Bo - Conserving Spiritual Power

You're listening to the weekly para podcast recorded with Hashem's never ending assistance in 5775 2015. This week's para is para's bow. And here we have the climax of the story of the maka is the plagues that Hashem brought upon the Egyptians in order to force them to force par to force Pharaoh to let the Jewish people leave Egypt to be able to go and serve Hashem to receive the Torah on Mount Si. the tenth of the plagues which is when parro finally says Pharaoh finally allows the Jewish people to leave. What's the tenth of the plagues? It's Makas. It's the death of the firstborn of all of the Egyptians. Verse tells us, this is in chapter 12 29. It was in the middle of the night. It was atos. It was at midnight. And God struck all of the firstborn in the land of Egypt. from from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne all the way down through the firstborns of those who were incarcerated and the firstborns of all of the animals. Now this striking of the firstborn as we said is what frees the Jewish people from Egypt. It's what allows them to go free to go out. It forces Pharaoh's hand and now the Jewish people go free. Now the question is what is the significance of the concept of the firstborn? What is the idea that the firstborn has the firstborns of Egypt have to die in order for the Egyptians to allow the Jewish people to leave to be able to be freed. What is the concept of the firstborn? Also, we find as the Torah continues and says, we find that there's a the a kdush, a sanctification of the firstborns of the Jewish people such that there has to be a whole process through which the Jewish people, the firstborns of the Jewish people have to be redeemed. Something that I actually did myself for my firstborn. And we find that the Jewish people also are referred to as the firstborn of Hashem. What is the idea of the Jewish people being the firstborn? What is the significance of the concept of the firstborn? And again, why is it that the firstborn of Egypt have to die in order for the Jews to be released for the exodus to occur? So, in order to understand this, I'd like to share with you a beautiful piece from he says like this. God struck all of the firstborn says that specifically the exodus occurred as a result of the plague of the firstborn. Specifically, All of the plagues, all of the miracles that Hashem performed did not subjugate Pharaoh completely. After each of them, he strengthened, he hardened his heart till until Hashem actually brought the plague of the firstborn. The firstborn of the people of Israel were saved. And through this there was a subjugation of the aspect of the firstborn of the side of evil and the aspect of the firstborn of holiness which is the Jewish people and as he's going to say is also the aspect of of prayer which we'll see what that means soon. But this aspect of the firstborn of the side of holiness was raised up and became great. Israel and the revelation that occurred was of the power of the efficacy of the prayers of the Jewish people and they're calling out the entire time that they were in exile. In other words, they were praying and they were dafing. They were asking Hashem, please save us, please help us. And it seemed at first like those cries were in vain. And even when Mosher Rabenu when Moses arrived, it seemed like things got worse. And indeed they did until finally the the prayers so to speak they added up to the point where Hashem said now it's time for the Jewish people to be redeemed. Then they were redeemed and they left Egypt and then the firstborn of the Jewish people became holy as a verse tells us that the firstborn are holy unto God. We find that Hashem makes a measure and a corresponding measure. If you have something on the side of holiness, you have something good. So you have something which corresponds to it which is also powerful on the side of evil. Just like you have the aspect of the firstborn in holiness, the aspect of the holiness of the people of Israel, the aspect of the the aspect of prayer. The Jewish people represent the concept of prayer. That aspect of connecting to God, asking God, not trying to do it myself, but rather involving God in it, becoming partners with God through prayer. So corresponding on the side of evil, there's an aspect of the firstborn which is we find that is the aspect. Amalik is that nation that stood up after these Jewish people left Egypt. They stood up to try to stop the Jewish people from making their way to the promised land. They stood up to stop them from receiving the Torah. And the Torah refers to Amalik as Goyam, the first of the nations. What does it mean? That the aspect of this force of evil called Amalik. It strengthens itself each time. It stands up. It wields its power in a corresponding way to to the aspect of the firstborn of holiness which is the prayer and as the Jewish people their prayers are being answered as they're being taken out of Egypt. The exodus is occurring. So comes we're going to see more to that but we're going to see how it manifests in Egypt. Even when we accomplish something through our prayers which is the aspect of giving birth to the firstborn so to speak the is that higher spiritual aspect. The firstborns were the one who would serve God. So when that aspect strengthens itself through the prayers through that connection to God through the service of God. So a malik which is the firstborn on the side of evil how do they how do they affect that evil? They do it by bringing into a person's heart denial, forgetfulness as if Hashem has not already started to hear his prayers. A person can pray. Person can ask Hashem for help. All of a sudden, a person sees Hashem is indeed helping him. Hashem is indeed answering those prayers. But the aspect of Malik, what does it do? It stands up and says, "No, no, no, no, no. That was yesterday. Today, look, Hashem's not answering your prayers." That's the power of evil to for to cause a person to forget the good that Hashem has already done for them to cause them to forget the power of his spirituality to to forget the power of the truth of Hashem's helpra. And it's for this reason that is called the first the first of the nations because wants to strengthen itself to stand up in a corresponding way to the aspect of the first on the side of holiness which is the firstborn of which is as if Hashem has not started to help the Jewish people at all. And from that aspect of Malik that the Malik is the first of the nations is called the first of the nations. The first born of the Egyptians is that which connects to that force of a Malik which connects to the denial of Hashem the denial of the fact that Hashem is involved in the world involved in a person's life. As long as the firstborn of Egypt there around is a connection to the first of the nations of on the side of evil which is Amalik is the higher aspect which includes all of the nations of the world on the side of evil and especially Egypt. The s the higher aspect, the spiritual aspect of Egypt is which is a malik. And therefore by Hashem destroying killing out the firstborns of Egypt specifically in this way the the source of Egypt's strength of their power which was through Amalik the first of the nations was through their firstborn. And thus by the killing of the firstborn they no longer were attached to that. They were detached from the aspect of which is the root of all the exiles. And no longer was parro affected by the kipa affected by a mo and and and again caused to stop not allow the Jewish people to be released. No, at this point he's detached from the the the spiritual connection that he had on the on the side of evil to and now and then he had no choice but to allow the Jewish people to leave Egypt. But since Amalik itself had not yet fallen, Amalik is still around. Yes. Theim, the firstborn of Egypt who connect Egypt to a Malik. They have gone, but Amalik is still there. The root of it is still there. Since that's true, his oid after the Jewish people left so it could come back again and Pharaoh's heart was turned over and all of his his servants they said what have we done we sent the Jewish people out and then they raced and they chased after them all this is because of the aspect of which was awakened again and I wrote on the side here doesn't say but it was my own thought that parro himself was a firstborn but he wasn't killed so he was still attached he was still connected to a malik and that aspect of awakens again strengthens itself again and this is what we find in the it was told that the Jewish people were trying to escape this was told to pharaoh that they were escaping who was the one that said this to it was a malik So this is a reference to what we're saying here that the one who tells over to Pharaoh and convinces him to run after the Jewish people and says that they ran away. It was a malik. This is the power. This is the spiritual power of a that they will strengthen themselves every single time. Deny everything. deny all the true spiritual things that are going on and bring a forgetfulness and mistakes into a person's heart as if Hashem had not yet saved a person at all. Heaven forbid. What happens after Pharaoh and all of his all of his horses and all of the king's men, what happens? They all fall down. They can't put Pharaoh back together again. And they they fall in the sea. They're all destroyed after that themselves come to attack the Jewish people even though Pharaoh was indeed subdued subjugated to Hashem's will themselves were not yet as we said and therefore itself strengthened itself and they did not look at all of the wonders and the salvations Hashem did for the people of the Jewish people for us and they come and they fight against them because the aspect of a mo is this aspect of the first which strengthens itself against the aspect of the firstborn which is the Jewish people which is the aspect of our prayers where we connect to God where we call out to God we say Hashem help So we find Hashem says that there's a that I myself says God I fight against a malik as we said. This is why we find in speaking and it's amazing what we see here. We see like the essence of the Jewish people is prayer. The essence of the Jewish people is connection to Hashem. The essence of the Jewish people is bringing God into the world. bringing God into their lives on a personal level and this is why we find says Nasen that we have an aspect of placing gula next to which means that before we pray whether it's in the morning whether it's in the evening we always mention the the redemption of the Jewish people from Egypt before we can start praying before we can ask for our needs in in we mention the redemption from Egypt and we mention the destruction the subjugation of the firstborn of the side of evil as we say you destroyed you killed all their firstborn but you redeemed your firstborn which is the people of Israel and in this way we remind ourselves We remind ourselves of all of that the Jewish people have already accomplished with their prayers. Look what we've done. Look what we were able to accomplish with our prayers. We called out to God. We ded. We were going on and on over and over again. We didn't give up. We constantly were praying, "Hashem, help us. Hashem, redeem us." And indeed our prayers had the effect of Hashem indeed redeeming us, indeed saving us. That bringing into the world, bringing down the the firstborn of holiness is what the language that he uses. It means that through our prayers, we cause a spiritual effect in the world. We bring Hashem into the world through that prayer. So we mention that as a as a prerequisite as an introduction into our prayers. We remind ourselves of what we've already accomplished through our prayers. The spiritual products that we've been able to bring into the world as a result of our our incredible intense prayers which is the aspect of the service of prayer. Because in this way, when we remind ourselves of what we were able to accomplish in the past through prayer, it strengthens our hearts to be able to pray. Now, think about it. You know, sometimes we think, does our prayer really have an effect? Is our prayer significant to God? Does God really care? Does he really listen? But if we remind ourselves of of course remember how Hashem listened to the Jewish people, remember how effective the prayers were, that's an amazing introduction to to get into the prayers. And that's how we begin to pray. The main way to strengthen ourselves in prayer is through this aspect of of creating bringing to the world this first born so to speak which is the aspect of the redemption from Egypt that we remind ourselves through that which our prayers have already accomplished. So to sum up and just to bring it down to our level to where we are the bottom line of what we're saying here is that a malik is that force and the the firstborn of Egypt who are destroyed they are the force which causes a person to forget how effective his spiritual life is how effective his prayers are how effective all that he's done already person can forget what about all the I prayed yesterday what about all the accomplishments that I've done says forget about And what do you mean? You have no connection to Hashem. That's Malik. That's the forces of evil inside of us. But Kalis's power is we go straight to God. We don't forget about what we've done yesterday. Even if today it doesn't seem to be as good or doesn't seem like Hashem is answering our prayers. No, we continue and we we continue where we left off. We don't forget. We remind ourselves. We come back to what we've accomplished with our prayer. We look at our accomplishments and we build on our accomplishments. I want to bless you and please bless me back. Hashem should help us all to be able to see what we've accomplished. To to be able to see what where we have grown in our avoidous hashem, in our service of God, look at where we've come from. Look where we are today. Not to get pulled in, sucked down by the side of evil, which wants to tell us that we haven't gotten anywhere. Wants us to look in a very shallow way at the present moment without looking at all we've done and all we've grown. Should help us to see what we've accomplished through our prayers. Hashm should help us to connect to the prayers of our of our of our forefathers able to see what they accomplished through prayer to realize that we can do the same thing should help us such that we should see the ultimate redemption the ultimate place where we'll see the result of all of the prayers of the Jewish people throughout all times and we'll see how our prayers were part of that and how our prayers brought about the redemption as well. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful Shabas. This podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you. For more podcasts like this, please visit www.argoldwag.com or search on iTunes Ari Goldwag.