Parshat Shemot 5784 by Rabbi Baruch Taub

uh good morning everybody just want to mention that this is our last uh Thursday morning the week this week is the last week of theuk on Zoom um I should mention that um my Thursday morning Shear at the OU Center will resume live at 10:45 next Thursday morning okay so let me begin we you we'll catch up in in writing in a few minutes um I have three pieces that I'd like to learn with you on the paraa uh that somehow will relate to our current situation uh that will take us out of very soon with the help of am Israel um the first is uh the introduction to saot we're starting a new saer of Kish so the there's an introduction to the say the peish the commentary of the of Berlin um and his introduction is very special he he brings a a tremendous Kish tremendous Nuance the name of the safer right um we call it safer Schmo the book of names uh that's really based upon a medish uh he says that this is he's referring to a med in barous Raba um that the medish there says in the name of rabi Simon that five times the word or is mentioned in the creation chapter the first or or is bit V or refers to seot so this Bal Med say that each mention of the word or of light Torah or relates to one of the five so that's why we call Ito the ran calls it the the book of redemption because that's what takes place right schot is is used again uh we very oftenelle very often took a a primary word in the first PUK to give it the name but the ran calls it sa for G which is talking about the um the purpose of the chapter the theme of of the safer zulah however the bah another at the end of his what does he call it he calls saot saer sheni the second pish right there are five you have so he says banim which is the third which is VRA the caronus and say for he calls because it deals with a number of senses that were taken of claw Israel rather and is which is a repetition many things are repeated in from the other so it's called Mish Torah the secondary Torah right and this is based on aor he brings so it's even referred to in the tal as and this is a problem right you we have to understand what the rabbis meant by referring to in other words if you're going to use ordinal numbers for all of the so you can say if you want say forer sheni the second safer the third safer the fourth safer the fifth safer why is it only that saos is using an ordinal number for the book of the Kish right so obvious ly what he's going to say the is it's not referring to the second of the five he's saying a tremendous it's not for not that he changed the namec you should use all ordinal numbers right or call the name of the safer based upon the theme like you know the B calls it or he says you could call it which in fact is what we call it in English right the book of Exodus which relates to the theme of which takes place inos T the Torah is given in it should be called Tor we're in the desert P it's called P for the counts senses that were taken so now what's the answer to this it's not the second of the five it's the second there's bid Al and B say for bious is the first part of the creation of the world but saos the second safer is the second safer of creation so his answer his answer is that safer why why the rabbis call it saer Shen is not that it's the second of the five hello but it's the second safer of bis it's bis 2 right what does that mean hu know the actual creation of the world was completed in saish the rabbi say the the rabbis Dar B ah okay very good if you go down about 10 lines the the rabbis the rabbis call it that it was created for the Jewish people who are called RIT his first major theme is the creation of the Jewish people which takes place inot pish told the purpose of the world is to create this people of there should be one nation who has a who was attached you know at the hip to the and the peoplehood of Isel did not actually take place until we came out of MIT of that It Go of go that it's you know the rabbis in the medish relate to kind of birthing that we were birthed we came out of MIT this was the birth of the nation the Jewish nation was created until we came a Slave people cannot be called a nation they're they're subservient to another Force once we came out of MIT we became a nation we became an independent so now we're coming to flowering into our purpose of being a unique also we receive the Torah in so this is the world is not just a physical creation it's a physical creation which is what we we we were engaged and trying to and studying in saer bis 1 but in bis 2 now we're now getting into the spiritual creation of the Jewish people that we should be a light unto the Nations to bring the nations of the world to a sense of godliness monotheism morality and ethics as I've mentioned this in other places right um and he goes on to say my commentary this is the purpose of the creation that it was created for the honor the glory of that he should we would be called after him okay so in other [Applause] words Torah the completion of the created world was The Exodus from Egypt or the giving of the Torah so people think of the creation of the world in a physical sense right in a physical sense um I always gives the example of a walnut if you would take a walnut and someone was doesn't know doesn't know what it is so there's a walnut so he sees the physical shell of the Walnut right but we know there's a a fruit within the Walnut right which is the essence it's the nut the fruit of the nut the rabis say teach that the world was created with 10 assor 10 10 statements with which God created the world the physical world and with 10 Flags he took us out of Egypt and with 10 commandments as the basis for tag he gave the Torah what's what is the implication of this um repetition of 10 what does it mean a perfect 10 right so the the first 10 is the physical creation of the world then the Mak so you take the Walnut you crack it you break it open and you see the real world the fruit the nut the real purpose is the spirituality the so you have the 10 statements of the physical creation the 10 maros which break through to to discover the 10 Aeros The Ten Commandments which represent the spiritual uality the essential world that was created right God created this D dual there was a dialectic a duality a dual world that he created and this required to it required all right all the other days were there was no definite article was but what's the the F it's a it's a hint to the five Forum of the Kish that the world was created the physical world was created for the spiritual world the giving of the Torah Torah is also called the first if we accept the Torah fine love the world is meaningless there's meaningless if there's no spirituality to the world people go through life living a physical life of materialism of physicality but they completely miss the essential purpose of the created World which is B which is the message of the creation of is which is and the Torah right Torah the giving of the Torah was the completion of the created world so also The Exodus from Egypt now we were fit you know to to receive the Torah because we were a nation to complete the creation of to come to the purpose of our creation who right this is even though this completion did not come till a long time after the physical creation and he says by the way many people tragically live through live through their lives without a sense of spirituality sense of r a sense of they live with bid the physical world trying to prove their their lot in the physical created world the material world but totally goes over their head the fact that that's not the essence of the world that being said but there are many people in the world who appreciate there's a sense of morality right the Torah actually gave the world morality so there are people non-jews amongst the Nations who appreciate that there's much more to the world than its physicality this is the purpose of man the Jewish people have to believe not withstanding the fact that the Torah was given after The Exodus from Egypt now many Jews the assimilation process we know what we're dealing with in this world who are totally oblivious again to the spirituality not just not nations of the world but the GU but Jews themselves so essentially the Torah is the essence of the Jewish people so without finishing this whole piece you see the of the is why the rabbis gor the and early Rabbi refer to seos not the book of Exodus relating to the events that take place but as the second Kish not the second of five but the second of bis bis Al and bis B bis Al being the physical creation where's Bas being saos being the spiritual gift on the essence the heartbeat of of the creation Now this idea by the way these terminology of Braes Al of Braes bit might you might be familiar and it might be reminiscent to you that you've heard that there's a a very famous uh presentation by r salic u in the lonely man of Faith where he speaks about bhi's Alf and B's base but he's talking about chapter one and chapter two in safer bous so totally different uh idea which perhaps someday we we'll get to in our but what ra essentially says is the first chapter of basus is talking about creating things basus Bas is creating relationships right even man and woman were created as an object in bra's Al and bra's B the relationship between husband and wife was created so totally different discussion but this the terminology is similar so now we're going to do go to EMS lakov I think that was here we go coming up this next page we can pick it up this is from rakov kineski now he also comes out here with a a a wonderful Kish for us you know we have say we have AUM called M shabas that we say three times a day on chabas Friday night we say it and we say it zra in the morning and we say it at the end of D why is it called M why is why was this the psalm for the seventh day so this is what rakov is is going to develop for us we have near the end of the par I think in sh that Moshe and Aon come to parro with a um a a uh a proposal let the Jewish people go out for three days right they want to have a spiritual Retreat right we call it a retreat although that's really an impro that's a the Catholics were the ones who developed Retreats Torah our Torah Retreats some people call it Torah Retreats but really it's not a retreat it's a a forward right but he wanted to go for a spiritual take the Jewish people out for offer carbonous to D Etc and Par rejected them and the the PK says that Al you see that at the beginning of the page I'll don't I don't want to hear as Rashi explains I don't want to hear about this fantasy of of developing a a spiritual uh process and environment spiritual milu I'm not interested get to work and because of this request he he forced them to do more the he he squeezed it harder the the uh Egyptian bondage became more severe because of this request and he took away their chabas which they had the day of rest they had so uh but the medish says something entirely different and that's what rakov is going to focus on and it's going to relate to our question about M the med says migil the med says that we had we had from the word this so that the med is suggesting that par was saying don't turn to these empty books of falsehood because just like the word sha God turned sha to the Corbin of he and he didn't lot he didn't turn to the Corbin of so the word sh mean to turn to to study these millas the med says that we had books we had millas we had Scrolls that we would study on chabas in in in Egypt to tell us that God is going to redeem us remember we were resting on shabas now par takes away shabas and he increases the worku that we shouldn't turn to these Forum that's really how the med understands it they shouldn't be at rest anymore on shabas so you know we don't find any Source what exactly were the texts the millas that studied in MIT where that mosha was was presenting to us to strengthen our belief under Egyptian bondage under the aod of MIT and I Su want to suggest take a look at 92 there's no mention of chabas there why is it called the PM for shabas it doesn't mention shabas the end of what is exp what is explained in in the the purpose of the Mis is God is straight he's the of loo he's not going to he's not going to just don't despair God is upright he's straight no matter we're going through a period of suffering now but this is not the end this is not the end game very much um in in sync with what we're going through right now he after God AC to to mosu and gave us a day of rest MO is the day he arranged for us to learn on shabas but after he came and made that request to leave for three days we're gonna have to work on shabas also so should we could not not to disallow us from studying these texts in another chapter I explain that's you could perhaps suggest this is one of the reasons when he took away shabas from us that this might be one of the explanations um for the for the that says that the Jewish people didn't B Israel didn't listen to him because of short of spirit because he took away the shabas now what does this have to do with after a little bit of study here near I want to make the following suggestion and it's very creative you know contrary to what one might think safer was not written only by David M is there were a number of chapters of that were actually written by Moshe Renu himself in fact in fact he writes based on rash the the Capal which we also say on shabas which is 90 and all the 11 uh after after that in in Continuum um cedra heu created he was the author of these M put into incorporated into one of these m is we said 92 B so I want to what is the theme ofas the theme is why do good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people which is really how he had to strengthen the Jewish people am Israel had to have that that that resolve being in in Egyptian slavery right this was this was the need of the hour when the Jewish people receive from shabas is a day of rest he he says think about it think about it what did the Jewish people do what did do what did is do on shabas they went to the Yesa Yesa never stopped in in the M of the Jewish people in fact Ley was the Russa in Egypt right so what did they do they went to the Yesa and they there were Dres that were given from Le from mosenu they were learning what were they studying think about it what was the what was the emphasis of the D right the AOS MOS Renu is going to focus on on the need of the of the hour K on clearly at to lift up Elevate their Spirit sadik valo they should not focus dwell on this question of sadik Vero why good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to to good people I just want to point out incidentally some of you might have heard of the pet Reba the as kodes who was a great uh Rabbi in the warsa ghetto and his Forum were saved he had actually had the they were buried in the cemetery in Warsaw and they were discovered and eventually came came to ER Israel and we we are Ben we are beneficiary of the great sorum of the PES rebba and if you see his Dres for two years the the sermons The Dres that he gave on in the war ghetto really with this kind of a theme focusing on on where we're at now that we have to strengthen ourselves and focus on what you know not to ask the question of why does AES do this but what can we do now to bring about a change what the raon does we can't fully understand right it's an uncommon denominator but we can understand what we are capable of doing to change the situation right again doveet Tales to Our Moment in Jewish history right now so this is what was going on here um with I left the line I think it says they shouldn't therefore established so he wrote this shabas this is the psalm for the chabas day that we're going to learn on chabas to strength our resolve we we offer our we see his in the day when when things are are going good we we see the of but the darkness of nighty even in the darkness of night where we can't really understand that there is good and bad but we have to strengthen our resolve to understand that there really is good and bad and somehow things are going to change how great are the creations of the world and if you go through the words I'm not going to go through the rest of this piece but he go goes through to show that that's the theme of M is they see the Egyptians who are on top and the sikim are on the bottom how can we justify this so he he he changes the focus he broadens that this is a temporary situation and and that was the focus of M and that is why it's called M okay I want to go to the last piece and this is um from R hutner um actually I've taken this from safer canona this happens to be my safer on on the par and IIT canona which is you know in English the saers call in the Dove found rest but this is kona's uh and I bring in here a beautiful uh piece from rev hutner and he asks a very simple question says at the beginning of and died and all his brothers in the entire generation we're now going into a knew we're going from bos right he asked the question yosef's death was recorded at the end of saer bares M UA right in other words you have an obituary once but twice you know a person dies once so what how do we understand that the Torah talks about yosef's death in at two twice and in two different places in saer bares and in saer shos what is what is the lesson that we learn from this right the Torah is not repeating things for for nothing right there's no such thing there has to be a reason why the death of ysf is mentioned in both for so he bases it on an understanding of the ran a little different approach than we had at the beginning from the answers this Al the the ran refers to sa is the book of our forefathers right those are the the personalities I play in this is the safer of the children the the Next Generation right where does y fit in exactly in these two ideas is he or is he a Ben on the one hand BR the says that there's only three of right yob one of the trick questions that you ask a child in the first or second grade how many forefathers do we have right so uh there only three therefore you have to say that really ysep was a Ben right saer saer not saer right but on the other side of the coin he he was above the rest of the B he was on a different level an uncommon denominator with his brothers yaku like yaku in other words uh Ys also like yov gave birth to Bim of the Jewish people right we have in this week's para so frim and Minasha the children of ysf were elevated were elevated to the stat status of a right ysph ysph two children right were put on a par with their uncles right which is what you see is that y has a certain sense of yep being an a he's an of right as well as being a Ben and just point out here so you have that the aot established three kinds of prayer for us us right abakah initiated there's another there's another called another you see the word Y in m so there is something to ysf being an of not just a a Ben so how do you become an right what was each of the of the each of our gave us something something unique in the of and he says like this it also relates to what he accomplished what he did each one of them were firsts as he's going to say and ysf also was a first in the in the ongoing development of ISU was the first Jew of choice the first G right right um was the first born je that all of his children were were Jewish right said this in yish AB is the theer and yov was theer so you have a a dramatic first aru the first chw by choice the first g y the first born Jew and Yakov the first Jew who completely the it was a completion of jewishness that all of his children were Jew Jews what about right so what about no I'm next paragraph there's another another first that had to be contributed to the N Isel of the Jewish people the sheet was switched um okay yes um something else Kal there's after everything we've said everything that contributed by aaka there was still possibility of assimilation and the Jewish people to disappear from the world through hute assimilation child goes after its mother so if there's a similation and a Jew marries a non-jewish woman that's the end of the Jewish people right the person the first person who was confronted with this tragic end of Jewish history that he rejected the wife of Po's advances zaro and by that act he protected the purity of the Jewish people so this is y's first he was first that the Jewish people there's a possibility he gave the energy to the Jewish people that we can survive the assimilatory process right and as bad as things are it is a promise and we and we know how bad things are we know for example in America the intermarriage rate is is beyond and the assimilation and what we're dealing with now bem there's a change of heart by many of the the Jews on the left Jews who have little connection to Torah are now we many articles that are coming out many events are happening where people are are because of the events that are taking place there's a change of heart there's a seeking a searching for the Rabon shal right and there's a reason for it f but first of all let's just see what end up what he's saying conclude what he's saying that ysep was not just a son yoseph was also an a not just a Ben he was an a of CLA Israel in the sense that he gave us a unique aspect of our is of the Eternal process of the Jewish people gave one thing andov and Ys gave this spiritual energy that we can as a people we will withstand the assimilatory process we will never be destroyed through it now the naive who we started out with today has an essay on anti-Semitism we're going back over a hundred years but the N has an essay on anti-Semitism which is printed at the end of his purish on shirim um and also it really a lot of the stuff in there is mixed into his pish on Kish in the the saer that we were we were studying at the beginning and he says like this when things are so bad really bad that it looks like it's curtains for the Jewish people that Amel has reached such a low level of observance and relationship to bid base right the ronom has one final emergency maneuver that he takes out of his out and that's anti-Semitism when things are so Brad bad that's when the Rabon brings anti-Semitism in a certain sense you know it's a self-fulfilling prophecy we see the words of the N coming true in our time who would have believed right those of us the last one or two generations with we you know since the Holocaust since the showah there's been you know that we we have to understand it was a bleep on the radar screen this this was not really Jewish history but things were good we were building we were building Torah we were establishing we were moving in a spiritual sense but when the assimilatory process began all of a sudden who would have believed the anti-Semitism that we're dealing with now right how does this happen so we know how it happens right we we enjoyed a period of time after the Holocaust that we didn't feel it I have another theory by the way the reason why the anti-Semitism was at a low E after the Holocaust it was not because people changed their opinion necessarily their their hatred towards am Israel but it was an embarrassing time for someone after the Holocaust to come out and speak against the Jewish people right that's perhaps one approach to what we what we were going through but we see now now we see now this this return this return to and it's for our good that this is what is in effect having in effect having an effect on many many thousands of Jewish people in iner Israel we're seeing it tremendous return to to Rus to spirituality and we're seeing it in too and it's a moment that we have to seize ourselves in reaching out each and our own way to our friends and our neighbors there are all kinds of things going on that we could participate in so this is really the last paragraph writes he is kind of a bridge between a father and a son between the door of a and the door of Bim right he was that's why and that answers the question why the death of Joseph is recorded in saos and in sa bis because it was the death of someone who Not only was a the son generation but also was an of and gave us a sense of aood of fatherhood with that spiritual energy that we will continue to survive the Ron will not forsake am Israel as bad as it might appear right now we have to turn to M shabas for our strengthening to him and and learning and of course all of the PID that we have to continue to do on behalf of Amel our holy soldiers our Kim and the hostages so much to be done but each and every one of us has to see ourselves not as simple who am I but theas the Torah the that we can do will bring about a change okay so thank you all I speak I guess on behalf of everyone who's been presenting the shum in the last few months this is the end and we the OU will be open next week the regular sh will begin this particular she the paral will continue at 10:45 next Thursday thank you all for your patience have a shabbat shalom to everybody and thank you KH for your [Music] dedication