Beshalach - Miracles of Livelihood

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with ari goldwag recorded with hashem's neverending assistance in ramachamish israel 5782 2022. this week's parish is partially the jewish people are being sent out finally finally after six months of a challenge to paro's rulership the jewish people are sent out pharaoh finally sends out the jewish people against his will he has no choice they're all dying the firstborns are dying the majority tells us an amazing thing by eb what is going on in these verses what is the depth of what's gone on throughout the story of paro the makos the plagues of egypt but not only paro that we spoke about here because of course within the torah's story is the description of the events of our forefathers the generations that followed so we meet power more than once we meet a ruler of egypt we mean a ruler of avimelech and in each of those contexts we find that within their attempt their attempt to subdue the jewish people it's most clearly seen in paro and how he subdued the jewish people they were subjugated to slavery but but we find as well paro in in say for braces the book of genesis and abimelech they took the wife of avraham avina the wife of abraham and it's very interesting that the marriage makes a connection to those two places that we see in in both in regards to paro the first para in regards and of course in regards to the power of our parsha so we find that there's an idea that there's a maca some kind of plague that occurs which affects them and causes them to be forced to let go for paro and abimel the original power to let go of moving his wife of sorrow and in our party to let go of the jewish people from their subjugation so let's see this idea because it's very important idea a foundational idea and perhaps we'll get some insight into it manager says like this at the very beginning of our partial um this is what it means in the verse when it says the verse in mishla in proverbs talks about the way that a person needs to guide a horse got his mule so you need to have a stick you have to have some kind of object a a whip something to get the the horse to do your will when we speak about a stick for a horse this is a reference or it's a martial it's an analogy to the first pharaoh nagashima we find that the verse tells us this is back in genesis in chapter 12 verse 17 that para was afflicted as a result of this matter of having taken sarai the wife of avraham matamu illaminati is wrong why does it say she was the wife of avraham so medusa teaches us something very interesting refers to her as the wife of avram because as follows there's a concept the verse says in ecclesiastes in qahalas chapter four verse nine two are better than one tavern we find that after power releases sarah so the result is that he is given a tremendous amount of wealth actually i'm sorry is this before or after he releases he's uh she's not released yet before she's released avraham was given a lot of gifts as the brother of sir of sarah so what do we see we see that avraham of himself didn't have this course he didn't have the merit to be able to receive those gifts it was only haitiv it was because of sarah and in trying to understand this is important i know we're kind of slipping away from our topic which is partial to bashar but the measure brings it it's important to understand it when a person has a challenge of difficulty how did avraham of course excuse me here a second of course avrom it was a challenge for him his wife was stolen it's a terrible thing sorry main who had a much deeper challenge he was the one who was abducted says the madrish the two of them together asia's avram she's referred to as the wife of avram because it was the two of them together it wasn't just sarai it was sarai the wife of avram the two of them together were able to merit a tremendous amount of wealth power did not take back the wealth after he returned from his wife but interestingly avraham on his own did not have the skus the challenge the difficulty as we've been speaking about last week week before the challenge the very difficulty itself as difficult as it is the abduction of sarimenu however was a channel through which a kudishboku god brought them something together which was that they would receive this tremendous wealth as well not only that but paul himself received the nega as we see as we see in regards to him as we see in regards to avi melaka's we're about to say it as in regards to the power of araparsha but in the challenge the difficulty that we go through so the evil right power represents the evil so the evil receives its due reward so to speak for the evil that's done even a good person seems to be having you know being ill affected by the one who is doing the evil message teaches us that the one who receives the negative situation who goes through that situation the result is something positive the negative situation results in something positive very important idea very difficult to understand of course very difficult to have to experience but most of us have experienced this in our lives and we know that the difficulties and the challenges help us grow and make us greater now mette lachamore the second concept in the verse in proverbs refers to a mu a mule which is being a meta which i don't know the exact uh translation of the word but it it's some kind of muzzle or a bit that's in the mouth of the mule so what is this it says that also avi abducted sarah surah shambiad called from the base we find the verse tells us that in his house all of the women were not able to give birth as a result of the fact that he had abducted taking sorry man avi malek started to praise himself the tumblr he says you know i i didn't know i i didn't intend to take a woman who who is married heaven forbid i did it he told me it's his sister and that's what he said responds and says uh you think that you didn't mean to sin i was the one who stopped you from sinning says the magist what is this comparable to lachamore here's where we get to why avimalt is referred to as a hamur as a as a donkey there was a hammer a donkey that a person was riding upon raj satina bashuk the animal saw a child in the market kofatsa lovely zika he i guess the child was crawling around on the floor the donkey jumped around around the area where the where the child was it didn't cause him damage people were saying wow it's amazing how this donkey stomped around but didn't didn't cause damage to the child um the owner of the animal who had been sitting on the animal said to them i promise you elulay if not for the fact that i had pulled him by the bit in his mouth he would have caused the child damage people were saying oh avi malek is okay he was saying about himself i'm all right i didn't i didn't touch her i didn't end up touching her right god says [Music] just like the donkey who wanted to cause damage to the child avi malek wanted to cause damage to do an average to do a sin with another person's wife with avraham of his wife but i didn't allow him god says i didn't know i was the one writing so to speak here like the verse says unto him in psalms chapter 140 verse 9 don't let hashem does not let i'm sorry hashem does not allow the evil one to complete his plans okay so this is the idea behind the verse so we see para we see avi melech they tried to do something didn't allow it god as it were revealed himself in the situation in one case caused damage another case caused damage but also stood and made sure stood there and made sure that no damage would would be caused and only good would come out to arm and sorrow now we come back to our parsha and we're going to speak about the shaved legs the end of the verse initially says that god takes a stick or a shave it is a rod and he puts it he uses it against the fools right here it's not a singular thing it's not one person it's it's multiple people because it's not just power himself or avimalia or the wife of abraham but rather it's the entire nation of egypt subdued the entire nation of the jewish people because of course one person cannot subdue everybody it can only be done as we can see a sad example of it in the holocaust it can only be done when there's a multitude of people who are aiding the terrible behavior of a single individual but the idea here is like this that hashem uses his rod upon the fools right there's more than one fool here it's zip power bahamit syrian this is pharaoh in the mid and the egyptians she came so what was the what was the thing that happened to them they also endured terrible difficulties just like the original power and avi malek they endured challenges and difficulties and as a result of that they were forced to release the jewish people the jewish people would be able to experience their their redemption how through the forcing of the egyptians and paro which is also very interesting and something that i've discussed in the past it's also in my safer my book perfectly imperfect but there's a concept that when hashem is bringing his light into the world hashem is revealing himself we're getting to a new stage in reality the jewish people are about to hit the point where they become a nation they are given the torah they're going to come into their own land they're going to start to keep the torah within the land of israel it's the foundation it's the birth of the jewish people whenever there's a foundational moment in history like that so it's accompanied by great judgment in the world when god reveals himself this is the nature of it when god reveals himself so the result is number one that the reshun the wicked are burned by the light so to speak god takes the light out he takes out that light of his presence the rashaan the wicked are burned by it and that's him the righteous are lit up by it they're they're given life through that light so the egyptians are punished they receive the moccas the plagues and the jewish people are nigalim they are redeemed as a result of this challenge or the same moment but it's really as a result of the light that hashem is revealing the light that god is bringing into the world now i'd like to share with you another point which is in the gemara sakhim which we did last week also we spoke about igumarum that was connected which i'm studying currently the gemara is we find very interesting things the gemara is talking about the fact that we say on pesach on passover we say the i believe it's 26 praises praise this god that he is good his kindness is forever we go on through all the different kindnesses and one of the foundational kindnesses that we mention there is nicen god gives bread to every single human being his kindness is forever and the gemara wants to understand what is the connection between this verse we read it at the at the night of the seder why do we read it at the seder when we celebrate the redemption of the jewish people from egypt what's the significance of what's called halal hagado the great hala the great praise of god and the answer is because it refers to the fact that god gives bread to every single individual and the gemara the the revelation of god was awesome so if he split the sea as we we have in our parsha god splits the sea that was an awesome revelation what happens there the jewish people are saved the same idea the jewish people are saved and pharaoh and his soldiers and all of his men they are drowned in a sea so at the same moment the final retribution of final justice the jewish people are saved with an awesome open miracle and pharaoh and his men are drowned in the sea and the the evil is ended once and for all the jewish people will never return to egypt now the gemara says an amazing thing which we need to understand which is that when it comes to a person's livelihood we need to understand the words on the simple level ordinarily translated it's as difficult as the parting of the sea it's as difficult as the parting of the sea but the thought that i would like to share with you that's related to what we've been speaking about until now is what is the idea that it's difficult as the partying of the sea and i think based on what we've said there's a new understanding that we can have in this very statement of our sages and that is that when a person is striving to serve god yes when we are trying to earn a livelihood it's a service of hashem or recently my wife told me over from rav avigdor miller it's in a safer in one of his books he speaks about the fact that when we are earning a livelihood for our family we're supporting a jewish family so that our family can can live be successful prosperous be able to have a beautiful jewish home filled with words of torah but with mitzvah observance service of hashem connection to hashem when we do that so we are serving hashem in that way now of course within every person's striving to to earn a livelihood there are challenges there are difficulties there's that moment where a person doesn't know where the money is going to come from person may even have a stable job but they're trying to supplement with another job or they may not have a job and they're trying to find another job or they may be waiting for that job to show whatever it is or the job itself may be difficult it's hard to have a tough boss it might be hard to perform on stage might be a challenge to to be seen but the challenges of of the of parnassa of livelihood i i believe that we can say that question is god personally gives us the livelihood that we seek that we need but because god is revealing himself just like by kris yamsuf and just like by all these situations which we described where hashem reveals himself he shows his light he takes the sun out so there's two things that happen one is we spoke about a negative consequence for the wicked but even for the righteous the one who's receiving that light there's also a seemingly negative consequence it seems like the person is going through a hard time it's hard to make money it's hard to make a livelihood sometimes it's embarrassing sometimes it's difficult sometimes it's a challenge sometimes it requires a tremendous amount of effort which we may not be ready to to go through but we go through it anyway we gotta provide for our families but we need to know and this is so such an important idea so deep so important that when we are working for our families hashem is revealing himself he is revealing himself just like at the ula of mitzrayim just like at the redemption from from egypt god reveals himself he shows himself in our lives and we have to suffer the consequences in a certain sense at the same moment as we're receiving that redemption we have to go through a hard time we have to be facing off with an enemy the enemy's name is pharaoh on one side is para on the other side is the yamasuf is the is the sea of reeds and we have to walk through the amsuf which is tremendously difficult who knows what happened the wall the water is standing up on on either side the water was a wall but who knows the water could come right down as it did on the egyptians could come down on us we don't know but we have to take that leap literally take that leap of faith when it comes to the kriyasyamsuf and say hey this difficulty is for our redemption this challenge that we're going through vows on that side the waters on this side we got to walk through the water why because our redemption is here our redemption is here and that's a feeling that a person can have when it comes to their parnasso when it comes to their livelihood a person has this sense like i need to make a certain amount of money i have a certain amount of expenses a certain amount of bills how am i going to make it how am i going to be able to to to touch all the bases hit first base second base third base get through the month pay the mortgage pay this bill pay the ah pay the water bill the phone etc pay for groceries these are things that are a challenge but the challenge itself shows that that god is there with us because of course this is natural this is how things are in the places where hashem reveals himself the most god is feeding us god is giving us the food in that place where hashem reveals himself the most is the place kasha messiah social adam that we we will experience the greatest challenge the greatest difficulty but we will also experience the most amazing redemption the most amazing goola just like by kris yamsuf just like when hashem brings the jewish people through the sea of reeds i want to bless you i ask you to bless me back hashem should help us to recognize the challenges of our lives not just as difficulties that we need to get through but rather hashem should help us to recognize that these very challenges are because of his revelation in our lives hashem should help us to have parnasso a tremendous amount of livelihood livelihood and prosperity should help us to have all that we need and to realize those redemptions every single day thank you so much for listening have a wonderful shabbos this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.ariegoldwag.com or search on itunes ari goldwag [Music]