5 Minutes on Parshat Bo: Who Are Your Role Models - Rabbi Avi Hoolin

Hi everyone and it's so good to be back on five minutes on the para. Let's get started. So it says in this week's para The Pik says in order, meaning God did all these miracles and he tells the Jewish nation, in order that you should be able to say to your children and your grandchildren that which I mocked Egypt. And it's interesting, let's think about this for a second that I mocked Egypt. What's the idea? Meaning we definitely want to give over the history to our children. and how Hashem took us out of the slavery and brought us to a hari to accept the Torah. But what this detail of the mocking of Egypt, why is that necessary? Don't you find that a little bit interesting? Like I have to know how Hashem mocked Egypt. What's the lesson in that? Meaning us as Jews, we're we're not looking we're definitely not looking to mock people. We're always looking to elevate oursel and to show meaning to be a light and a beck and upon the nations. But the mockery we have to understand it's an interesting thing that the rv of the old city I once asked I once asked him I said meaning I'm a K rabbi and I asked him what's what's the dak what's the path invar always go with the right hand sometimes lightly you have to push away with your left hand but us as marikarim which is our job today especially meaning right before the times of Msiah is to try to bring as many Jews as possible under the umbrella of Torah. What's the path? We want to come from a loving embracing path and to show that there the the the path of pleasantness. The ways of the Torah are pleasant and we want to show the warmth and the love and the connection to Torah. That's our way. Our way is not to bash and to knock and to put down. Our way is through love and connection. But at the same time, it's very important that we understand the truth and that we're clear with the truth, right? We're not weak and we're not someone that overaccepts without with bending the truth. We still are firm and we know what's right and wrong. And fear and love work together. We're balanced. And over here we see a very important principle, very important. And the principle is we got to remember Egypt at the time was a world power, right? Everybody looked up to Egypt. It was the empire. The same way the Romans had a period when they were the leading empire and the Persians, Egypt was the leading empire and automatically naturally we look up to the leaders and power. But at the same time, it was an empire of corruption. It was an empire that was full of immorality. It was an empire that served sheeps, worship sheeps. It was an empire with brutality, murder, killed children. And we have to understand that we have to sometimes mock the negativity. In the Torah, we know the concept. We have to remove the bad and do good. It's not enough to do good and to stay with negative habits or say, you know what, I I could go to parties and I could do whatever I want to do. I'm I'm doing all these mitzvot. I'm keeping shabas. I'm putting on so if I go to if I go to a club at night or I do something like that, that's okay. No, that's not the way of the Torah. We have to be pure. It's a connection. We're connecting to God. Not just doing good things and doing as a connection. We have to remove any negativity and bad from within us and connect to good. And this message is a message for us that we have to mock the negativity. And even though we live in a country, we live in a place which Rabb Vder Miller, one of the great Torah giants, actually hung a a American flag that we have to in his in a synagogue, meaning we have to respect the countries that we live in that are allowing us this democracy like we've never experienced before in history. We're able to practice our religion and we live in a place of kindness. But at the same time, we have to understand what's not good and we have to understand as a Jewish nation, right? Meaning we live in a country that celebrates and looks up to celebrities. And a lot of these people, let's say, let's just take that as an example. A lot of these people, what they do when we leave read about them in their private lives are the last thing that we want our children to look up to as a nation. We're a nation that what do we look up to? We look up to wisdom. We look up to real success. And when we have a country that goes crazy literally over somebody that could play baseball even though or football or could sing a little bit and he could do every disgusting act in the world. And that is what we look up to. That affects us. That affects us as people. And that's what's so important. And that's the lesson over here that it's not enough. It's not enough to say, you know what, I'm a good guy and I do mitzvot and I do and I even give and I even I keep Shabbat and I wake up in the morning, I go to sh I go to pray and I put on fill in. We got to look inside oursel and do like the musam tells us that that's where real growth is. And we have to say one second, what am I really connected to? Where's my value system? Am I is my value system with people with a lot a lot of money? Do I just look to entertain myself? is parties part of my lifestyle or I'm someone that's really pure and has my head in the place where the Torah wants me to be. And I think that's the lesson of these words that sometime even though as a nation we're a nation of love and connection, we have to mock what's not correct and what's negative. Everybody should have a most beautiful shabas and we should only grow spiritually and be able to remove what's negative and connect to the positivity.