The Story of Passover: Part 1- Slavery in Egypt - Rabbi Lazer Brody

Amuna my Lord. Amuna, it's from you my [Music] Lord. It's all good, my Lord. Oh Lord, oh Hashem, with Hashem's loving grace, welcome to Amuna Hour and we hope everyone had a wonderful pouring. continue on for Passover and we have exactly four weeks before Passover. So what we've done, we've made a preparatory lesson for Passover, the story of Passover and it's going to be four weeks, four sessions exactly in the four weeks to prepare us for Passover. And by this we complete the commandment in in Jewish law that we prepare ourselves before festival four weeks. So the question is as I did four weeks to prepare for a festival especially before Passover some festivals enough for two weeks but Passover there's so many laws and so much to know and especially for Satan night and thank you so much for the feedback one of the impetus of preparing this series as people told me how much they enjoyed the the purim lesson and how much they had a more meaningful poreium and so thank you very much for the feedback and that's what helped fueled these lessons and then after pesop after Passover we're going to start a whole new unit, but nothing is more a story of amuna for amuna hour like the story of Passover. In our four-part series, we'll see just how much we learn amuna from Passover. And our series of lessons are designed to give us a deeper understanding of the holiday, a deeper appreciation, and especially know what we're talking about when we tell the story of Passover on Passover night, the seder. And this is one of the 613 commandments of Torah to tell the story of the Exodus of Egypt on on Pesak night. Okay. So, our first lesson is going to tell us about the background of events that led up to Passover and specifically how the Israelites became slaves in Egypt. Okay. First of all, I want to preface by saying that the holy zor calls matzah named the demnusa. It's in Aramaic it means the bread of amuna. So what's it mean by the bread of amuna? Because matzah it's not only the symbol of our exodus from Egypt. Uh for it gave us the freedom. What's the freedom? Not so much bodily freedom as spiritual freedom where the whole world is like the whole world forcing people with social pressure to do idolatry and the fact that Hashem took us out from Egypt that we have the freedom to go against the whole world. We have the freedom to learn amuna and this is with freedom that we learned from our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob where they also went against the whole world on the way uh in exile in Egypt. bit got a little bit blurry but now we're in the slave the slavery was in both in body and in soul and the exodus of Egypt is talking about both the exodus of the body and of the soul so the whole story of Passover it's one big story of amuna one continuing story of amuna and we learn a lot of things that sound like uh outright exaggerations to the 21st 21st century ear uh but uh have to understand that amuna is beyond logic. There are things in the story of Passover that defy logic. And the difference between porium and Passover is Hashem performed all the miracles in purim within nature within the framework of nature and pa Passover of Shem defies nature. It's completely different completely different type of miracles. So just like uh we mention the dollar prayers we the remembrance of Egypt remembers of Egypt because the acts of Egypt tells so much about us who we are and what we believe in our amuna. So you can rest assured that every single fact and event that we're about to learn, it's codified in the oral Torah, and the written Torah, and it's handed down to us from parent and child, from teacher to pupil for the last 3,37 years since we left Egypt. Okay? So it really is not that long because if you calculate a generation that a generation is average of 30 years long then really my generation is only 110 generations from leaving Egypt. My children's generation is 111. My grandchildren 112 and my great-grandchildren 113 generations. That's all. It's no big deal. And we have we have our our roots. We have generation by generation generation by generation. And no other nation has it in ancient history. It's got some type of uh fables and mythology and but talk about millions of people from parent to child, from teacher to student all the way back. So let's begin with the framework, okay? And if uh you want to take notes, that's fine. If not, we'll have the as we every week the replay and you could get the salient points of of the sear of the lesson. Okay? So the story of we talk about the story of Passover teaches us amuna. It really teaches us three main lessons in amuna. The first lesson is that Hashem is always with us. There is no exception to that rule. Even in the most hopeless situations where we've been cast away. We learned that all through the book of s all book of Psalms where Shem no matter what David is in he's up and down or high or low Shem is always with him. This week especially comes home in land of Egypt in in the story of Passover in land of Egypt when the Israelites were in the worst possible situation that a nation could be slavery and difficult slavery sadistic slavery. We can understand who kamas is today by their ancestors the Egyptians of back then and really it's in in Gaza most of the Gaza they're Egyptian descent the one of the most common they have in America of Smith and Jones a very common last name in Gaza is El Masri El Masri means the Egyptian they came from Egyptian that you could understand but you can't understand where the satum sadism the sadistic comes from with the with the hostages and and and and the war that's going on now that when we relearn the story of Passover, we can see just how there's nothing to under the sun like King Solomon tells us. It all happened back then. So the first lesson in the moon is that Hashem is always with us. No exception to that rule. The second lesson is we learn of Hashem's magnificent uh precise divine direction. We wrote a whole book about that divine direction. how Hashem personally handles every single individual individual divine direction. Hashem doesn't set the world in motion then sit back and go play golf in uh in Palm Springs. That's not Hashem. Sim is not retired, not in semi-retirement. Hashem personally involved in every tiny detail in our lives in micro and in macro. Not just our lives, the whole universe. Okay. So he's what we learned our first principle of muna that he alone is creator and director not just creator director creator and director of all of creation it means hashem's job is never done and we learn in the first principle of muna that if hashem would cease for a split second the entire universe would go into nothingness. So our adversaries, they harbor to this day, for this day, nothing new under the sun, all types of uh sinister plans for for the land of Israel and for the Israelites, the Jewish people. And Hashem shows that his plans are the ones that manifest. Like King David told us in Psalms 8, it's the plans of Hashem that shall be manifest. So look at the strange things. Would Pharaoh Pharaoh ever believe that his foster son who grew up in his lap, Moses was a little baby, so Pharaoh's adopted son, that he would be the leader of the Jews that undermine him? This is just one example of Hashem's amazing divine direction. Our third lesson of Amuna that we're going to learn throughout the story of Passover is that Hashem runs the world in a measure formeasure fashion. And we also learned that in purim if you remember everything that happened to Vashi is that she planted to other people. Everything that happened to Hmon, Hmon went to hang Morai, Hmon ended up getting hang that it's measure for measure. And this is something that we all need to pray for that we only bring good in the world. We bring good in the world then Hashem will give good for us. People that bring strife, quarrels, evil into the world, then their lives ultimately are evil. They won't they can't win. So we this especially brought home this lesson and Passover that Hashem runs the world in measure formeasure fashion especially when we get to the 10 plagues. We'll see how the 10 plagues was measure for measure of everything that Egyptians did to us. So our story of Passover and our series that not only prepares us for Passover but it's a big boost of amuna. It strengthens our muna. Okay. Now let's talk about the descent to Egypt. Okay. Why did the Israelites have to go down to Egypt? And we ask ourselves if Hashem does everything for the best when he does this one what we learn from the first principle of Muda that everything comes from Hashem and Hashem is our loving father in heaven. So if everything comes from his loving father in heaven then it's a no-brainer that he does everything for the best. So if Hashem does everything for the best and he does then why did he exile our forefathers Jacob and his 12 sons uh with their families? He sent them out of the promised land and exiled them down to to Egypt and put them into slavery. So we have to start off with this question and answer this question. Our sages give us six predominant reasons why we went down to Egypt. Reason number one is to present to excuse me to prevent assimilation that the Israelites were in danger of assimilating with the Canaanite nations in the land of Israel. And it almost happened in the case we saw in the case of Dena when Dena was abducted and raped by the Canaanite prince. And uh this would not happen in Egypt. Why? Because the Egyptians, this is the disadvantage. That's the advantage. The Egyptians couldn't stand us. They hated us. They had a disgust. They were disgusted by by Israelites. So they wouldn't get near. An Egyptian wouldn't dream of eating with an Israelite in the same table. No way. And because there was this difference, there was a difference. Then the Israelites were on their own and they didn't mix. And the Egyptians were on their own. And a our ancestors were shepherds and they were meat eaters. They were they they ate sheep. They the Egyptians were vegetarians. That the lamb was their their god. They didn't eat their god. And this was something else that disgusted the Egyptians that uh we raised sheep and slaughtered them and eat ate them. So in Egypt the Jews became very distinct in their language in their mode of dress and in their first names in their first names they went by the name of of uh Morai. They didn't go by Marty and they went by the name of of Num and and not uh Ni. They were something else. They went by the name of Boro and not Butch. They kept their original names. They kept their original dress. They kept their original appearance. They kept their original language. They didn't speak everything. Spoke biblical Hebrew with one another. And they lived separately. So in every single way, they were separated and distinct from the Egyptian. So Elijah the prophet he teaches us that this adherence to our distinctiveness invokes divine compassion for redemption back then and to this day. Okay that's the lesson number one to prepare the reason number one for descent to Egypt to present assimilation. The reason number two is to recognize Hashem's supreme divine sovereignty. Hashem is king. He's sovereign all the earth and Hashem is supreme. Nobody tells Hashem what to do. Okay. So, light uh is most apparent. When is light apparent? You light a match in in in midday, you can't see the light of the match. When light is apparent, a candle is apparent. The darker the darkness, then the more the candle illuminates. So, light is apparent in the backdrop of darkness. So, Egypt was the world's capital of idolatry and witchcraft and debauchery. Name every type of evil. This was part of the Egyptian culture. Egyptian cult is a wanted people. They they the worst worst worst moral level and this was their this was their lifestyle. They loved it. Egypt's borders were hermetically sealed by witchcraft. They didn't have to bed soldier in the borders. They had said was so they were all PhDs in witchcraft. A slave or someone they they brought foreign nations into as slaves. They don't want to do the work. They wanted to sit and uh sip their whatever they drink. They sip their lemonade and under under the fan and let the slaves do the work. Uh slave couldn't escape Egypt because he'd come to to the border even looked like nothing and it was like a iron wall, iron curtain. So their witchcraft, it created this brick wall or iron curtain, this barrier that a single slave couldn't escape Egypt. This makes the miracle even more when our whole nation of 600,000 men with women and children, more than 2 million, they they they ultimately will will leave Egypt. And we'll see how Hashem deactivated and destroyed uh Egypt's evil forces and to take the millions of Israelites out of Egypt. This was our entire Jewish nation back then. Okay. So that's the second reason second to learn about uh Hashem's supremacy, Hashem's sovereignty, his absolute supremacy. The third reason that we had to go down to Egypt was to punish Egypt. Pharaoh's Egypt had become the world's superpower. And not only were the world's superpowers, we just mentioned that they were the world's capital of debauchery, the world's capital of idolatry, the world's capital of immorality, and the world's capital of witchcraft. Everything that goes against divinity, everything that goes against the moon, everything that goes against Hashem. Okay? So this did whatever Hashem loves, the Egyptians hated. Whatever Hashem despises, the Egyptians loved. So Egyptian the Egyptians treatment their cruel treatment their sadistically cruel treatment of the Israelites gave Hashem the reason that he needed now but according to law Hashem Hashem limits Hashem it's I'm talking fig figuratively uh like a metaphor Hashem ties his own hands with his lawm everything is justice Hashem can't dispose of a nation or a person because he doesn't like them. He doesn't like their actions. Has to wait until they make certain transgressions and until they they're they fill up their barrel of offenses. Once their barrel is full, they're they're finished. So, Hashem needed to bring them to justice and Hashem gave them full reason that to come to justice so that the whole world would see this would be a sanctification of Hashem's name that the justice he does against Egypt. Our fourth reason is to enforce reinforce Israel's amuna DNA. We have to have this DNA in our veins. We have to have this amuna. So really when we learn amuna we're not learning something new. Our kididic sages they teach us like this. They teach that uh for example when you write uh Torah scroll before you write a Torah scroll you take an all awl and you scratch out the lines on the parchment parchment is animal hide and then the ceremonial scribe that's called a sofa stam he can write perfectly straight lines. So if we're to get these lines on but uh put put on the on the on this on the the parchment then it could be crooked. So what has the fact that we have this amuna DNA it's embedded in our souls and even though we cognitively don't know amuna don't live amuna don't appreciate amuna once we learn amuna then we have this it's called sirut in Hebrew it's called this is it's been inscribed on our souls just like the lines have been inscribed with an all on not with a pen not with a pencil but with an all just an impression of the lines in this pure parchment have these lines and put it that we have these lines on our soul. Our sages say so when we learn a luma and we pay attention to it and we practice it it right away straightens on on our soul right away straightens our soul maybe a little bit deep little bit difficult to understand but this is what it means to have amuna DNA and our sages explained that Abraham Abraham was our patriarch forefather and in light of his lofty spiritual level and he was the first monotheist he was the first true believer in Hashem and called the first Hebrew Hebrew the name for Hebrew in in in in biblical Hebrew is I if means from the other side of the river what it mean that he's from the other side of the river it means that Abraham was on one side of the faith river and all the other the rest of the world was on the other side and that's Abraham the Hebrew I the Hebrew he's on the other side from the rest of the world and that's where we get the word I that's where we get the word Hebrew from okay so there was a famine in the land of Israel And Abraham should have trusted Hashem that he won't go hungry instead of descending to Egypt. And so uh he did eventually go down to Egypt in search of of food. On his level that was a slight blemish. So his offspring had to correct that. So he should have trusted that Hashem would both protect him and Sarah rather than exposing her to the danger she was to Sarah was abducted by Pharaoh's uh greatgrandfather. And he should have declared that she is his wife and his sister. If you remember the story of their descent to Egypt, Abraham was afraid that Pharaoh and his soldiers would kill him because his wife was so beautiful and they'd abduct her. They ended up abducting her anyway, but Abra said, "She's my sister." I think they give it this was on Abraham's level he was doing something necessary to protect himself to stay alive but this was a tiny blemish and amuna and from our forefathers have zero blemish amuna this be when I talk about a blemish and amuna on the forefathers this is greater greater greater level than the amuna of the the biggest sadikim of of the latter generations but this is according to Abraham Abraham had to to be perfect. Abraham to be perfect. Just say, for example, if you take a a little crumb, a little uh piece of dust, you step on a piece of dust, it's not going to bother you. But if it gets in the eye, oh, it's going to be terrible. That's uh Abraham's soul is the eyes of the nation. We're down at the end right before Messiah, where our souls are down by by the feet of the of the people of the Jewish people. Okay? So Abraham's exile had to become Abraham's offspring had to become exiled and enslaved in Egypt and to overcome similar challenges to do a soul correction for the great-grandfather. Our fifth reason is to show that the deeds of the fathers are stepping stones from the for the sons. For example, Sarah was abducted by Pharaoh on Passover Eve. So Shem sent an angel to afflict the Egyptians. And just as she was released from Egypt on from from Pharaoh's house on Passover day. And the same thing happened to their offspring that an angel came in on on on Passover night. And Abraham left Egypt with great riches and the appeasement payments that uh that he got from Pharaoh. And this is his children, his offspring. They left Egypt with all the spoils of Egypt. And people it really wasn't spoiled. It was back paid because they were slaves for 210 years. And this was back payment for Pharaoh. So the offspring to just Abraham left with riches, the offspring with riches could been many many many parallels between what happened in Abraham and Sarah in their descent to Egypt and what happened to us in in our ascent from Egypt spiritually. That's that's reason number five. Reason number six is to morally and spiritually strengthen the Jewish people. Hashem knew that for the Jews to receive the Torah, they'd have to be strong. They have to be spiritually strong. And they knew for them to protect the Torah, they're going to have to go against all the nations. They're going to have a lot of resistance. So, you can't give it to to weaklings. So, in order to strengthen the nation, Hashem sent us down to Egypt to withstand the hardships uh of of slavery. And slavery in Egypt prepared us to become slaves to Hashem. Servants of Hashem. Not slave but servants of Hashem. And this is what our soul tells. We come into this world and there's no thing as me the big man on campus. Me and I. That's why we don't use in in proper Torah Hebrew. We don't use first person singular. We take a we we because I is only referring to Hashem. In other words, we're subservient to Hashem. we're subservient to Hashem and instead of when a person is not subservient to Hashem, he's subservient to something else because this is in the framework the fiber of creation. So if a person is not subservient to Hashem, person thinks he or she is independent but they're subservient to their evil inclination. Okay, we can't have two masters, one master. And so this was to bank. The sixth reason that we sent got sent down to Egypt was to strengthen us so we could learn to be servants to Hashem. All right. The Egyptians saw the Israelites as a big threat. Uh you have to remember when Jacob and his family went down to Egypt, they were 70 people. There were 70 people. They said in the course of a 210y year exile, they multiplied at a supernatural pace. When they left Egypt they numbered 600,000 men over the age of 20 and with women and children there were three million according to most conservative sig figure and since only 20% left Egypt and 80% died in the three days of darkness that means that the total population was 15 million stop and think wait 15 million 15 million and dashi tells us that from the Torah They all left one out of five. One out of five left. So what are we so happy about on on Passover? This was double the Holocaust. 12 million Jews died. 12 million Jews died. They didn't leave. Why did they Why did they die? What What was the difference between the 3 million that got out of Egypt and the 12 million that died in Egypt? The 12 million that died in Egypt, they denied redemption. They denied Hashem. They did. They didn't think that Hashem could take them out. They lacked amuna. The whole business of 210 years of slave was to learn amuna. Learn amuna. After all these lessons, they still don't believe. Then they died. So we say, so why don't we call it a holocaust? Our sages tell us that we don't cry over someone who lacks amuna. If someone was denies Hashem, he's got a big big problem. Especially when Hashem said you're talking about why denying Hashem after seeing the 10 plagues after seeing everything that Hashem done all the miracles and they'll deny Hashem. Okay, this is you're going to stay here and what they did to save embarrassment. The Egyptians they died on the on the night of darkness. The night of darkness which is Egypt said and only three out of 15 million people left. Okay. So this was a trap this whole slavery trap. Pharaoh started was you know really nice speak spoke nice to us as long as Jacob was alive and Jacob was still alive. Jacob the last 17 years of his life were spent in Egypt and Pharaoh knew that this terrible famine that was supposed to last for seven years. It only lasted for two years because of Jacob. And this golden period there was a golden period for the Jews in Egypt as long as Jacob was alive and that lasted only 17 years. So as soon as Jacob died, there was a subtle downgrading of Israel's status. Even though Joseph was the viceroy of Egypt, Pharaoh was like a figurehead, like the queen of England. Joseph would run everything. Joseph was the viceroy, but is really the the prime minister. He ran everything. And he had to ask permission from Pharaoh to bury his father in land of Israel. That's you know Jacob together with Isaac and Abraham and and Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel they're buried in the M cave invon. So in order to bury Jacob Abraham and Isaac and Sarah and Rachel were already buried there. Joseph had to ask permission for Pharaoh. Okay. And he even had to leave his family as collateral behind. In other words, his family, they they couldn't go with him to the land of Israel to the funeral for Jacob's funeral, Jacob's burial because uh Pharaoh was already already he didn't trust didn't trust Israel. But once Joseph died, this was 71 years after the Israelites descended to Egypt, uh Israel lost all of its prestige completely. So finally when the last of the brothers died, the last of the brothers to die was Levi. And this was 94 years after the Israelites ascended to Egypt, then they became slaves. As long as one of the 12 sons was still alive, they weren't slaves. So now we have a situation in Egypt of Torah versus political correctness. We talk about this all the time. We've see this theme throughout history to this day. To this day, it's Torah against political correctness. You see that the the what we call the the modern they want to adjust the they call the so-called modern in Hebrew modern is the letters of uh mod of of revolutionary revoling against the shim when people want to change the religion alter the Torah in other for their own political convenience their own social convenience or whatever and they want to be you know they want to mix in they want to mix in with the masses we don't want to mix in with the masses this is one of our lessons going down to Egypt we just want to stay together with the Muna people. So the midish and Rabba in the first chapter it tells us that the servitude began when Pharaoh played a trick on the unsuspecting Israelites. So Pharaoh was dressed in his royal clothes and he began doing construction work. He went out to construction site where they built the pyramids and all said all loyal Egyptians let them come and join me. started to build the great pyramids. Okay? So the anybody that wanted to show their loyalty to Pharaoh, they went and they they participated. So Pharaoh then said, "Anyone who's loyal to me, pick up a shovel, pick up an all, pick up a tool, get to work. Let's let's build this national monument, the pyramids." Okay? So uh you have to understand this the same thing that happened in Shushan. We learned to pur Morai said don't go to the don't go to the ball don't go to the the royal feast and back then Moses said don't go don't go to don't don't go to Pharaoh none of the Levites Moses told them don't leave your Torah study the Levites continued turning st they didn't they weren't trick the Levites and none of the Levites became slaves the whole time the other tribes the other 12 tri the other 11 of the 12 tribes became slaves not the Levites the Levites were not slaves they were independent they spent their whole time in Egypt learning Torah, serving Hashem. So the others, the other child, they wanted to show their loyalty to Pharaoh and they argue it's important to show loyalty to Pharaoh. Now you Levites, you're you're zealots and what this is is not this is not politically correct. So they weren't suited for that for this work. And Pharaoh himself began mixing bricks and mortar. And so the people wanted to to be nice to Pharaoh. Oh, Pharaoh, you shouldn't do that. Let us do that. So the key word now, Pharaoh said, "Oh, that's all nice of you." And Pharaoh spoke to him really nicely. And the midra says beer. Beer means with a gentle voice. Beer. He spoke to them. And then the came together turned it to turns it to the gentle voice turns it to which is backbreaking labor. So that's exactly what happened. And at beginning he offered them. Mo Farah says, "You're not going to work for free. I'll spend you wages. You'll build PTO and Ramse's. You'll build you'll build the Sphinx. You'll build the pyramids. You okay? But uh you you'll get paid." Well, that was just a promise he didn't keep. And once again, the tribe of Levi did not fall into Pharaoh's trap. They had already declared themselves servants of Hashem. Way back then, we're servants of Hashem. We're not servants of flesh and blood. And they were studied day and night in their study halls in Gan. They had they were studying the Gan was a particular part of it between Alexandria and Sinai in Sinai desert on eastern Egypt uh near the Nile. That's the land of Gan. And they separated. This is the northeast of Egypt. And they separated themselves and stuck to their land. Stuck to themselves did not mix in with the Egyptians. and the fact that their brethren, the other 11 tribes, mixed in with the Egyptians, they fell into the trap of slavery. So the ones who had absolute loyalty to Hashem and to Moses, Moses himself was a Levite. Uh they despised political correctness and they uh avoided slavery where all of their brethren, the other tribes, they were reduced into slavery. Now, Rabbi Alio Desler, Rabbel, he notes that Joseph had a key role in protecting the Levites from enslavement by not enslaving the Egyptian priests during the years of famine. When the Egyptians sold themselves into slavery to avoid starvation, Joseph created an Egyptian law a loophole to avoid enslaving the Israeli priestly tribe as well. He said to Pharaoh, "Look, okay, we said priestly tribes, they're protected. Uh, they had no money. If you remember, in the famine, uh, we fed them. We didn't take away their land. We didn't take away the money. We fed them. Where everybody else had to give in their land, they they sold themselves. They sold their land. They sold their cattle until they finally sold themselves into slavery where Pharaoh, they all became all of Egypt became sharecroppers for Pharaoh. and not uh not the not the priests, but just as Joseph had this loophole in Egyptian law, David the Pharaoh said, "Hey, what about these guys learning Torah?" There was established law. This was the brilliance of Joseph that he protected them. So, it's interesting to note that once again that the Levites were not enslaved. And this is something really interesting. Even though the the Levites were not slaves, they multiplied the least. They had the least amount of children than the other tribes. The tribes has many more children. And this is what the Torah tells us. As they were oppressed, so they multiplied. So the Levites were less oppressed. And they were less multiplied. They were the smallest tribe in every census that was taken in the desert. And they were half the size of the next smallest tribe. There's something interesting to note that despite our difficulties, the more difficulties than the more we have the blessing of children. This is amazing. So ultimately the Israelites endured 116 years of slavery which is the 210 years uh how do we compute that? 210 years were in Egypt and less than 94 years until Levi until Levi died. Levi died. He was the last of the tribe. That leaves 116. So the worst of these 116 years were the last 86 and that was from the year that Miriam was born and was made even worse by the assimilationists that li they thought their lives would be easier if they imitated the Egyptians. This is according to the commentator forno one of our classical Torah commentators and it's exactly when Moses was born. So this is 86 years the time of Moses's life. Moses was 86. who left Egypt. From the time of the birth of Moses to the time that they left Egypt, this was the most most difficult. And in fact, Miriam got her name from bitterness of their lives. Uh Mim means bitter, bitter. It's a plural for bitter. And Miriam comes from the word Mimm. And that is her name that bitterness that there her she was born into a bitter generation. Lives were very bitter and they suffered so much in slavery. So when review of the Torah's account, what the Torah tells us that the old pharaoh died, there was the old pharaoh. Who was the old pharaoh? The old pharaoh and his father and his grandfather, they saw Abraham. They saw Abraham. They saw the miracles that Abraham could do. Now, and they remember now this recent Pharaoh, he saw Joseph. He saw the miracles of Joseph. Joseph literally he brought his father down to Egypt and then and the famine was was stopped. So the new pharaoh ascended to the throne and the new pharaoh he didn't get from the old pharaohs from the father the grandfather great-grandfather he didn't have what we call a mess a tradition that uh the nation of the world they don't tra pass pass it down father to son like we do because they think every generation is smarter than previous generation is what does the old generation know you know let the old let the old-timers let them go out to pasture do whatever but they can't tell us what to do so the new pharaoh had no sympathy Y to the children of Israel and he chose to forget everything that Joseph did for Egypt. Were not for Joseph, Egypt would have died of complete famine. Remember when Joseph uh was brought out of prison and he became the viceroy. He's the one that gave Pharaoh interpret Pharaoh's dreams and said there's going to be seven good years and seven bad years. And he gave Pharaoh the advice that during the good years they should gather the grain and store it. And Pharaoh heard this advice. He did theirs from his wisest people. So he made Joseph his right-hand man. Joseph ended up running all of Egypt. So Pharaoh decided, the new Pharaoh, we're talking about the new Pharaoh, to take action against the growing influence and the numbers of the Israelites that they were multiplying really like crazy. So he called his council together and the council they advis they advised the new pharaoh to enslave them before they come too powerful and it was the new pharaoh that uh that played the trick on them of with the fair with a nice voice and the nice word that turned into bitter hard labor. So have to understand that uh these foreign governments, it's what we learn in ethics of the fathers that they're not our friends. They're not the anti- toward governments. They're not our friends. They're just trying to trick us to do their will rather than Hashem's will. But slavery, it wasn't day and night. All of a sudden, uh they're free, they're free, and the next day they're out in the hot sun bricks for the pyramids. No, slavery began in stages. For first, Pharaoh limited the personal freedom of the Jews and he put heavy taxes on them. Then he recruited the men into forced labor battalions under the supervisions of very harsh task massacres. It's like uh the these kamas terrorists and they just like same thing. And the children of Israel had to build cities. They had to wreck monuments, construct roads, work in quaries. The worst difficult labor. They hewed stones in sun. They made bricks and they made tiles. And the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the harder the restrictions opposed on them. In other words, the more they oppressed them, the more the more they oppressed them, the more became oppressed even more and more and more. So we see the Egyptians have they had an insatiable appetite for oppression, for sadism, for cruelty. There was no limit. No limit. No limit. So now when you see things today where they just today announced something that we didn't even know that uh the youngest victim of October 7th was a 14-day old baby. This was reported today. Can't imagine who would kill a 14-day old baby. This is crazy. What could you learn? Okay, this is this Egyptians was no problem for the Egyptians to do that. They they threw them into the Nile. Okay. So the more Egyptians oppressed them then the more and more the oppression was. It was never they never satisfied. Okay. That's all. Take the they was no limit to the hardship, no limit to the cruelty low to the oppression. So finally when King Pharaoh said that forcing the Hebrews to do hard work, it didn't succeed in suppressing their rapid numbers. They were still multiplying like crazy. He he decreed now that all the newborn male children should be thrown into the Nile River and only the daughters will be permitted to live. So that's the way Pharaoh hoped to end the numerical increase of the Jewish people. But Pharaoh doesn't realize there's Hashem and this is Dory. Shem Pharaoh can think all he wants and plan all he wants. He and all our oppressors throughout history but a takum it's the council of hashem that will be established. So at the same time uh he had pharaoh had to eliminate a danger. Pharaoh's astrologers told him that a leader will arise from the Israelites that will threaten his monarchy and do so. That's why he had to get killed. the one to kill every single male child. But look at Hashem's laughing at him. And meanwhile, that leader is going to be at his own palace. Own palace. So as time goes on, the suffering becomes greater and greater and greater. So by the time Israel left Egypt, there was barely a man in the Israelite nation that like didn't lack a hand, didn't lack a finger, didn't lack an eye, something. They were they were all crippled in some way because of this backbreaking difficult labor and a work accidents and worse than suffering their own bodies. The their own bodies were broken were watching their children being thrown into the Nile and the fish and the alligators and the other scavengers. They had a vast surplus of food that Pharaoh ordered the Jews to gather the decomposing corpses of their own children to make cement to build the pyramids. Can you imagine greater sadism than that? I think that Audi did even the Nazis. So, Pharaoh made the parents of the dead children wait into the Nile and pull out the remains of their own children and smash it into mortar to make cement. It's difficult to say. It's right in the matri matrix exactly. This is an example of the unspeakable cruelty and sadism of the Egyptians. A lot of people aren't aware. They think, you know, this is uh uh the civilian population. What do they want? What's the civilian population? It was Pharaoh's fault. And just like they talked about God civilian civilian population was a civilian population. Pharaoh could not do what he did without the whole civilian population behind him. just throughout history that the civilian population behind the Nazis and the civilian population behind the Inquisition this with and the Pope and all the civilian population and so these we see these unprecedented atrocities the group and and take a look we talk about the whole Aadima you knew that we were slaves in Egypt take a look how terrible the slavery was So the Egyptians they were unsurpassed in their atrocities. You could see that again. But where this is the the roots of kamas. Uh the ancient Egyptians made a concerted effort that every new day of slavery should be difficult than yesterday. In other words, for an Egyptian taskmaster, Egyptian officer, an Egyptian minister all the way up to Pharaoh, this was the whole echelon. If the Jews did not have it harder from one day to another, this was a failure for them. They had thought they all day long. This is what they invested their brain power in in sadism, in cruelty. How can they make the next day more difficult? Take the bricks for example. When Pharaoh first spoke to the Israelites sweetly and offered them a handsome day's wages, they produced a tremendous amount of Pharaoh. What a great boss. They work like crazy and they produce all they had all this incentive and Pharaoh promised them a a nice wage for for every brick. But each day the wage dropped. The wage became lower and lower and lower. And finally the paid labor became forced labor and then the forced labor became outright slavery. We're not finished yet. The Egyptians provided the Israelites with the raw materials to make bricks. They had mortar. They had straw. But then they took the clay away and they had to dig their own clay. Now clay digging is a backbreaking work in itself that the clay d that's one of the most difficult difficult ways to make a living. It was all and it's a meager living. It's a made of pittance. So the original brick quota made the same even though they dig their own clay. And if that was impossible to meet the quota and the Jews were beaten every day. They were beaten and whipped for not meeting the quota. Wait, we're not finished yet. Okay, so the Egyptians took the clay away. Now they took the straw away. So the Israelis had to the Israelites had to wander all over Egypt, which is by no mean Kansas or the lowlands of Scotland that all this green and pasture. No, no way. It's a barren and it's a desert country. To find a little bit of straw, it's impossible. You got to go from one end of the country to the other. But the quotas remain the same. that sent so many people around looking for straw to make the bricks because you mix straw with with clay and with water and the water they that they dragged that from the Nile and backbreaking labor and when they didn't meet the quotas they got punished and punished and beaten and beaten and when a Jew would fall unconscious from sickness or for injury okay no problem now he becomes part of the martyr there's a part of martyr that was forian comes part of the mortar was a martyr and became part of the mortar. Uh so there was no burial. A Jew would drop from exhaustion. It would drop from uh complete injured broken so much. Okay. They bash him like they did the babies and now becomes part of the mortar. So you see within those pyramids, if someone would go inside and look between the bricks and do DNA on the on the on on the bricks inside the pyramids, then you'd find you'd find ancient Jewish DNA, ancient Hebrew DNA all over because there's so there's so many bodies in there. So only Hashem knows how many thousands, tens of thousands of bodies are crushed among the stones of those pyramids. And the mortar back then was used for making cel was for cement. And I think it's every bit as hideous as the gas chambers of the Holocaust. the the gas chambers was that's a much quicker death and being crushed into mortar part of cement that it's terrible. So who's doing all this is Pharaoh was task masters that uh can't emphasize the cruelty that why I mean to be so graphic but understand what Hashem took us from. Understand why we're so happy on on Egypt. Understand what where we're coming from. So if you consider if you read uh American literature and there's a time of the slaves where the uh the African-Americans were in in slavery and the classic Uncle Tom's Cabin has a Simonree Simon was a slave driver and Simonree take this word slave driver if you compare him to an Egyptian taskmaster maybe Simonree was a character from Walt Disney or Sesame street because when a Jew would he would not f would not succeed he couldn't succeed to fulfill the quota of the 400 bricks that he made the very first day when Pharaoh was smiling at him and and give him the money then the taskmaster what he would do so what he do when he didn't first thing he would take one of the children's children one of one of the the Israelite workers children and he would choke him and then force the Jew to make mortar out of his own child. So this even worse than pulling a child out. Okay, because you didn't make your service to Pharaoh, then we're going to kill one of your kids. And this would go that they they saw their their kids killed and how we continued multiply. This is beyond nature. Beyond nature under such suffering, under such this was an one long black knight holocaust. Okay. that uh every folly violation that cost and cost and their children. So later right before Shem sent Moses back to Egypt with a message of let my people go the Egyptian task masters began killing Israeli an Israelite child for every day's unfilled quota. Not only for that for every missing brick. Every missing brick. Okay. If somebody had 10 children and they made 390 bricks instead of 400 bricks, they kill all the 10 10 their children. You cannot imagine. It cannot imagine. So don't think that the children spent their days in kindergarten and on the playgrounds. They too had to labor in the hot sun. And when they faltered and fell down the mortar and they couldn't get up once again, they'd become part of the mortar. And there were no doctors. There were no nurses, no medic, no medications, no first aid, no bandages. And often they were denied water in the hot Egyptian sun. And they died of thirst or dehydration. And their lips, mouth, and skin were always cracked and always bleeding from the dust and the dried clay. The clay that gets on your skin when you work in cement. If you ever worked in cement, cement is it dry. It dries and it cracks your skin. Clay is the same thing. Now, Jewish mothers, what does Hashem do? Jewish mothers would normally give birth to sixuplets, but every pregnancy they had they had six children. So, imagine that she has six newborns to care for and another 6, 12, 18, 24 kids at home. So, the taskmaster, he couldn't care less. He couldn't care less. uh the mother would be taken right after childbirth and forced hard labor out in the construction sites and as became many of the Israelite mothers they fled away to the far fields uh to give birth and we can now understand what the midwives Shiffra and Pua they said to Pharaoh when he complained that they didn't adhere to the command of throwing the babies into the Nile they said the Jewish women are like wild animals and they give birth in the fields so in order that Pharaoh wouldn't catch their children gave birth in the fields and often they would escape to the fields and they would raise their children in the fields. So imagine a mother going through the pain of labor and childbirth and while she's still suffering immense pain an Egyptian taskmaster drowns her newborns and that's why we say that the atrocities in Egypt were unprecedented. Okay. So we have to have something's got to change. So now we have the birth of Moses. Let's talk about Moses. Just as slavery is becoming the worst that it could possibly be, Moses is now born. Now, Moses' mother, Yv, was a Levite. And the fact that she was a Levite, she was not a slave. So, she hid her son for 9 months until it was no longer possible to hide him. And she made a little crib. She made a little raft, a little crib. She took straw and mortar that like like tar and made a little raft for him. and she sent him floating in the Nile. And Moses' seven-year-old sister Miriam, she sent Miriam to hide in the reeds to see what would become of the baby in the little raft. Okay? In the little ark. Uh so with Hashem's phenomenal divine direction, at the same time, Pharaoh's daughter, Batya, she was bathing in the Nile and she was ritually purifying herself from her father's idolatry. Batya was on a very high spiritual level and she knew that her father's idolatry was not the real thing. And Batya had made her own connection to creator. She knew there was one creator. Okay? So she would go to the Nile and the Nile is a kosher mikvah and she would bathe herself in in the Nile. So now she sees this baby. She knew the baby was from the Israelites, but she took the baby. She took the baby home and raised it as her own. Now, Moses growing up in the palace, it's story after story of Hashem's divine providence. Uh the Pharaoh's advisers say that that baby that your adopted baby is going to grow up and rebel against you. Pharaoh says, "No, he's such a cute kid is my my adopted my adopted grandson." And still on his lap. So, they decided to make a test to Moses. They put a plate of gold and a plate of hot coals. And here's a little baby little toddler. I don't know how old Moses was, maybe two, two and a half. And they say wherever he reaches for, if he reaches for the gold coins, which 99 out of 100 babies reach for the gold coins as a glitter, not the the hot coals. Okay, this means that he wants to take Pharaoh's throne. And to reach the hot coals means he's loyal. So as Moses was about to reach for the gold coins that Hashem sent the angel Gabriel and moved his hands and the hot coals and Moses burned himself and one thing says that his lips even kiss out that's why Moses stuttered that the hot coal touched his lip and Pharaoh said see that's right he's good loyal to me. So Moses as he grew up Moses knew that he was a Jew. So when he was 20 years old, he went out to see what's going on. What's his brethren? He he knew that. But and he saw it. It broke his heart. He broke his heart. So when Moses saw an Egyptian taskmaster really being nasty to one of the Hebrews, uh Moses told him to back off and he says, you know, you think you're telling what to do? And so Moses was was very strong. Uh there's two different accounts in the midish. One says that Moses gave him one shot for the solar plexus. Another thing that Moses said Hashem's holy name. Either way, Moses killed him. And then Moses buried him in the sand. And we have two Israelites from the tribe of Reuben and Aram that give Moses difficulty throughout the shall we ask why were they allowed to leave Egypt when all the the evil that they died inside Egypt? Well, this was to be Moses had to have a nemesis. They were the the nemesis of Moses. So they they tattled they revealed to that Moses killed the Egyptian taskmaster. So then Pharaoh put a bounty on Moses' head and said Moses is got he's going to be brought to trial for murder. He's got to kill Moses. So Moses had to go into exile. So Moses goes down into Africa and and then he came back to Midian. Midian is between Sinai and Jordan. Uh and then Moses ultimately meets Jethro. Jethro was the greatest priest of idolatry that there was. He was one a former adviser in Egypt. And Jethro also he wisened up and he began to believe in one God. And when Moses comes to him and they made a test of Moses, Moses eventually married Seora which was one of uh Jethro's seven daughters. Okay, so 50 or 60 years later, Moses is tending Jethro's sheep. Is following a sheep in the desert. And Moses sees this burning bush. And he comes close to burning bush. He says, "This is amazing. It's this little burning bush and it doesn't extinguish. It's like a a desert. It's called in Hebrew a rotim like a a brier bush and it burns in a couple seconds." Muslims have got a fire and firefight doesn't burn. Moses, he came closer to see this phenomenon, this supernatural phenomenon. And then he heard Hashem's voice that don't come closer and take your shoes off because you're on a hallowed ground. And then Hashem says to Moses, he wants to send him as a messenger to free the children. Moses's other utter humility says he's not capable of doing it and have the argument back and forth. We see this in the in in Exodus, the book of Exodus. So Moses eventually, of course, he's got to do Hashem's will. So he returns to Egypt and then uh he has his confrontation with Pharaoh and that we will pick up next week in part two, part two about the confrontation of Moses and Pharaoh. Okay. So one thing will make a conclusion of tonight's lesson. We say in the seder on Hagata night that we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord our God took us out from there with a strong arm and with with a strong hand outstretched arm. So if the holy one blessed be he had not taken our fathers out of Egypt then we our children our children's children would have remained as slave to Pharaoh and Egypt. So even if all of us were wise and all of us understanding and all of us know the Torah, we would still be obligated to discuss the Exodus of Egypt with everyone who that uh everyone who discusses the Exodus of Egypt at length is praiseworthy. So why do we say let's ask that question about this and in the Hagut? What we say in this part of the gut? Why do we say that we'd still be slaves? What guaranteed we know we would still be slaves? Because people today are making the same mistakes that the ancient Israelites made. Rather than following the role of the Levites and becoming servants of Hashem and servants of Amuna, rather than slaves to flesh and blood, people subjugate themselves to wage slavery, to social slavery, social pressure, habit slavery, uh material possession slavery, all types of things that people are enslaved in. Passover reminds us that by subjugating ourselves to the service of Hashem and Amuna, we are truly free and there's no other freedom. And bashem with every blessing, we hope to see you next week for part two of our story of Passover. Meanwhile, God bless for a wonderful Shabbat and great week. [Music]