Parsha Perspectives for Today (Beshalach)

good morning good morning in boca rato welcome back to parsha perspectives for today i want to thank our sponsors as always dear friends becky navi cats and family loving memory of becky's father david grossman david monash and shamosh as always if you'd like to sponsor a particular class please email lee lee appears online dot o-r-g leah prsonline dot o-r-g this morning this week we have the privilege of studying pasha's beshallah together is a rich pasha that continues the story the narrative of our exodus from mitzrayim really the culmination of that last word and not only did hashem spare us and save us and he redeemed us and then he took us the alti what we spoke about two weeks ago the notion of alti that he redeemed us took place when we saw our oppressor drown in the sea we no longer had to look over our shoulder in fear worry and anxiousness but then we were truly free not only were we taking adam it's trying to try was taken out of us there's so much to talk about in parish bashal but alas this week is yeshiva week and i will be with my family but i did not want to skip all together so we'll have a little bit of an abbreviated shirt this morning and i appreciate everybody's understanding but just to be able to capture some of the ideas of our wonderful parasha by hibish para essam and it was when para sent out the people which para was credited and of course hashem didn't lead them by the way of the land of pleasure even though it was closer it would have been the more direct route it's a very fragile people a very vulnerable people they might have turned they might have come right back around so the people are stuck between the proverbial and literal rock and a hard place the egyptians are pursuing them from behind they arrive at the sea in front of them and they don't know what to do and they panic and great debate ensues until yehudah's great grandson takes the courageous move puts a foot a toe in the water keeps walking until it gets higher and higher the sea splits they come out on the other side and they sing a song rav nason of breslau the great student of nachman writes in the tu beshvat is always adjacent to sha bashira and it's no different this year that in a couple days we'll celebrate the holiday of tu bishvat 15th of shvat the rosh hashanah of illa not the new year for the fruit for the trees and it's in the same week it's the same just a few days before pasha's bashar which is shabba sheera sometimes they even fall in the same day on shabbos itself and this overlap is not coincidental the fact that they come out and they coincide is not a randomness of the calendar it has an intrinsic connection and if nelson of wrestling offers a very deep and mystical explanation but i want to share with you a different one that i saw and i want to offer you one of my own for the farmer sustenance income livelihood they're all determined by the size of last year's crop by the health and success of what's produced well and that's determined by the well-being and the health of the soil of the farm and how it gets watered how much sunlight how much air in the time in egypt sustenance was determined by the nile and the nile's willingness to water and nourish the fields that's why paro tried to take responsibility as if he was the uh the god as if he was responsible for the niles irrigating the land and he didn't want to look imperfect or even human he went to relieve himself at the nile we wrote about that last week it was no wonder the egyptians neglected hashem and they worshipped the nile they saw the nile as a deity as a god because the nile was the source of their income of their livelihood when the jews leave mitram they walk away from a place that's characterized by this hedonism and materialism and the result of the certainty of the nile and they transition to a whole new way of being a whole new lifestyle to an agricultural system that relies not on the certainty of the nile but on the uncertainty of rain rain is unpredictable rain is volatile right rain is erratic there can be different kinds of rain there's a nourishing and a nurturing rain and there's a severe and a dangerous and a damaging downpour not all rain is created equal that's why we dive in and feel as geshem for a rain which is lavrak of a ring that will sustain us and not a rain that destroys it can rain conveniently and productively it can rain in a way that disrupts and interferes so when one relies on the rain to survive when one relies on the rain to live to thrive you cannot help but turn to the source of rain the farmer who lives dependent on the rain can't help but be drawn to prey to provider of that rain mishna teaches that at least according to basil 2 bishop the 15th as we said is the rosh hashanah is the rosh hashanah of treason tells us why is that date chosen the 15th of sheba because by that date most of the year's reigns will have fallen and therefore hopefully promising a year of physical blessing a year of bounty a year of income a year of not worrying when we were afraid freed from the decadence and the gluttony of egypt when we were freed from the relying on and worshiping the nile and we were led to a lifestyle that depends on hashem for nourishment instead what was the result we sang shira and so too each year on rosh hashanah for trees at the time we benefited from the bounty of the rain we celebrate and sing with gratitude to hashem again so the simple first reason of why there's a uh connection between two bishop and shabbat shira why son of breslau says that we always celebrate them in tandem and together is because leaving egypt was the transition from the certainty of the nile to the relying the uncertainty of the rain of turning to hashem and when we left egypt we sang shira we turn to the heavens we turn to god and while we don't live in an agrarian society we're not farmers and we don't depend on the rain it's still incumbent on us that we too have to recognize and appreciate hashem's graciousness and that we should sing shira even when we go to the supermarket and we predictably find the food on the shelf we should no less sing the shira that the jewish people saying themselves but i want to offer another suggestion of the connection between shabbat shira and tu bashvat really to introduce our study of parasha's bishop research shows that on average by the age of 18 we will have been praised and encouraged thirty thousand times and after thirty thousand times most of them come by the age of three when the baby for smiles we clap we say yay and we act like they finish us or won the lottery or graduated with a phd and then when they roll over say their first word or take their first step each is greeted with a celebration and revelry and joy and then somehow along the way the human psyche somehow along the way it's just the way it is we stop celebrating we stop celebrating when we get things right and instead we start criticizing when we get it wrong we start stop marking what's done correctly and we start calling attention to what's done incomplete we stop pausing to acknowledge achievement and accomplishment and we start challenging ourselves and others to quickly move on to the next and to the newest goal and the next ambition and the next thing that we're trying to achieve and maybe what parsha shira have in common and the lesson that they indeed teach is that when you face a harsh and difficult challenge when you come out on the other side pause to celebrate before moving on give yourself permission to experience and to lean in and to celebrate an accomplishment achievement having gotten something right the jewish people stood on the opposite bank of the yam so safely across and finally free it was the first time in 210 years they could exhale they could breathe a sigh of relief they could take in their newfound freedom they didn't make it to the other side and then continue to walk they made it to the other side and they paused they made it to the other side and they stopped and they sang shira they celebrated the success before moving on in the journey towards the next destination tu b'shvat marks the day when the earliest blooming trees and narrative show is a connection that we all have wherever we live in the world tu b'shvat connects us to the holy land but on tuba shot the earliest blooming trees emerge from their winter sleep and they begin a new fruit-bearing cycle and rashi explains that it's this point that the ground has become saturated with rain it's this time that the sap starts to rise in the trees enabling the fruit to begin to bud the trees have survived another cold and harsh winter not here in south florida but elsewhere the no leaves in the tree and if you look around it still looks like it's the middle of the winter but beneath the surface the sap is rising and the bud is forming and beneath the surface the the surface the trees are coming out another winter on the other side and tu bashvat on the calendar when most of the rain has fallen and the ground is saturated with it and the sap is beginning to rise and the trees are coming alive once again we pause to acknowledge and to celebrate and to say to the ribonus to the almighty thank you thank you we're living in a world moving at such a fast pace that we hardly have time or allow ourselves to stop and to celebrate at work we finish one project and we move on to the next at home the moments all seem to blend together the days the month the years they run into one another but we have to learn to stop and to pause and to celebrate the small successes and to mark the modest milestones in our life coming out the other side of our yamsef coming through the darkness and harshness of our winter and the bud begins to form tom peters the author of the best-selling book in search of excellence has a simple but i think a great piece of advice it applies to marriage and parenting and to religious growth torah and all of life he says quote celebrate what you want to see more of that's it celebrate what you want to see more of a spouse accomplishes a goal professionally or personally stop and celebrate a child achieves a milestone who does something worthy of acknowledgement should be celebrated applauded just like when they were a baby and they turned over took the first step you don't say gosh or coo but you can hug or hug or high-five and offer praise and give credit and say thank you because pausing to celebrate it's not just a nice thing to do it's not just they sang shira on the other side tubashiva is not just a day that we don't say and we're not allowed to fast but they're tangible benefits do you know that when you celebrate dopamine is released into the brain setting goals and achieving them and celebrating feels good not only spiritually or emotionally but physically and it does is it motivates us to set the next goal and to do it we know we do this in jewish religious life all the time since torah we finish the cycle of reading the torah and we stop we have an entire holiday around it but you don't have to wait for story to make a seem on the whole torah you make a seem every time you finish says you can make a cm not only when you finish but for a person who's just beginning if it took great effort and toil and time you can make a scene on one page of gemara on one book of tanach it's incredible because the more you stop and celebrate the more motivated you'll be to continue and to build upon that success so whatever the goal learning or in practicing patience or weight loss or saving money or making it to minion or giving stucca whatever it is that you're trying to achieve when you mark a milestone stop and celebrate it when you come out on the other side of the yam sing shira for it when you make it through the harshness of winter and the tree comes alive what was latent underneath it all along begins to regenerate and rejuvenate begins to bud and come forth once again stop and celebrate and say thank you because it'll push you towards that next goal so it's not a coincidence this week we'll celebrate mark both to bespot as well as shabashira the two have this very very close connection they have this tremendous sense of an overlap now the torah we know we came out of egypt we were only twenty percent who survived most died there we spoke about it last week's parashat moshe yosevi moshe carried the bones of yosef with him why espana surely more yosef had made the people promise they took an oath and they swore and in fulfillment of that oath now is the time they take moshe takes yosev bones and the majestilum tells us we're going to read about how the see saw and it split what did the sea see that made it split yo see if it saw the coffin of yosef so what happened yosef ran out he fled from the sin from the relentless pursuit of the wife of potiphar the pasik says he ran outside in the merit of yosef running away from the relentless pursuit and proposition of the wife of potiphar the sea also ran and it split and it made way for the jewish people to go asks and wonders of jerk why was it that the splitting of the sea was in the mirror of yosef we know the people were on the lowest level of the 49 levels of tuma they were undeserving and unworthy but moshe and our own they had great leaders who were present there were great leaders who were there so why wasn't that enough to earn the merit why did you saves merit need to be invoked in order for the sea to split why didn't the sea split simply in the merit of moshe are on themselves great leaders how about miriam we know that miriam the air the air the water source that nourishing hydrates them through the travels in the desert comes the merit of miriam so if indeed miriam had all this merit why wasn't it enough to the sea to split if it came later for the and the man ananya covered moshe aaron and miriam why wasn't that enough what was it special or specific about yosef and here says the whole notion of the splitting of the sea was precipitated not in comfort and not in convenience but rather with mysterious nephesh with selflessness with risk and with sacrifice you know to me every year i can i can see the picture in my mind's eye the jewish people are standing on the banks of the sea the egyptians are pursuing them they live in fear of their life despite the miracles they've already seen and everybody's turning to one another and pointing a finger you should do this i have this idea this is what should happen next everybody's offering their criticism about the pandemic the plague about what needs to be done and how it should be handled differently and while everybody's offering criticism everyone's offering condemnations everybody's offering suggestions one individual is quiet silently he doesn't raise his voice but rather he raises his actions everyone else is collapsing in prayer now puts one foot in front of another and enters the sea and then do sowing takes an extraordinary risk extraordinary sacrifice he could have been swept away he could have drowned he could have given his life but he says i trust in god and i trust by putting one foot in front of the other sometimes we pray with words and sometimes we pray with actions and says not shown i'm showing my trust and my faith in god i'm praying with my actions by putting one foot in front of another so what precipitates the splitting of the sea is not faith alone but it's a specific type of faith the faith of mysterious nephesh being most serenesh sacrifice when the tribes were all standing at the scene they were debating and arguing so many yeah i'm not going first and the other one says i'm not going first you go first what happens doesn't wait and he's not passive he's not a spectator and he's not a critic you know what he does he takes it upon himself follow me and he steps in only when nauseam was willing to engage with mysterious nephesh only when he was willing to take a risk only was willing to put it all in the line that's what precipitates that's what brings about the miracle you can't be a spectator to your own miracle you can't wait for it to happen we don't rely on miracles you are the miracle we create the miracle when we show the trust and the faith when we're willing to sacrifice and be selfless we become the miracle the miracle that is the jewish people the miracle that is our survival the fisa mevorah says you can see then shalom the decedent split in the mirror of motion it relied it needed it waited it depended on the merit of sacrifice of selflessness who is our great patriarch who is our great forefather who is our great predecessor who displays almost an unparalleled mysterious nephesh it's not yosef atzadek yosef who's in egypt yosef has been abandoned and sold by his slavery by his family yosef who has nothing to lose and is lonely yosef has been falsely accused who must are naturally hisham nevertheless he's most ser nefesh it's not easy a young virile vibrant man charismatic and handsome and a woman is throwing herself at him and he says no and why because it's wrong because it's improper because it's beneath him it's past he's most nefesh it takes tremendous mysterious nephesh he runs outside and he risks himself and he pays for it it's not without risk and he pays for it because he ends up being falsely accused and sitting and languishing in prison only that's a mysterious nephesh could lead to and precipitate the splitting of the sea and that's what the medrash means when it sees the coffin of a yosef yosef who goes against his nature we've explained many times the natural thing a natural young man the natural urge the compulsive behavior of this natural young man would have been to give in and to be with the wife of potiphar he displays a supernatural courage and so too the natural thing is for water molecules to stick together but the water displays a supernatural phenomena of splitting in two in the merit of yosef one second they've already left egypt in last week's parsha tenth plague occurred kakatso's lila next morning with alacrity speed in zeal they left egypt so when did moshe have to fulfill the promise to yosef when they left egypt the bones have been with him already for a while why are we first being told now when they're standing opposite the sea why are we first being told now that what that the bones of yosef were there they've been with them since they left the terrorists so the surah more says we told that god took us on a circuitous route and that's when we encountered the sea and that's when told that the bones of yosef were there yosef of why are they connected why the juxtaposition because moshe understood and knew when he looks and he reflects and he says and what merit will we cross the sea with what merit did we survive he saw the coffin of yosef knew i better grab the bones i better grab the coffin not just the atmos the bones the atmos the essence of yosef jewish people were latching on not just to his bones his atmos but his atmos his essence who he was his core because only by latching on to that would they find that they would survive in that merit of mesiras nephesh we're living in a generation at a time of great comfort geshmaq to be a yid it's wonderful it's pleasurable it's enjoyable and the pendulum has swung far in that direction and it needs to as ramosha famously said we've quoted it many many times that we will lose the next generation if we talk about schwarzenegger how difficult it is to be a jew but we also can't promise how convenient or comfortable it is to be a jew it's not always convenient it's not always comfortable it takes some seriousness paying for kosher food paying for jewish education dominating with a minion navigating a virus a pandemic it's not easy to be an observant jew it's not easy it takes me serious nephesh but if you want ghoul if you want redemption if you want to bring about a change if you want a miracle we have to be the miracle we have to precipitate the miracle we have to cause the miracle and how does that happen with mesiras nephesh with selflessness and with sacrifice and who is the image of that yosef and that's why specifically his bones that inspire not just to keep play on words he ran outside and therefore the sea ran and split more than acute play of words it's a reflection of a much deeper essence but then ravjuk offers a second explanation and he says odye schlammar is is the symbol and the sign of holiness and sanctity and sod and this meda of yasod the foundation of who we are is holiness and sanctity yes he took us out we've been developing this the last few weeks that god took us out of egypt not just to be some secular political entity not just to be some free nation but he took us out to be a people with a mission and a mandate a covenantal community you strive for holiness we don't live for happiness we live for holiness and therefore this symbol of holiness is yosef who is willing to give up so much in order to remain and to be holy could ocean to you hashem we are to be holy because god is holy and who is the sign who is the symbol who is the icon of holiness in a world of moral decay corruption and decadence in a world in which it's live and let live and anything goes and be a pleasure seeker whatever makes you happy who is the symbol and sign the icon of holiness it's none other than yosef and that's what yosef says and that's the promise of god take me out your redemption will come when you incorporate me into you don't just take out my atmos my bones but take out my atmos that we should be inspired in a world that is increasingly morally complicated to remain clear and steadfast have our conviction that we don't live for happiness we live for holiness and to strive to strive for the media of yosef which is you sowed to be holy we're still in the period of shove him and the israel and this bottom these parachutes and acronyms for shove of him shuv vubon shove of them and it's a time that we're working on elevating ourselves to strive for more to strive for holiness to be careful what we look at what we think about where we go how we speak what emails and what's app posts and pictures that we fought that we forward that we're capable and we are we are so much more that it's beneath us so why did you say need to come with us because the whole reason we came out was not just to be free not just the freedom from but a freedom too and the freedom was not a freedom from a freedom to hold holiness not a freedom to happiness of freedom to holiness and who was that sign it was that role model it's none other than yosef it's introduced the shira and it's also introduced every day in our davening which was supposed to do with joy and excitement and a smile hashem hashem that they rescued the jewish people from the egyptians we saw our enemy our adversary drowned on the other edge of the sea by israel we saw his abstract hand hashem they believed in hashem and in his moshe and in moshe his faithful servant did it ever occur to you i think we've mentioned this in the past but we haven't really elaborated on it they believed in moshe's loyal servant it's as if we're saying that in one breath faith as if they're on the same playing field they had faith in god and in his loyal servant moshe what do you mean there's god and his loyal servant moshe there's god there's no close second there is no second. says only now do they believe in moshe so there's really two questions number one why are we describing a belief or a faith in moshe similar to a belief or faith in hashem but moreover only now moshe was the one that made the messenger the agent who brought about the ten plagues ten miracles only with the splitting of the sea are they impressed with moshe till now i'm not sure we'll give you a lifetime contract till now good russia good life cycle event good job taking care of the shul through a pandemic but i'm not really sure not really sure it's only now with kris yamsuf that way basham of moshe abdul only now do they say you're the man we've got complete trust and faith in you ravdrak quotes the rush revenue usher and his parish from the torah quotes from his father christians place your hand on the sea and split it what did moshe not use he didn't use his tool moshe did not use his staff that fateful staff that mata the mata which caused so many other miracles to occur moshe did not use his staff he went directly with his hand because the jewish people were cynical even then even the beneficiaries of miracles were cynical and skeptical and they said evo moshe moshe isn't nothing he's not the one doing any miracles he's not so special you know what is the source of the miracles moshe's staff if any of us had the staff or we were holding the staff we could also bring about the miracles he's got a magic staff he's got this staff this uh cane he's got this branch and whoever has it whoever holds it they too could bring about these miracles so what happens here says the rash this is the first miracle being done without the staff this is the first miracle that's yatra it's his hand no staff and therefore the people now trust us it is specifically here and specifically now that they gain a faith and a trust in moshe because they realize there is no magic staff and it's not coming through anything else other than the hand of other than the hand of hashem okay torah continues and it tells us the story we come out the other side we sing miriam and the women sing how do they have instruments because they had faith optimism hope because they knew we were going to be free and therefore they carried those instruments with them and now we move over in the pasture it doesn't take long until the people begin to complain until they complain he takes them away from yamsuf and they go three days three days without water we know that we learn from here ain't my melotor it was three days without torah that's why we lane we read the torah monday thursday shabbos we can't go three days without torah if you go online you can listen earlier this year in the afternoon we give a series of shirum about kriya satora the torah reading based on this possible matsuma but the simple understanding is lo matsumai they couldn't find water by voma rasa they come to a place called maravalo and they couldn't drink water from there because it was bitter al cain crushed mamar they call the place mara and the people complain to moshe and moshe cries out to god and the whole story but there's a few disturbing things going on in this narrative in the torah why is the name of the place in which the episode occurred called mara bitterness after all if we're recalling the miracle god did what happens after they complain god puts something in the water and he transforms it to be sweet so the place should be called matok it's a place of sweetness it's a place of positive memories why is it called mara why would we want to in perpetuity remember the bitterness of the water moreover the reaction of the jewish people is very perplexing the truth is this episode is not an isolated event it's repeated numerous times in our parsha and as the narrative progresses further as people become incorrigible jewish people just experienced the greatest revelation the history of mankind they saw god they had unprecedented miracles the hashem ten plagues splitting of the sea freed from bondage from oppression from persecution how is it possible that so quickly they forgot everything that happened to them and instead of being grateful they became complainers instead of realizing their freedom let alone every drop in morsel of food they had to be grateful for they complained incessantly and unremittantly relentlessly critical complaining how did it happen there's a phenomenon that chuck colleges call the missing tile syndrome person in a beautifully tiled room our eyes are not drawn to the mosaic or the ornate tiles or the detailed labor but it's natural that a person their eyes are drawn to the missing tile in the whole room our tendencies to be drawn not to what's there but to what's missing we fixate on the deficiency and not the beauty and perhaps the torah is describable as an amazing insight what do you mean kim marim haim what was bitter i might have said this last year if i did i apologize but i love this katska it's one of my favorites kim marim heym is not talking about the water says the custard is describing the people marim heim the people were bitter and disgruntled and critical and judgmental and dismissive and dissatisfied and negative what was bitter was not the water what was bitter was the people you see if you're positive and you always see the good then everything will taste sweet but if you're bitter and miserable and fabisna and even which is sweet you will taste and you will see and you will describe as bitter and so rip slime of kharkov explains the appropriate name is mara the bitterness because the miracle was not by substituting the water the miracle was the people the very same water became sweet so the place was called mura to remind us that when we begin to draw when we begin to feel a sense of negativity or criticism then we need to transform it to sweetness it's up to us the choice is ours it's not the substance the object the experience it's the attitude we bring to it which will determine how we remember that experience i'll tell you one last vote in our abbreviated cheer again i thank you for allowing me to offer only an abbreviated cheer this morning hope everyone's having a wonderful and safe and healthy yeshiva week is at the end of our parasha amalek make their first appearance they attacked us while we're weak while we're vulnerable while they're fragible amalek who are all about chance and randomness and coincidence amalek who are all about cynicism and the koach of uh they are the amalek is the attitude of as opposed to we who are the attitude of wow to see hashem's hand everywhere so torah tells us to fight with amalek you have three people who stand on the bhima on yom kippur with the khazen it's modeled after this image that moshe's dabbling in are there as they fight whose qurashi says miriam's son miriam is married to khalif and they have a son named why does rashford specifically here khur's lineage torah tells us but why do we have to be told who is lineage why do we have to be reminded who he comes from sort of says the following it says because moshe are the three pillars the jewish people line uh rely on we know the world stands on torah moshe's torah taurus moshe moshe gives us the torah and aron is avodah aran is the um miriam is the one who does the tremendous extraordinary facet so moshe aaron if we're going to defeat amalek if we're going to defeat cynicism and sarcasm and skepticism if we're going to defeat atheism and agnosticism if we're going to defeat those voices that we need to engage the mosha aaron ahura and all of us the torah avodah and kimmel till next time stay happy stay healthy stay holy thank you for joining us for the abbreviated church we'll continue tomorrow we'll have our full shield back with 8 15 10 minutes of meeting so mrs sharmad845 living with amuna tomorrow night amazing guest on behind the beam at 9pm have a phenomenal day