Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Practical Parasha podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, and I hope you are well.
[00:00:08] For this week. We're continuing with Parshas Peshalach, and you know the spiel already. If you have questions, comments, would like to say hello, introduce yourself, don't be shy. Feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomokonko hnmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:00:29] This week's Parasha is Parasha's Peshalach, and really it's a culmination of the Jewish people's leaving Egypt. In this week's Parasha, the Jewish people have just left Mitzrayim, the land of Egypt, and Paro suddenly gets a change of heart.
[00:00:50] After sending out the Jewish people from Mitzrayim, he decides that he wants them back again. He regrets his decision of sending out the Jewish people and gives chase to the Jewish nation.
[00:01:06] The Jewish people, seeing that the army of Paro are chasing after them, panic.
[00:01:12] And a segment of the population says to Moshe Rabbeinu, why you bring us here to the desert to die? They're trapped on. Against them is the sea. And the army of Pharaoh is coming towards them. There's nowhere to go. And they're complaining to Moshe Rabbeinu, why'd you bring us here? Why'd you take us out of Mitsrayim to be killed by the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to be in Egypt, to stay slaves to the Mitzriyim, to the Egyptians. Why are we here?
[00:01:48] And Moshe Rabbeinu davens to Hashem and g. D gives assurances to Moshe Rabbeinu and tells him to move forward into the Yamsuf, into the sea.
[00:02:00] And a miracle is performed for the Jewish nation. The sea splits, the Jewish people cross the sea, and the Mitzriim follows suit. The Egyptians chase after the Jewish people into the sea. Seeing that the miracle has happened for them, they think to themselves that it will continue for them as well.
[00:02:23] And when the Jewish nation comes out on one end, the waters crash down on the Mitzriim, on the Egyptians, and they are killed with their bodies washing up on the shores.
[00:02:37] After the Jewish people see that they're enemies, their former masters are dead, that they've lost, that Hashem, uh, has come to their rescue by performing a miracle.
[00:02:52] The Jewish nation sings the song by the sea, and the Parsha tells us the Azyashir um song, which we actually say every day in Davening.
[00:03:03] And finally, the Parsha continues with the test of Marah, where the Jewish people test God because of a lack of water.
[00:03:16] And we have in this week's Parasha as well, the man, the food that comes down from heaven to feed the Jewish nation, that the Jewish people left Mitzrayim just with enough food for a few days, and God for the next 40 years, miraculously provides sustenance to the Jewish nation through Mun, which would come down every day, enough for each person, for their family, for their needs.
[00:03:45] And it was a miraculous source of sustenance. And in fact, the Parsha tells us that on Shabbos, on the seventh day of rest, the mun would not come, that only on Friday a double portion would come down from heaven. And only then could the people take double for the next day.
[00:04:07] But every other day, they would just get enough for that day, except for Friday, which they would get a double portion, which would be enough for Friday and for Shabbos. The Parsha concludes with the battle of Amalek.
[00:04:21] How the nation of Amalek, while the Jewish people were still coming out of Egypt, they were a young nation.
[00:04:29] Out of their hatred for the Jewish people, the nation of Amalek attacked the Jewish people.
[00:04:35] And the Parsha tells us how the Jewish nation defeated them at this time and how we are to deal with them in the future.
[00:04:45] The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the Parsha, um, where the Jewish people are panicking as the Egyptians are slowly closing in on them. The Jewish people are trapped. The Mitrim are coming from one direction. There is nowhere to run. And in front of them is the Yamzev, is the ocean. There's nowhere to go. And the Torah tells us how the Jewish nation at that time is panicking.
[00:05:12] They tell Moshe, why did you bring us here? It would have been better for us to be slaves in Egypt. We're here. We're going to be slaughtered by the Egyptians. Now there's nowhere to go.
[00:05:24] And the question that's raised is at this time, the Jewish people just came out of Mitsrayim and they left Egypt armed.
[00:05:36] They had weapons.
[00:05:38] Why were they so panicking?
[00:05:41] Why didn't they have the ability to say, let's fight the Egyptians? You know, and we know that in a situation where you have nowhere to run, it can cause a person to fight even harder than before. They had nowhere to go, and it should have pushed them to even fight even harder. Why was there this sudden panic that was setting into them And I feel like this question could be especially, especially strong because God was with them till now. The Egyptians just had gotten smitten by the 10 plagues and you could just imagine who was left from the Egyptian army.
[00:06:18] The Jewish people should feel, should think to themselves, we should be able to fight them, we should be able to defeat them. Why are they panicking here and telling Moshe Rabbeinu, it would have been better if we had been in Mitsrayim, really, it would have been better to be a slave in Egypt than, than to fight for your freedom.
[00:06:36] And uh, the Ibn Ezra gives a fascinating answer. He says that since the Jewish people were fighting against the people that used to be their masters, their owners, the people who used to beat them, to control them, so they didn't have the ability within themselves to fight back against them. They didn't have the confidence that the self esteem to believe that they could do it.
[00:07:05] They were restrained by their own self image. They thought they were inferior. They could not get over this idea, um, that how are they going to defeat their master, their former masters, whoever these guys that owned them, how they going to overpower them? And this was something that was a mental thing that they wouldn't have been able to overcome. And that's why they went to Moshe to say, why did you bring us here? They didn't think to even fight because they didn't believe in themselves. They looked at themselves as inferior, as not good enough. Rabbchayesh Malevis explains based on this Eben Ezra that when it comes to ourselves and how we view ourselves and what we can accomplish and how we deal with our yetzer hara, uh, with our evil inclination, with things that hold us back, we, we have to know our strengths, we have to know that we can do it. We have to know that we can overcome.
[00:08:03] Because if we don't believe in ourselves, if we don't view ourselves as elevated as someone, as people that can accomplish, as people that can do, as people that can grow, we're going to be shackled by the chains of the yetzer hara and never be able to defeat them, to defeat him.
[00:08:24] But when we believe in ourselves, and we look at ourselves as the word in Yiddish is besser, a mention as better people, so then we have a certain self esteem, this belief that we can do and we can accomplish. And I think this is a very powerful idea from the Parasha, from the fact that the Jewish people didn't have this belief in themselves. It caused them to panic.
[00:08:47] But when we know we could do and we could accomplish. And that starts by knowing our strengths. If we don't know what we're good at.
[00:08:56] So it's going to affect our self esteem. The first step in believing in ourselves is knowing the things that we can accomplish, things that we could do, things that are our strengths. You know, it's worse than knowing our weaknesses is not knowing our strengths. And I think that's a very powerful idea from this week's Parsha. The second idea I want to share with you today takes us to G D's response to the Jewish people's panic. So the Jewish people are panicking. And G D assures the Jewish nation that everything is going to be okay. The posse reads as Vayoma hashem el Moshe ma tizak elai dabre el beni Yisroel. Vayiso Hashem says to Moshe, why do you cry out to me? Speak to the children of Israel and let them journey forth go forward.
[00:09:41] Va' ata harem esmatcho neteas yadcha alayam uvo keu vayavayu vnei yisrael besoy chayam baya basha.
[00:09:50] And you. Hashem's talking to Moshe Rabbeinu, to Moses, Lift up your staff, stretch out your arm over the sea and split it. And the children of Israel shall come into the midst of the sea on dry land.
[00:10:03] Hashem, uh, is telling Moshe Rabbeinu to act, to go forward.
[00:10:08] Now, it's very interesting. There's different pieces of the Talmud which equate difficulty with the splitting of the sea.
[00:10:19] And one of the connections between something difficult and the splitting of the sea is one's earning a livelihood. You know, another example is making a Shidduch. Finding a match is just as difficult as splitting the sea. These are statements in the Talmud. But what I want to focus on today is a statement that a person's livelihood to earn it, to find it, is as difficult as splitting of the sea. Now, I'm sure there's more to be talked about the connection, like the difficulty involved of splitting the sea. What does that mean exactly? But what I want to focus in on is the connection between earning a Parnassah, earning a livelihood, and kriyas yamsuv and splitting the sea. What's the connection between the two?
[00:11:08] And I saw brought down by Torsky, the rabbihil mayor of Gastonin asked this question as well. And he answers something with a profound insight that can help us perhaps in our outlook when we try to earn a livelihood.
[00:11:25] He says that when the Jewish people were by the Yamsuf. They were by the Red Sea. There was nowhere for them to go, and they didn't know how to expect the salvation.
[00:11:39] They knew that God had performed miracles for them in Mitzrayim. The 10 plagues, the miracles of the 10 Makos, blood, frogs, wild animals, the 10 plagues. They knew about it, but they never expected in their wildest dreams that the sea that was in front of them would split.
[00:12:03] And not just that it split, it was dry and they got through and all that. There was many ancillary miracles that happened in the splitting of the sea. It never dawned on them that that's how their salvation would come.
[00:12:17] And the connection to parnasa, to earning a livelihood, is in this same vein.
[00:12:25] We have a responsibility that we have to do our part. The way the world works, the way Hashem set it up, is that we have to do our shtadlis. We have to do our due diligence when it comes to earning a livelihood. Now, for different people, it's a different amount of work to a different amount of things we need to do. But the point is, we need to sort of go through the motions of earning a Parnassah, whatever that may be.
[00:12:53] But at the same time, it's not the work the shtadlis that we're doing that's unlocking the Parnassah. That's not what's unlocking the livelihood. Maybe it seems like that, uh, at times, but we're just really going through the motions. We're doing our part. We have to do it. But that's not where the livelihood comes from. And I think, ask anybody who's gone through life and has had a growing family, they'll tell you that many times the Parnassus just comes out of nowhere from the place they least likely expect just comes.
[00:13:29] And that's the connection between Kriyas, Yamsuf and Parnasa. That earning a livelihood is as difficult as splitting the sea. That just like the splitting of the sea, the Jewish nation never expected in their wildest dreams that their salvation would come from the sea splitting. So, too, when it comes to our livelihood, we have to do our part. We have to daven, we have to do ishtadlus, we have to do the due diligence that's necessary of us to try to earn it. But we should never think for one moment that it's the, uh, things that we're doing with our hands that that's causing the Parnassah. It's things that we need to do. We need to go through the actions. We need to go through the motions.
[00:14:08] But the Parnassah will come from wherever Hashem decrees it shall come. And many times it'll come from the most, you know, random places, from the most unexpected source. And I've had my fair share of experiences of money just coming out from nowhere to, you know, help me out at the right time. And there's. I'm sure many of you out there can share similar experiences where all of a sudden the, you know, the money you were missing, that same amount you made up from another place and money came. There's so many stories like this. I remember one time I open my mailbox and I see a letter from the irs. And just like everybody, I'm sure everyone has the same feeling that when you get a letter from the irs, maybe your heart beats a little bit faster. So I quickly said, a Kapital Tehillim, M A psalm of Tehillim, that everything should be okay with this, because you never know what to expect when you're getting a letter from the irs. And I opened it up, and I saw there was a check for a significant amount of money. They were sending me money for a miscalculation that they had made regarding my taxes. Where did that come from?
[00:15:15] I never reached out to them about it.
[00:15:18] They just sent it on their own. It's called Hashem, uh, it's called Parnassa. That's the way Parnassa works. It comes from the most unexpected sources. But we still have to do our part. We shouldn't think it's us, but remember, Hashem, uh, is the one who provides the last idea I want to share with you today. Takes us to the as Yashir prayer song that the Jewish people sang after they came out of the Yam sufa, after they came out of the sea miraculously being saved. And they see their former tormentors, the Egyptians, dead, washed up on the shore. They sing a praise to Hashem, a praise to G. D on how he miraculously saves the Jewish nation.
[00:15:58] Now, it's very interesting. One of the lines in this song is, azivazim rasiya vahili lishua zeh keili vaan veyu eloike aviva.
[00:16:10] The might and vengeance of God was salvation for me. This is my God, and I will build him a sanctuary, the God of my Father, and I will exalt him. Now, the Talmud tells us that the source for performing a mitzvah, not just performing it plainly, but performing it beautifully. That, for example, if you're going to get a Srog, you're going to get a nice Esrog, you're going to pay extra to get something nice, that if you get a pair of Tefillin, you're not just going to get the cheapest one, you're going to get something nicer.
[00:16:43] Um, and every mitzvah we do, we're supposed to perform it with beauty, that we shouldn't be cheap. Now, obviously, you know, if we're limited, it's understanding the main thing is to perform the mitzvah. But if we have the, you know, the resources to do a little more, we should, because that's the right thing to do.
[00:17:07] Now, the question is the way that we know this is from the part of the verse, this is my God, and I will build him a sanctuary.
[00:17:19] So the question that's asked, and I heard this from my good friend Shalom, he should be blessed, he said. The question is, why is this, specifically this verse, Zechely van Veyu, that this is my God and I will build him a sanctuary.
[00:17:36] Why is that the source, you know, specifically connected to the crossing of the Yamsuf, where the miracle of going through the sea, that it's split? Why is this a source that we see that we should treat mitzvahs very nicely? We should go the extra mile to do things a little bit more for God, instead of just doing the minimum. You know, there's other places maybe it doesn't necessarily fit so well. Zeke Keli von Veo, this is my God, and I will glorify him that the mitzvahs we do, we should do it, you know, even more than the minimum.
[00:18:06] And the way he explained it to me was that we know when the Jewish people crossed the yamsuf, when they crossed the sea, Hashem didn't just perform the miracle for them that the sea split. There were many miracles within the miracle.
[00:18:21] For example, that when the water stood like a wall, there was fruits and, and the lights that came out of the, uh, wall of water.
[00:18:34] And the ground, the ground that the Jewish people were walking on.
[00:18:40] You know, you think of an ocean floor, if the water would move away on a moment's notice, it would be muddy, it would be disgusting, our shoes would get extremely dirty. Hashem, in his kindness, he made the floor of the yamsuf, the floor of the sea, like dry land. There was no mud.
[00:19:02] And the question is, is if the Jewish nation would have gone through the yamsuf, would have gone through the sea, and Hashem didn't make the floor of the sea dry. And he didn't, you know, make these, uh, fruits come out of the sides of the walls of the yamsif. Right. Let's focus on the floor. If he didn't make it dry, do you think anyone would have complained about their shoes being muddy? Their shoes got ruined.
[00:19:30] You just got saved from the Egyptians in the most miraculous way.
[00:19:36] Why did Hashem, uh, have to make these secondary miracles, such as, uh, the ground becoming dry for the Jewish nation? No one would have been upset at him for doing that, for making their shoes getting ruined.
[00:19:50] But yet Hashem did it anyways. And the answer to that is that when G D does for us, he does for us all the way. Even with the small things, he takes care of us.
[00:20:02] And that's. And, you know, specifically when it comes to the yamsuf, he didn't just make us the miracle in a big way. He made it for us, even the small things, he made it easier for us that the ground was dry so that people shouldn't have a hard time to walk across it. And you think about it for a second, think about the creation around us.
[00:20:19] Hashem, uh, could have created us more plain. He could have created a world without color, without textures, without tastes, but yet he gave us, you know, color. He gave us all these food with different types of tastes, with different types of textures, with different, you know, there's so many different types of things for us to enjoy. We don't need those things to sustain ourselves. But Hashem, uh, in his kindness, gave it to us, a world for us to enjoy all these extras that we really don't need.
[00:20:55] And therefore, this is the source for us when it comes to mitzvos, doing mitzvahs to Hashem, we're doing our part, or at least we're trying to do our part to Hashem by performing his mitzvahs. So wouldn't it make sense to do it in the most beautiful way possible?
[00:21:13] That just like when G D does for us, he does it with all the small details in mind, so, too, when we do it for him, we should do it with the same attitude. I think this pushes away a certain attitude that sometimes people have that we have. I could probably relate to this as well. We just want to do things in the most minimum and the fastest way possible.
[00:21:33] When it comes to our religious observance or certain mitzvahs. It's like we need to just check the box off. We need to just do it.
[00:21:41] We got to get it done.
[00:21:42] And really, this parsha, this idea of Zeke Lev Aveo from the Yamsuf the way Hashem treats us, we need to treat him back in the same way. We have to focus on the details to appreciate what we're doing, to do it with a little bit more, a little bit of oomph.
[00:22:00] Because the way Hashem treats us, we want to treat him back. And that's the appropriate thing to do. And therefore, we see from this week's Parsha Zeche Levan Vayu that this is our God and we shall glorify him, we shall do things in the right way, that the way he treats us, we have to learn from that, to treat him back in the similar way as much as possible. So with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments or would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email@rabbi shlomokonkohnmail.com have a great day.
