike
fear into our hearts. Whether the threat is to our health, financial security,
family life or anything else, the effect can be frightening and, indeed,
devastating. But if we can find the strength to look at the world in the
broader perspective, if we recognize that we are all messengers of Heaven doing
his bidding here on the face of the earth, we will discover that there is
nothing to fear but fear itself. As long as we connect ourselves to the
infinite reality of the Creator, all our worries pale into insignificance.
Text Copyright © 2009 by Rabbi Naftali Reich and Torah.org.
Rabbi Reich is on the faculty of the Ohr Somayach
Tanenbaum Education Center.
The
Anatomy of an Exile
Parshas Shemos
Posted on January 8, 2021 (5781) By Rabbi Label
Lam | Series: Dvar
Torah | Level: Beginner
Now Yosef died, as well as all his brothers and all that generation.
The children of Israel were fruitful and swarmed and increased and became
very-very strong, and the land became filled with them. A new king arose over
Egypt, who did not know about Yosef. (Shemos 1:6-8)
A new king arose: [There is a controversy between] Rav and Samuel.
One says: He was really new, and the other one says: His decrees were new. –
Rashi
The Torah is not a history book! That doesn’t mean that there isn’t
history in the Torah. It’s just not information that has been recorded for
intellectual intrigue alone. Everything is scribed for a profoundly relevant
lesson. We are treated to a narrative about the descent of the Jewish People
into the Exile of Egypt to notice a classic pattern to discern the key features
of an exile, so we can better understand our own circumstances, and survive.
This is how it all began. Yosef and all his brothers and that whole
generation died, and the children of Israel were fruitful and multiplied to an
extraordinary extent. Let’s put these two factors together. That means that an
entirely new generation was growing up without a vision of the stature of the
Tzadikim and Gedolim of the previous generation, and there was no one
Mashgiach, trained observer. Too often the behavior changes depending upon
who’s watching. Next, the Torah reports that the land became filled with them.
What does that mean? By design, Yosef had set up his family that they should
settle apart from the rest of Egyptian society in Goshen. It was the first
Jewish ghetto, but it was purposefully arranged that way to isolate and
insulate the Holy Children of Israel from the ills and evils of Egyptian life.
Now this is the beginning of all exiles. This is how it works! The
Jewish Nation may be even sitting in the Land of Israel with a Temple and
suddenly the allure of Babylonian culture captures the imagination of the many.
People begin to fantasize that those idols are better and easier and
more effective than what we have in an invisible G-d. They can do whatever they
want, and go wherever they wish without restriction. There is no need to feel
guilty anymore. Maybe we can unbridle ourselves and be free and live like those
highly cultured and sophisticated Babylonians.
What does HASHEM do!? Like a good father he does what a friend of
mine’s father did. He told me that his father smelled smoke in the basement. He
questioned him whether or not he was the one that was smoking. He admitted to
his father that it was him. The father did not give him a lecture about the
ills and costs of smoking. He did something wonderfully wicked. He told his
son, “You like smoking!? Let’s smoke!” He took him to a store and bought a carton
and he sat him down in the basement and had him light cigarette after cigarette
for hours on end until his face was green and he was coughing and vomiting.
After that encounter, he never wanted to look at a cigarette again.
So too HASHEM says, “You like the Babylonian or Egyptian lifestyle?!
You think it’s noble!? I’ll give you a giant dose of their “nobility”. So it
was in Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, Spain, and Germany, you name it! By the bitter
end we found ourselves nauseated by their grotesque hypocrisy and cruelty, and
we were happy to have survived to rejoin the normalcy of a life of Torah and
Mitzvos.
The generation that followed the demise of Yosef and his brothers
gradually became enchanted by Egyptian culture and were seduced by their ways.
They forfeited their power of renewal, the Koach of Chiddush, to alien and
external forces. The idea and the ideal became to be more like them. Now they
are vulnerable to being controlled by a New King with new ideas and laws.
The
Strife Factor
Parshas Shemos
Posted on December 26, 2018 (5779) By Rabbi
Naftali Reich | Series: Legacy | Level: Beginner
Moses did not grow up among the Jewish people, although he bore them
a passionate love. During the decrees of infanticide, an Egyptian princess had
discovered the infant Moses hidden among the bulrushes of the Nile River and
reared him as her own.
Although surrounded by luxury and opulence, the thought of his
people enslaved and oppressed gave Moses no rest. Finally, when he was old
enough, he set out to see firsthand the suffering of his people and to find how
he could help alleviate it. As he ventured forth, he encountered a sadistic
Egyptian taskmaster beating a Jewish laborer brutally. Overcome with
compassion, Moses struck down the Egyptian tormentor and buried the corpse in
the sand, unaware that he had been observed by a pair of Jews named Dathan and
Abiram.
The next day, Moses saw Dathan and Abiram fighting each other.
“Villain!” Moses cried. “Why do you strike your fellow Jew?”
They turned to Moses with disdain and said, “So what do you propose
to do? Will you murder us as you murdered the Egyptian?”
Moses was shocked. “Aha, the thing is known,” he cried out.
On the surface, it would seem that Moses was shocked at finding out
his killing of the Egyptian was no secret. But the Midrash reads a deeper
meaning into these words. Aha, Moses was saying, this is why the Jewish people continue
to suffer in exile. If they are capable of strife and informing on each other,
they are not deserving of redemption.
But let us reflect for a moment. Was this the worst of their sins?
The Jews had been thoroughly contaminated by Egyptian society. Their behavior
were barely distinguishable from that of the Egyptians; their lives were
characterized by idolatry and immorality. Nonetheless, in spite of all this
dreadful sinfulness, Moses had found the Jewish suffering inexplicable. But now
that he saw two Jews fighting, he finally understood the cause of the Jewish
exile. How can this be?
Furthermore, the Sages tell us the Second Temple was destroyed
because of unjustified hatred Jews harbored in their hearts against each other.
How are we to understand this? Many other sins incur punishments far more
severe that does unjustified hatred. Why then did this particular sin bring on
the destruction of the Temple and the removal of the Divine Presence from among
the Jewish people for thousands of years?
The commentators point out that the revelation of the Divine
Presence in this world is really a paradox. How can the ultimate manifestation
of spirituality reside in a physical world? It can only be done, they explain,
by creating an oasis of spirituality to serve in the physical world, an oasis
composed not of physical elements such as bricks and mortal, of soil and grass
but of a community of people whose spiritual essence is paramount in their
existence. Collectively, these people form an island of transcendent
spirituality upon which the Divine Presence descends.
But how do we measure if a community is genuinely spiritual? It is
in their relationships with others. Materialistic people see others as
adversaries and are always jealously protective of their own status and domain.
Spiritual people, in tune with eternity, are above these petty concerns; strife
and egotism have no place in their world. Therefore, interpersonal relations
are the barometer which tell us if the community is worthy of having the Divine
Presence in its midst. If the strife factor is low, then the
spirituality level is high, and Hashem comes among them. In Egypt and at the
end of the Second Temple era, however, the strife factor was high, and the
Divine Presence left the Jewish people.
Two boys were fighting in school, shouting and pummeling each other
until one of the teachers pulled them apart.
When tempers cooled, the teacher called the boys to the front of the
classroom.
“Do you understand what a terrible thing you did?” he asked.
“But he started up with me!” said one boy.
“Make two fists,” the teacher said to the boy.
The boy complied, and the teacher took the two fists in his hands
and pounded them against each other.
“Ouch!” the boy screamed. “It hurts!”
“Exactly,” said the teacher. “When your friend suffers pain, it
should also hurt you. When you hit him, it is as if you are hitting yourself!”
In our own lives, as we aspire to raise our level of our
spirituality through studying the Torah and living by its values and ideals,
how can we determine if we are truly connecting with the divine? We can do so
by measuring the strife factor in our daily existence. If we live in harmony
with other people, appreciating the goodness inherent in all of them, if our
lives are essentially free of strife and discord, then we have indeed attained
a high level of spirituality and forged an eternal bond with our Father in
Heaven.
Text Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Naftali Reich and Torah.org.
