Parshat Shemot: Finding Dignity By Rabbi Ari Kahn

so we are at a new book we are uh in Egypt so so we we do know that everything which is here has really been not just predicted but prophesized it was part of the Brit of and what God had revealed to a so we are now with the new generation which absolutely sounds like a so one of the things about gud is that gud seems to provide us with certain you know there's an agenda and and it takes place I mean by the way no one misunderstand me it could be that it's already to be accomplished and you don't have to stay there any longer but we do have to note that the the Jews somehow it was necessary for them to become to multiply like this part of God's plan is that it takes place in Egypt you know for that matter we can point at the Torah being given in the in the desert outside of the land for that matter you know the the tud bav which is quite quite um influential is something which comes from outside of land so it's interesting how and when gal is used and in what ways it's used and obviously there's a lot more to talk about it but in this particular case this uh this population explosion that takes place is something which is going to very much frighten our new King again doesn't say is interesting andal already look into it the meaning is this that he's trying not to recognize yph and he's trying not to be involved because again arguably speaking Yosef should have had an incredible impact on Egypt on the economy on the culture and uh it's it's just so hard for us to imagine on the other hand maybe that's what we should imagine no matter how big and how important and how influential New Generation comes and people forget the sometimes minor and sometimes even major characters from previous generations so that itself is very uh is something which is worthwhile noting Isel so he calls them a nation he identified them as a separate people so already I mean if you want to and I guess especially today although it seems like every year we find reasons to but one can listen carefully for the anti-semitic overtones they are a nation but a separate nation they're not regular citizens they are this other element which are not to be trusted they're already becoming more numerous than than we Areo so let's treat them in a clever way and you know this is the evil clever way not the nice clever way less they become even more of them so then this whole imaginary uh threat that that he that he presents is that we are not loyal Citizens We're a separate nation if there is a war we're going to join the other side and then we're going to leave so now if we're another Nation so what's bad about us leaving you know if there's so many of us than why do you want us there so are there contradictory elements there perhaps could you try to come out with an explanation that's going to reconcile the various elements I'm sure that one could but but if we're dealing with a classic anti-semitic diet tribe so I don't have to reconcile it I can say they don't like us we're not part of it they don't want us to leave they don't want us to stay and uh let's find something useful for us there are perhaps historically some reasons that may have led to this and this new king may have been himself an outsider and what is going on there I I'll just mention that but I'm not going to go through any further conjecture so now they want to and by the way that word anoto is important because that perhaps is going to fulfill the that so if you want to you can even now imagine that this new par was quite familiar with aam's prophecy and essentially he's an evem on of and all that he's interested is fulfilling God's word and this is what God's wants at this point he wants them to be strangers in this land and therefore he's now going to be abusing them as per the biblical prophetic uh tradition that he has received so I hope you all find that somewhat absurd but nonetheless we can't ignore that word over here because it is important and they can yous no matter how much they're abused they keep on multiplying your froats sounds like a echo of the that yov receives but then a real interesting word that I want to stay on a bit so now what exactly does this word vutu mean so a quick accessible English translation is here below they were filled with loathing because of the children of Israel so vutu is not a nice word but the question is again what does it mean so if you look at source number two so that is would seem to be a similar word so Rashi here writes in Source three I find it disgusting I mean that's the word m which is very strong that right then we would then hear this again this anti-semitic overtones they found the Jews despicable and disgusting people now as I said what I just now did is I found a word which is I think the same word I found a Rashi explaining that word although Rashi over here may not go in the same direction so give me a second but because we find it another place and also it seem to be an anti-Semitic episode in Source number four by the very similar so let's look at the Rashi plural so Rashi in beginning of schot which is where we started so now you understand how similar that is to and but he doesn't doesn't help us much because when you translate a word based upon the same word omu and we have a tradition that what this means is like thorns in their eyes which is not a nice or Pleasant thing rash in right by so you see now why I had to go back to the other one because in the in these other places Rashi just uses the same word and that's really the words of R but there Rashi writes and I have no reason to believe that Rashi is looking at me differently I would even like to believe that Rashi trusts us and uh trusts our memory and the first time it came up he gave us the definition then afterwards he assumes that we remember from the previous time but that's important because if this is the case then we have these various episodes which yes I'm think are important to to compare and that is parro and the Egyptians response to the Jews and then you have in parad Bak you have the whole beginning of that episode leading to Bam which is also both of them have this disgust that they feel towards all of these Jews the Jews are everywhere and whether numerically we really are that much or whether it's an exaggeration on the part of the haters is also something which I don't know the real answer to but nonetheless I think it's uh I think it's interesting um we can skip a little bit and go down to the and go down to the source number 10 now that is particular I'll I'll translate and explain but that's particularly interesting especially you know where we are again and our minds are still post October 7th or maybe stuck on October 7th but what he's saying is his concern again let's just divide between two things we have we have parro and ancient Egypt and we have theam S so theam Sofer is telling us oh what's going on that God made the Jews despicable in order to protect them sexually from the advances of the Egyptians who would otherwise act in a most inappropriate way I'm going to just stay where we're up to this in the but I want to go backwards great so that's our we're going to come back to but I want to go backwards and maybe just read a little bit further in the text itself over here so we were up to right they work them hard they made their lives better again making them work with Incredible difficulty so he approaches the Jewish or now this is a little hard to translate midwives is it the Jew is the midwives who were Jewish or The Midwives for the Jews so that is m one is Sher one is Po if it is a male kill him and keep the girls alive so I just have to there po pause for a second and ask why would this make logical sense to get rid of the males and to keep the females I mean what good can females possibly be so I'm sorry for putting it like this but if their whole concern is they really want this incredible bu building project to go on you know they want unlimited pyramids so it could be that some of the men may be strong and experience to know exactly how to build pyramids but when you are reading the whole context over here it's almost unavoidable that the reason they're making them work is not because the projects are that important the meason reason they're making them work is in order to Tire them out and to punish them and to uh try to get rid of them the the instruction to get rid of all the new ones we have enough Jews we don't need any more of them but you know kill all the men but keep the girls so apparently parl thinks that maybe the girls can come in quite handy as we move on so I I hope I am being delicate enough as far as what exactly this text is saying but now you go back and you think about that s so but before we go back there but we're told that the mot have fear of God and they uh they avoid this now again that took a great deal of Bravery to be able to do this this I pointed out in the past that the language that they they fear God I I think goes together with you know those who remember or don't remember yose that's what it says about ysf when ysep is trying to avoid sexual impropriety so we're told that Yosef says to Atif but I Fear God so it's interesting you know to read this whole section over here with parro's really bad intentions regarding the girls he wants to fill up the harms he wants there to be plenty of girls around for his own personal or perhaps others enjoyment and uh and pleasure and over here their fear of God then becomes much closer to yosef's in order to avoid any of that possible sexual impropriety and we're told that nonetheless they keep on becoming numerous e and parro comes up eventually the better plan and that is just let's kill them all and throw them one into the river and let's go back to the for now he he writes that God did this in order to protect the Jewish girls and then he tell he's going into the mid there was one woman of questionable moral character while all of the others were and therefore they were able to protect themselves the Egyptian men would not go and be attracted to them so it's really interesting because he's reading this anti-semitic attitudes that exist from the Egyptians to the Jews that the Jews are just so disgusting to them that that is a blessing from God in order to protect them during this Exile so therefore they won't be touched and then and then he says something which is interesting which is um which which is exactly what I was looking for and thinking of and I'll have to spend the rest of the time trying to explain this and then he says but afterwards the the Jews had all of this uh and and the Egyptians found them attractive and it says but then they had this point had been so intimidated by by that point when it's told this is chapter 11 so already nine plagues have hit them so they were already too frightened to act on their uh negative instincts and so therefore initially we have they find the Jews disgusting and therefore they wouldn't touch them afterwards they find the Jews they're afraid of them so they wouldn't touch them so either way in the's beautiful world all of the Jews are are unmolested and all that I can say is I know that this is the madik approach as well and know I can can say is Hali right so uh I I I I hope and wish that is uh in fact that is the case um he does something similar inid when he comes back to that and again I in my mind I just put these two texts together not knowing immediately that others would but again I I think it's obvious and he saw you know I think it's clear that Rashi and others thought they should be together but he says black and white I already explained back over there in order to protect the women and he says all of this about the sexual topic is in the background over here and this also is going to be part part of the eventual plan that bam is going to have and I want you to keep bam in mind because again I think there's something interesting we're told finds discusting right they they find the Jews disgusting so therefore what do we have to do you have to take away the Jewish belief as long as they're walking around their stars of David that's not going to work we have to put have them walk around instead with the star of I don't know of what do you want to call it of uh of of right you have to walk around with a necklace and then it'll work and they had no idea how well this was going to work and he quotes the that the greater the person the right so again has his prophecy and he sees when he sees the greatness of the again I want to see exactly what he's referring to over here so again it's interesting because essentially what theam S is doing is he's presenting these two episodes as two sides of the same coin one is the episode that takes place in Egypt where they are found to be completely disgusting on the other hand it says that when it came to that episode which which eventually the Jewish men are going to sin so you have a similar or perhaps an inverse Dynamic I just want to note something which again all of us have in the back of our minds and maybe this is going to help us a lot in terms of understanding it in Source number 12 and 13 we have the same midash it's the midash that tells us that Paro had a number of advisers the way it's found in the gar in the in the pot that they were cooking is how they got cooked what are we talking about so again it's interesting because what he was here talking about was the of there three involved in this in in advising param andam who gave advice he was killed who was silen he went and experienced his own pain and suffering ran away he ends up joining the Jewish people and he ends up having illustrious descendants in I said it's very very similar it starts with also with the I don't know if I need to read this as well it's again almost word for word um note CU you didn't know what he was talking about about the cooking and about the the and so look at source 14 this this when arrives so the question is what does that mean writes so I I know that this did not was not completely clear yet but let's let's try to make a little bit sense out of this yra runs away right yra runs away okay so we have the three advisers parro says what are we going to do about the Jewish problem so billum says genocide right now it's interesting the word which is in both the bilham and in the Pyro episode that's where we started this idea that they found in disgusting and billum then seems to realize we have to get past this but what do they find disgusting it's our religion they don't like our religion they don't like Jews again this is not the modern where Christ killers and so on and so forth they didn't like us as Jews and therefore we need to some have solv the Judaism and that's where the poar comes in so therefore according to this the the Bal is is performed in order to get the Jews to sin sexually and again it's interesting to read that section which was the worst sin was the worst sin the sexual misbehavior or was it they reject God and are worshiping poar I think if you read through that section you you at least have a question and it's not as simple as it's being presented over here let me put it like this but what's interesting is the other two of course EO is going to be a question IO is silent because that's what IO is he's silent and therefore IO can't feel anybody else's pain and you know to be again let's to be completely clear if you're Switzerland during a holocaust you're not neutral being neutral against a genocide is not neutrality it's it is being complacent and therefore you cannot feel the pain of others then perhaps you need your own pain to be able to respond so over here when parro and billum are discussing the final solution an e is silent so therefore his silence is one which causes him to deserve his own punishment but again what would we read about yro yro Bak yro ran away so now where did we get the Barak from Barak is also a good uh a good word so let let's just go down a little bit we'll try to come back to some of these so if if we go back to Moshe Source 18 right so Moshe comes gets involved you're gonna kill us so right so the the of Moshe the running away of Moshe here is parallel to the running away of hitro and where does Moshe run away to of course he runs away to yro so therefore we have a runaway path over here so it's interesting because it sounds as if mosha is following a path which already existed before and who created that path that was the yro path The yro Runaway Train utra ran away from that genocide and mosha runs away and again there's obviously a lot more to say about this I I I I just want to you know say in passing that you know mosha at this point is trying to do the right thing if you want to compare mosha to the three advisers of parro mosha over here is uh is getting involved by the way it's very interesting to compare to the three because according to the midash you know we mentioned be schom yeah she was saying Shalom to everybody schom thank you so she was the one who talked too much but but according to the midra Rush that's what the fight was about the fight was that that Mitri had walked out of her bedroom and after having sent her husband to work the night shift and he comes back and finds this guy walking out of the bedroom and therefore that's where they started to that's where they started to fight so again it's interesting to me that again the advisors over here and you know the the context of this so mosha is running away follows jro's running away yro thinks that all of this is immoral which then creates even before yro becomes a Believer yro is nonetheless immoral person Moshe gets involved because there's immorality which is taking place and mosha tries to stop the immorality and therefore this Egyption is guilty and therefore what mosha is doing is the correct thing there is an interesting midash that I just want to note on right so again so mosha tries to save the Jew and the Jews and therefore gets involved and he's told go mind your own business and that's where Mo and not only that apparently they they tell on him and they report Moshe which means over here you have people who who are not ready to be redeemed the Redeemer is there trying to redeem them at least in some sense if you want perhaps in a micro sense he's trying to save some people and instead what happens is he gets reported for committing a crime okay I guess it could be a crime to kill an Egyptian to protect a Jew but why would a Jew go and Report Moshe for doing that and mosha runs away R salivic by the way builds up very much in the idea that mosha runs away disappointed thinking these Jews are not ready for Redemption who knows when they'll ever be ready but uh they they don't want to leave I mean they they identify with the slave mentality they tell on mosha for protecting a Jew and apparently uh may maybe maybe this is not going to happen and by the way till this point mosia has not received a prophecy but he's received perhaps a tradition maybe he has been taught the Brit ban ofum nonetheless you just toose this with Moshe coming out and seeing these girls being picked on again Moshe is protecting the woman he's protecting the victim so you have a yes you have a Redemption taking place and Moshe who could not be the savior in in Egypt because they chase him away and then mosha becomes a savior here so now now the girls come home and we've discussed this many times and only a father of seven single daughters can come could speak with such disappointment and he says an Egyptian man saved us so essentially all work was done quickly and a man saved us and and where is he and they invite him over I find it interesting that they feed him bread I'm not sure how the bread works with each Egyptians not eating bread or eating bread with Hebrews I'm not sure exactly what to do with all of that but I did want to mention the midash it's in mid Raba and some other places when they say the mid says but it can't be M because mosha is not a MIT so yes there's one approach to Mid he's not a MIT he dressed like a m like a MIT there's a terrible terrible continuation of that that Yosef is described as an as a i and Mos described as a MIT and therefore ysep is buried in Egypt and therefore Moshe couldn't be bu sorry moshe's sorry ysep is therefore buried in in in Israel and Moshe is not because he looks like an ish mitz how much you going to blame Moshe who's born there grown up there did you expect I mean where he supposed to find a Becker store where is he supposed to find himself a Frack I mean just think about that for a second it doesn't seem to me to be all that Ser all that simple or obvious that Moshe should have been dressing otherwise and that's one approach to the midash but the other approach is fascinating because when it says ISU an Egyptian saved us Mo they say to mosha literally Yash that's what the M says the girl say to MOS why because they're nice from girls what do from girls say when a when when when an Jew does something good they say so they say and Moses says it wasn't me he what mean it wasn't me he says it was all because of the ish he goes what ish he goes ish who was beating the Jew so that that he's the guy that saved you that's where it came from I mean Moshe is telling the whole story how did I end up here I ended up here cuz I because I saved the Jews was Ish so it's the ish that save you don't think me was is now first of all this midash is tapping in to an incredible level of moshe's modesty mosha is modest I don't want any credit it wasn't me it's just because of circumstance that I ended up over here the other thing is when you think about Moses's final action you know as leader where his leadership's taken away and that's of course when he hits the rock and makes it sound like he is making the W to come out of the rock as if he's taking credit for it so if Moshe gets his position as Savior because he takes no credit then he loses it when he takes credit so I just thought that was really an interesting midash and uh and I don't think it's the one that we normally uh normally pay attention to so who who wrote to me I don't know who iPhone is Loi knew it big Adam so I'm going to tell you a secret about that you're you're correct or it's actually Lam V Lush wasn't changed um yes we're familiar with the teaching the Jews didn't change their names and they didn't change their language didn't change their clothing there's also a fourth one maybe didn't reveal their secret that they didn't change their their clothing the badim or the Lush is not there in I'll say 90% of the midrash that speak about this there may be one odd midrash that mentions it this was actually a after the Jews left the ghetto teaching where they said oh the Jews three things and one of the things are not changing Lush it it is very important till today inic circles not to take the Lush of uh of the modern people of the non-jews and it be it is actually a very modern teaching and it is not really there I know really I'm qualifying it but it's not really there in the ancient sources it only became popular after the Jews left the ghetto as a counter to leaving the ghetto not to change the Lush and uh I I'll leave it at that but if you go again you start looking for it you'll see it's not really there as much as one would have thought that it's there okay so let us continue because there was a place that I wanted to get to what we have over here and again I want to go back you know a bit we we have the Jews who are looked upon as being uh disgusting if you look at the inah so the it's great what he just now did he flipped it around he goes why do they find the Jews disgusting because they knew deep down how important and how smart and how successful they are he knew they saw how many Nobel prizes the Jews are going to live are going to win and uh again you have to love the it's not what the PK says I just want to say this but it's what the wants to say him it's the Egyptians felt like uh like like worthless irrelevant people next to the Jews so it's so great that somebody can give this interpretation and he goes right and he goes straight to and he goes but think about it it's the opposite of originally when when the when the brothers of ysep came what happened second look at s why look at this you know we got one y and look how we changed the economy and he's so smart and and Pyro said is there anybody as smart of him anybody as capable what would what would happen to Egypt if they had 10 yss well first of all if they or not then 12 yoses if you have 12 of them the problem is 11 of them or 10 of them will try to kill one of them that's one problem you going to have but can they get along with one another and and Yosef actually pushes them away from the Limelight but he's noticing over here you know come on the Egyptians knew how talented and how great the Jews are part so therefore it's an extension of Loya Yosef they know Yosef and the brothers and how and how great they were but he's like doubling down on that you know this is that that's what it uh that's what it really means we'll go to the flip side when God speaks to Moshe by the SN right peric gimmel the burning bush there are stages over here and we're not going to you know read everything we're not going to read the whole chapter but what we do see is that God comes and God gets involved in history and God sees and hears and understands and wants to to help and as he's telling Moshe all the things that are going to happen you're going to come serve on this mountain and you're going to be taken out and gather them together and let them know I'm you're going to take them to and they're going to listen and so on and then towards the end and he go yeah I know it's not going to happen as easy as I'm describing till now and therefore I'll be able to strike them you know with all of my power which I'll do in their midst and only then they're going to send them which means there's a process this is not going to happen as quick as you want it's not going to happen immediately there's a process and they're going to get punished so now this is the flip side of what we saw before the flip side of finding them despicable we loathsome is that they're going to find them they'll find the they'll find them so so wonderful when you say it's one of the things that you say is that people should see your people should see the good side of you people should see how wonderful you are and therefore why cuz people people are scared and xenophobia and and and people are scared of strangers and they only see the negative so the that we say is that we want people to see the positive side of us so when the Egyptian slavery begins they only see the negative and they find it loathsome which again the says there's a silver lining in that but now God says no when they leave they're going to see the Egyptians are going to see you okay perhaps in a different light and see the positive I'll read that as and therefore when they leave they won't leave empty-handed and then when you leave you're not going to leave empty-handed it get in some detailed you're going to go and you're going to take all kinds of things silver and gold and clothing and so on and you're going to empty out Egypt so let's keep in mind going back to the Brit which I keep mentioning verse 21 right there the that's the that we mentioned before the Doom that we saw along the way there's going to be a judgment take place of course you can ask why there should be judge the following God's plan well let's judge how to what extent they're following it by the way no one said over here anything about killing babies or throwing them into the into the river or or so on and then they're going to leave with great wealth so now you realize here that the Judgment which is taking place which is really in the previous SCE cuff they're not going to go right away the judgment is going to cause the punishment and plagues and suffering and on the other hand when they leave they're not going to leave empty-handed which means um I'm really think that that's the way that we should be reading this as directly connected so but I I just want to sharpen this because we're going to find a bunch of different opinions as to why we're going to leave BR which means if God wanted us to have money there's lots of ways to do it first of all and again I'm not getting paid to give God advice but if he wants to take it you know we can have great oil reserves you know in our uh in our country it seems to work well by the way I also think that we should work as hard as as possible to support and to create you know other types of energy you know the electric cars I think are wonderful if we can get rid of all of the dependency on oil it will change the not just the politics of the Middle East it changes the influence that certain countries are having on American colleges by giving all of that oil money over I mean again just realize what's going on if if suddenly all of that oil money disappeared and there was other types of energy uses there there are absolute implications to all of this but that's it I'm stopping to talk about politics but what I do want to understand is if God wanted us to have money there's lots of ways to do it we could have found gold along the way we could have found it you know we could it could have been all kinds of ways again I don't have to give advice to this so let's start withi says ver 22 so what what he did a couple things here first of all he said this is Hal that God keeps Hala which means we're going to find that when when servants or slaves are are released that we need to send them with we need to send them with something so over here follows so when the Jews leave they have to leave with uh things so therefore even though the Egyptians may not want to do this in their own free will and yes there's a just like God is going to harden his heart in order for him to get punished God is going to soften their hearts in order to open up the bank account and the wallets and the and give away the silver and the gold but why because it's so again I want you to hear that clearly thei is starting us off and telling us there's a that they have to keep in Source number 23 and I'm sure this is not the first or the only but it was avable they're not gonna go empty-handed so essentially what is it it's uh it's it's payment for for work the truth is you can see this in the gumar as well the gar the gamar says pretty much says this but as I said this is very succinct and clear so while the saying it's because that's how you release a slave who worked for free quot and quote all this time but when they leave you have to give them something while theal is saying no it's as if saying in retrospect they were never slaves because they deserve the payment for what they did which means you you had no right to enslave them so there is a SL both theun are essentially giving you a argument but they're giving you two different arguments one is giving you in terms of rules of uh rules of people that work for you and the other is rules of slavery which means it would be in two different books in the ramban in terms of what what it is what the payment is over here I S gave a Shear that he that he wrote up it's actually in his book but with lots of changes that he was sent out last week and theen relationship so essentially should it be in the laws of mat laws OFA or should it be in in the laws of Tor and there's na is that I would think that there's a third possibility could be the laws of the partnership so therefore again if you just want to play with this a little bit it's the laws of staka so then uh whoever laws of staka means you give somebody who's closer to you somebody who's closer relationship so geographically should take precedent or even though you can argue excuse me do not live in the same cities that would seem to reject that possibility if you say it's a law of T Torah so then perhaps it has a complete meaning this is how this person's connected to Torah and it actually very much sounds that way from the way the writes it shoot would have a terrible Naina because if it was shoot so then they're Partners so what happens if the businessman loses money that year so I guess the ISA has got to pay him back because they're Partners so therefore he's he's at a deficit and he has money he's got to take care of him because that's what happened with partners and that's aor that will never be said in Yesa so we'll just leave that on the side but it's interesting over here the difference and theal is how I analyze this the laws of a the laws of slaves who were freed that they need to go with some kind of a parting gift or no they were never slaves and they need to be paid because they had worked during this uh time um let say [Music] he says essentially there was no prohibition of taking anything because they're all dead people walking and they had no rights to anything anymore because they're all about to die mean how's how's that for for an interpretation over here a little different from all the others yeah you could take what you want since all of them are going to die you could certainly take any of their money and therefore he sees the taking of the money as a precursor to understanding that what's going to happen and uh and then he continues and so on he says no they didn't follow what the BR B said they went further so therefore they simply have forfeited their rights to all kinds of things including their lives including their money so let go take whatever you want so it's interesting cuz he's actually reading that you're going to go that's part of I'm going to judge them and therefore they're going to go because they're not deserving of holding on to anything which they own anymore the is really interesting because he writes right and so on it's one of the mitv one of the mitv is when you leave Egypt you need to take it and uh and the reason why it's interesting is look at source 26 because that's the go to back on perim but per what happens again we'll have to look at this this verse soon goes how can you say that mosha went against the and didn't take anything so says no must be the people when and said that that the estimation of Moshe was so great it must be the people were throwing things at him as well mosha take this mosha take that no we're still missing something over here but as I said this is radical because it's saying not just you're allowed to take you can take no a mitz say and again he doubles down on it by saying how could it be that mosha didn't take so it has to be that mosha took you know it had to be M and yes the med is found in the G in Egypt so so maybe there's a little bit attitude there against the Egyptians over here I could just imagine who's writing it at which point it's being written and says no everyone's got to take this is a mitv say these people are horrific people and we need to take what we deserve and it it almost sounds like an Tak kind of thing here but as I said he just goes a little further than everyone else does look at the rashbam because the rashbam is beautiful he says what do you need to take clay he says it's going to be they need to have nice jewelry yes all the men you know the you need to buy your wife's jewelry before the so what if there's no jewelry stores to buy jewelry but there's some people who have jewelry so he says yeah this fits completely into this idea it's not that we need it's not the payment and it's not the former slaves no you need Nice Clothing you need nice jewelry for you un we don't have any so therefore we had to take so as I said he's just taking this in a completely different direction um we had the S before we can go back back to him 28 Co totally going cabalistic on us that there are holy Sparks that need to be taken out by the way that is one of the explanations that we have for Exile that there's Holiness that somehow needs to be elevated and there's all kinds of implications of this concept what are you talking about that was our money to begin with ysep was the one who collected all of this so we're just taking out our family's money we're taking it out which kind of seeped into the Egyptian economy and therefore it's all holy it's part of yosef's providing food for everybody taking care of everybody it's yosef's money and and you also realize this is not such an easy read but it's fascinating nonetheless that he's saying that essentially it's our money so we're just taking it's our heirlooms that were Borrowed by the Nazis during the war and we're taking it back this is this is ours it's it's it's not even payment it's not payment for working it's not payment for leaving no this was our money and we're taking it so first of all I really hope that you appreciate how many different directions we have people trying to explain you know this idea that we're taking the money we we're going to move and see a couple things from RAV Sal so this is in the if you don't have it you should have it I think it's the best thing to go to if you don't have Torah go straight there you'll find ra salich on each P great great job by Dr Arie ler um I actually was in contact with a little bit about this but you you you'll see something interesting soon um this he's taking from the and he writes as follows I will put these this people's favor in the eyes of the Egyptians will come to pass when you go you will not go empty-handed God reveals this deta to mosha well before The Liberation has even commenced because this promise was an integral part of the Israelites Liberation From Slavery a slave has no rights of acquisition everything that slave owns belongs to the master the fact that the Egyptians would allow the Israelites to acquire their own possessions clearly demonstrates their newly freed status so the r just turned this into in terms of leaving I mean he by the way he does the same thing in terms of the Seder night we we tell over to our children we're telling testimony a slave is pus a slave can't tell over a testimony so therefore the the events that take place in leaving Egypt are themselves things which help turn us into free people so over here the ability to own possession so therefore that act where the owner of the slave gives the I'm want to stress something former slave possessions because normally whatever A Slave picks up by the way pure halakic analysis what a slave picks up belongs to the master so now if the slave can own something by himself orgo he's no longer a slave so that's really what the rub is doing over here he's saying is that this is going to show that they're freed furthermore the freeing of slaves is often a degrading experience for the slave since he is penniless when he leaves his master gifts only given to one who is respected not only will the Israelites be freed from slavy respected by the Egyptians now it's this last part that I actually want to come back to and develop a little bit more yeah touch one more thing this idea that the Jews were seen in a disgusting way in Source 32 we just have another example of it this is when MOS and Aon finally went to parro and parro then says I never heard of God then doubles down and says you're going to have to go collect your own wheat and so on and the leaders who were told mosha were told leaders who are told this are horrified and that's Source 32 so what does that mean so the English translation that I found writes for you have befouled us in the eyes of parro so what is beow me so you see this little footnote literally made our odor stink you may that that it's it's like it's like a weak old Herring which you find there there's one guy who uh occasionally comes down my sh happens there lot of the morning but he told us a legend this is a legend that we we can't forget he said that the legend is there was one guy in his scho and queens the Sho closed down the guy I don't believe is alive but he would come to the kiddish and they would see that he would take Herring home he would take Herring for the kidish and put it in his pocket so I don't want to think about that all that much imagine if he left that I don't even know how you put it herring in your pocket but can you imagine if you find the herring in your pocket from 3 weeks ago so that's the image that I have right over here so you thinking you made our odor stink just think herring in the pocket that that that's what it is the Jews left the kiddish theying herring in the pocket but um that's what they're complaining you're you're making us disgusting by the way that's a great great thing to say until now they thought so much of us till now they loved us so by the way the same term is used by Yakov in Source 32 it's the same word you've caused trouble making me repugnant to those who dwell in the land so I don't know yeah and over here by the way same translation same same work we probably literally to make me reak so I don't know why they in the two places they gave different definitions made our odor stink make me week okay but it's it is the same thing and it's interesting because that's you know that has to be cancelled the or reversed so now let's go back to the verse that I already mentioned this is when it gets actually implemented and so on this is why it becomes yeah it's GNA work because God is going to make them favorable now which again I'll say is the opposite of the the ad the had in the beginning so here again salivate this is page 83 unique to Egypt was the fact they respected Moshe as a human being not a super being the Egyptians being pagans could have deified him as they did to parro but instead they looked upon Moshe not as a God in a Pantheon but as an is right so that's that's what was mentioned before the that they loved him so much they threw money at him emphasis so again the imagination of the medish was they threw money at him but uh what's important about this this is in the look at the bottom it writes y so Y is a very good very big and somebody who I respect a lot and he's also my brother and he did not write the hag he's referring to something that I wrote and never published and it's available online but it's a hag of Sal and he messed up he admitted to me later he messed up I don't know if he ever fixed it in later additions but he got he he got it wrong it's probably my parents Fault by having the same letters in my name as in my brother yur's name just a little inverse somebody's dyslexic they'll get my brother and not me and uh and over here he he got him but I I I want to say something else from R salvic and with that I think we're going to wrap up now I'm going to show you something over here okay Source 41 she ra and paret Bo but first I want to show you something and uh I'm probably going to edit this out of the of the shear when you listen online if you listen afterwards it's not not going to be there cuz they going to take it out cuz I don't want crazies bothering me take a look at this I'm going to share with you a different document that I have over here so first all look on the bottom left hand do you see that how many pages there are or no do you see over here that there are 983 pages to this document this is Page 799 okay so this is a collection of teachings of R Sal and all of the Torah which I've collected over the years from all kinds of sources that uh today a lot of them are not accessible including the date that he gave this year and so on and so forth yes it's 983 pages when I put together the hagada all that I did is I kept thinking of themes about the hagada and then I searched through my document and I could do very simple searches and I put together hag based upon what I have over here so now I can stop this and I can go back to the which is what we were learning from and this is the r explain now I I I remembered this and I was searching for this and I could didn't see that anybody published this my father probably remembers it but let's let's let's learn this a little bit and this is going to help us understand this whole concept on another level the r explained that God was manifesting the concept of kenot so essentially the Egyptians were divorcing the Jews and they didn't want to give the get so God forced the way and that's part of the hardening the heart and so on but it's also part of uh giving away your possessions we apply Force to someone until the individual in question comes to selfrealization that what is demanded of him is correct and he expresses his desire to comply God wanted pyro to recognize on his own the need to send the Jews out of Egypt to comply with the demand of God as pyro said arise and leave from among my people also you and also all of Ben Israel however the question remains why did God prolong the state of Ben Israel could power not have been made to realize this in a shorter interval the r further explain that God wanted power not only to allow basa to leave Egypt but to come to respect them as well as long as long as they were slaves Perl thought of them as subhuman so yes this is very different from the R's great-grandfather NV who said that uh or great great-grandfather who said that uh oh they saw the Jews as being so great he says no they saw them as being so subhuman you you you generally in order to hate somebody need to dehumanize them you dehumanize them they can do terrible things to them and he goes this was the nature of the of the servitude in Egypt kazal say in the verse of who is God that I should listen to him that par search through his Chronicles not able to find the name of God of Israel mentioned anywhere what Kaz intended to indicate was that power did not consider benel a bonified nation therefore he saw fit to enslave them the 10 plagues intended to show Power that b were a great nation more so than to punish him in Egypt power was meant to realize that they were not a bunch of insignificant Hebrews rather they were a great National entity as the Torah says and afterwards he shall send you out it does not say I will take you out rather power will realize that you are a great nation and a sign significant entity and he will send you out so before I read further I just want to point out that part of the problem of slavery is that sometimes the the people who enslave others they dehumanize but sometimes those who are dehumanized by into the perception of the other side and then you see yourself as being unworthy and you see yourself as being a slave and you're not even worthy to leave and maybe that's those those people that then report on mosha what do you mean we're not we're slaves what do you why you want to why do you want to mess things up what are you trying to do over here we're slaves property ownership is extremely important fundamental right and principle according to the Torah this is best illustrated by the laws of one may defend his home and property from clandestine thieves and to struggle to protect them even to the extent of taking the life of the thief property material possessions gives a man self-esteem and self value it also commands respect from others on the other hand the slave has no property of his own and whatever he requires belong to his master God told Moshe when you shall leave you shall not leave empty-handed had Ben left Egypt without material possessions and wealth they would have still been looked on as slaves therefore God asked them to demand from the Egyptians items of value as payment for the years of service now you see there's more than one element one is we deserve to be paid but if we deserve to be paid that means again I'm going to say it again that means we were never really slaves because you don't have to pay a slave for their for their service they demand to be paid these items were to be taken from their neighbors and housemates for they were the ones who had take away their property and self-dignity in the first place there R noted that when Jews were liberated from the concentration camps after the second world war they went to the surrounding towns to retrieve their stolen property for the local populace who was who so eagerly took it from them and I will give the favor of this people the Egyptians will come to see you as a nation a people with dignity and no longer look upon you as slaves some might have thought that the Egyptians chased the Jews out of Egypt because they had become lepers the Tet tells us just the opposite they left with tremendous self-respect and dignity one aspect of this self-respect was they departing with great material wealth so I I I think that that's really yeah enough it's another line if you want um you shall save your dignity and earn great respect in the eyes of Egyptians as it says that mosha gained great respect in the eyes of Egyptians and the house of parro which means this is another element which was beneath the surface of some of the other things that we had said that in order for us to become free see in the other part the r talked about the halic part of it that uh a slave can't own something and you realize that was here as well but he's saying no to become free truly free you need to regain your dignity so part of regaining dignity is being paid for the work that you've done by the way it's very dignified work hard be paid there's something dignified about that there were slaves not deserving of payment because you're a slave but pay them on the way out pay them which means the Jews needed to become dignified people in order to become freed from slavery this is part of the dignity so the very beginning of the story just not to wrap things up the very beginning of the story is the Egyptians look at the Jews and they're disgusting they are people who are beneath the contempt they're people who who who make them you know they they see them as being inferior they they they they de they dehumanize them and now in order to become free to become liberated you need the exact opposite again these two things are two sides of the same coin so therefore the paying of the money receiving of the money receiving of the gifts is something which will show appreciation show value and give dignity and as we leave with dignity then we become free which means this is part of the Redemption is having the dignity as well so I hope that the way that I'm explaining this really shows you know this story from the beginning until the end and shows why this is important and now you think about that's what God Said from the very beginning and when you leave you're going to leave you're going to leave with great wealth you're it's not just going to be paid for what you've done it's much more than an economic issue it's really it's how the person sees themselves and again mosha is being seen with great esteem the people now being seen with great respect this idea again whether it's actually a Mitzvah say or actually throwing things at mosha please take things take what it really forget about the literalness of any of this what it means is that now the Jews are being held in great esteem and that helps give them their dignity and that is heart of becoming liberated and and by the way let's just keep that in mind maybe on a completely different level you know if you think about the mids of staka the the higher the level of staka is the more dignity the other person has which means if you give them they know who it is and you know who it is and so there's less dignity they got money less dignity it's Anonymous they don't know who gave it you know G you know who you're giving to okay but still they know somebody knows there's less dignity involved in it if you give them and it's completely Anonymous so there's more dignity if you give them a job and say that you are a value and I want you to work cuz I value you and they get paid for their work that's the highest level stuckle why because there's the highest level of dignity which means in order to give somebody something really of Great Value part of that needs to give somebody their dignity and that is part of leaving Egypt to leave a dignity and that's really what the RV was identifying over here is that it's a part of the Redemption yeah we saw all kinds you know it's a it's and he said that as well but it's more than that it's it it's a vehicle in order to help us to become free we need this in order to have our self-esteem part of being Free People is to have the dignity and the self-esteem and that's what was necessary at this point the Egyptians they deserve to pay every dime of it right maybe it goes all the way back to yose I hope you enjoyed that this was our money to begin with this was taken away from us long ago and they took away our possessions we're taking it all back anyway I I I hope that some of this gave a slightly a different perspective of what we're normally look at in terms of this not just know they mistreated us we're taking their money I think that uh we were able to see there's a lot more to this