Stories For Your Pesach Seder: Zohar Parashat Shemot 14a

Simple. Am Israel gave up. Hashem did not give up. All he was looking for was somebody that was willing to sacrifice their life. That's where Moshiach came in. That's where Moshiach came in and said, "I'm in. I'm going to sacrifice my life Am Israel." So now, the Zohar Kadush in Parashat Shemot page 14A gives a parable or lesson to teach us a little bit about this. It says that one time there was a bear. The bear saw a sheep and started chasing the sheep. And the sheep ran away, ran away, ran away. And the bear kept chasing after them. Until a human being a shepherd saw the sheep, saved the sheep, and shooed the bear away, scared him away. The Zohar says if it wasn't for the bear the man would never get the sheep. Meaning the man should thank the bear. Why? Because the bear chasing the sheep, that's why you got the sheep. If the bear didn't chase the sheep that sheep would probably still be roaming the land somewhere else far, far away out of your reach. In the same book of Shemot the Torah says that Moshiach came in and knew see something peculiar. He sees that there's an Egyptian hitting a Jew. Hitting a Beni Israel. Why? Because that Egyptian raped his wife Shlomit. And the Jew saw him. Saw him do it. So from embarrassment the Egyptian decided to start hitting him until he died. Moshiach saw the whole thing. The Ruach Hakodesh he saw not only is the Egyptian evil for what he did but the Jew is innocent of any crime that's being accused of him. It's enough that he's evil of what he did, but you evil hitting someone innocent? At that moment he killed the Egyptian. The next day that Jew that Beni Israel argues with his brother-in-law. Why? His brother-in-law says, "Listen you can't divorce my sister. Can't divorce my sister." She says, "No, I have to divorce her. This Egyptian uh took advantage of her." Yeah, but uh she Exactly, took advantage of her. She didn't know. She didn't know She didn't do it on purpose. Shlomit didn't do it on purpose. So I don't care if she did it on purpose, didn't do it on purpose. Listen, another man touched her. And they start ARGUING AND THEY START FIGHTING AND THEY START HITTING EACH OTHER. MOSHIACH CAME IN AND SHOWS UP AGAIN AND SAYS, "OH, GUYS WHY YOU UH SHA? WHY ARE YOU ABOUT TO HIT YOUR BROTHER?" SO THE SAME MAN the same man that he saved the day before from the Egyptian says, "What are you going to do? Kill me like you killed the Egyptian yesterday?" Moshiach was shocked. He never knew a person could twist his head this way. Yesterday see me, today you could be so ungrateful? Not only did this happen, but this same person went with his brother-in-law and said, "You know what? Let's put our fight on hold. Let's go tell Pharaoh about this rasha over here that's trying to be a boss of us." THEY GO START TO TELL PHARAOH. THEY GO TELL PHARAOH, THEY HAVE MOSHIACH ARRESTED, and Pharaoh says, "Give me Moshiach. Give me my sword." They bring Moshiach, and he tries to chop off his head. And the Zohar Kadush says that Hashem miraculously turned Moshiach's neck into something like stone. He hit his neck, but the the the sword broke, everybody froze in in place, and it gave Moshiach an opportunity to run away. Now Moshiach runs away. And the common Midrash says that he went to Ethiopia, he went to Cush. But in the p'sukim we say that what happened after that, which is he went to Midian. He went to Midian and he goes to the well. In the well there's a bunch of people trying to rape these little girls. Because their father Yitro used to be their pope. And he decided to go off the derech. He decided that this is fake. So he said, "You know what? We're going to punish Yitro. And but how we going to punish him? We're going to rape his kids. Rape his daughters." So they started to try to try to take advantage of his daughters. Moshiach sees this. Moshiach is ish kodesh. How dare you touch her? They're innocent. You're guilty. He hits them. He makes them run away. And as you would have it, Moshiach ends up marrying one of the girls named Tziporah. The Zohar Kadush says if it wasn't for the bear the man would never get the sheep. If it wasn't for the bear Moshiach would never have Tziporah. If it wasn't for the Egyptian that raped the bat Israel that then hit her husband that then got killed that then got Moshiach ratted on and then went to almost killed again from Pharaoh that chased HIM OUT. ALL THIS If all of this didn't happen Moshiach would have never found his soulmate Tziporah. And the same Zohar says when Moshiach married Tziporah in Shamayim they considered as if he married the Shechinah. As if he married the Shechinah. The gematria of of Tziporah and the Shechinah same thing. But how did they come? They came in THE UGLIEST POSSIBLE WAY. How did it didn't come all how are you how are you? What family you from? Oh, I'm family from this room. Oh, wow. What school did you go to? What school did you go to? Oh, wow. It wasn't like that. Death, killings, lying, ungratefulness, all type the worst possible stuff happened. For what? For Hashem to bring Moshiach from one corner of the world with Tziporah in another corner of the world. We see this all over the Torah. Where did Moshiach come from? Yehudah. Yehudah was the leader of the sons of Yaakov. We are called Yehudim because of Yehudah. We're not called Yehudim, which would be good for me. Probably get more people in the lectures. We're called Yehudah. Even though Reuben was the firstborn we're not called Reuben, called Yehudah. Why? Yehudah went and found some prostitute had sex with her, and next thing you know he realizes Wait a minute. I messed up here. It's my daughter-in-law. I'll tell everybody. Yeah, but Yehudah if they knew they're going to kill you also. The fact that your daughter-in-law is now being accused of being a prostitute that already is bad enough. It's bad enough name for your family. Why? Because she's technically still kind of connected to you. She was married to two of your sons. It's already bad enough for you. It's already a bad name for your family. Now you're saying you're the one that DID IT WITH HER? We're going to burn her and you together. So in essence when Yehudah admitted that he's the one that did all of this he was assuming the worst. What's the worst? They're going to kill me. IT'S BETTER OFF THEY KILL ME than me going up to Shamayim alive. Than me killing her and me going up to Shamayim as a murderer. She on the other hand said, "It's better off they burn me here than me going up to Shamayim SAY, 'OH, YOU'RE THE ONE THAT EMBARRASSED YEHUDAH.'" From there we learn that it's better to go burn than to embarrass another person. Needless to say Hashem says, "You're both willing to get burned in this world just so you don't suffer in the next one. I'll save you in both. I'll save you in both. And not only I'll save you in both, I'll actually also show you where my hand was during this whole time navigating all the parts because I made this piece and that piece come together. Why? Because I wanted to hide it from the Satan. I wanted to hide it from the yetzer hara that's constantly trying to go after and ruining all the good plans. So I had to make it look really, really ugly. Why? Because you're going to have two sons together. AND ONE OF THEM, PERETZ, THAT'S WHERE MOSHIACH IS coming from. That's where Moshiach is coming from. Yeah, but it's so ugly. Why can't he come from a nice lineage, from a nice family? Because then at that point if everything came nice and pretty it would also hurt our free choice. It would hurt our free choice. It would hurt our logic. It would hurt our bitachon. It'd be very, very hard to have bitachon in Hashem if everything that was good came from good. Because then Hashem will be predictable. As soon as something is bad, immediately we think it's bad. So through this, Hashem shows us that everything and anything is from his hands. One of the examples that Hashem actually one of the places that Hashem actually tells us is when he talks to the prophet Job. In chapter 14, verse number four, Hashem talks to Job and tells him something very interesting. He says he's comparing men to God. In the first verse, he says, "A man born of a woman has a short lifespan and is sated with anxiety. He emerges like a blossom and is then cut down. He flees like a shadow and does not endure." He tells them, I mean, in so many words, Hashem tells Job the obvious. Like, who is men? Who's this creation of mine? But then he describes himself in a very interesting and strange way, if you don't understand the pasukim. He says the following. In verse number four, chapter 14 of Job, he says, "Mi yiten tahor mitame?" Lo echad. He says to Job, "Who can produce purity from impurity? No one." Meaning, no one but me. On one hand, he said, "Wait a minute, what's men? Men comes from a woman." Meaning, already men depends on somebody else from the day he's born. He can't come by himself. No matter how many test tubes you're going to have, you're always going to have to have a woman that is part of the equation. Doesn't matter how advanced science is going to be. People think that eventually you're going to be able to make babies in a lab. Like a little chicken. You're always going to have to have a woman. He has a short lifespan. Everybody thinks they're going to live to 150, 150 million. Nobody thinks they're going to die, but next thing you know, at some point everybody's clock ends. On top of it, throughout the whole way from the minute he's born till the minute he dies, he always has anxiety. Why? Cuz he's unsure about everything. And even when he pretends to be sure, it's all fake. Some people laugh a lot because they have it's a defense mechanism. When I studied psychology in school, they told us this thing about how people do certain things. And then when I see it in actual life, it's like, "Wow. That's right. Wow, that's right. Wow, this guy is Why this guy is Why you see what people do." You see what people do. And you see how people act under certain conditions, which is really, really bizarre cuz everybody does the same thing. Everybody does the same thing. Everybody has the same reactions. So for example, if somebody is like, you know, you ask him a question and they lean back or they fold their hands and they give you an answer, whatever they're saying is most likely true. It's a very high likelihood of truth unless they're a professional liar. Why? Because they're showing you that simply by folding their hands and leaning back, opening themselves up, they're open book, they're comfortable. It's not They're not doing it on purpose. They're doing it subconsciously. They don't even realize that they're leaning back and folding their hands. They don't know. They just do it naturally. Sometimes they just fold their hands. Sometimes they lean back. Sometimes a combination of both. But if somebody tells you that, automatically it's a higher likelihood that they're telling you the truth. Unless they're a professional liar, which at that point, why are you talking to them? On the other hand, if you ask somebody a question and they constantly touch themselves and they're touching and they're touching and they're touching, that means most likely they're lying. Why? Because they're not comfortable. They're fidgety. Now, some people are fidgety naturally. They're just always fidgety. They have this unfortunate situation. I met a few people like this. Very uncomfortable to talk to them. Cuz they're constantly facing you. You always think that something's going to fly at you. It's a problem. But the thing is though is that no, it's not their fault. They just that's the way they are. They're fidgety. So that person is a little more difficult to read. But another person that's not normally fidgety and now he becomes fidgety, there's something wrong here. And so on and so forth. This is actually good for kids when you teach kids cuz kids don't really know the significance of lies when they're little. So they're going to lie to you. All kids lie. Unless they're angels, which Come on. All kids lie at some point. And so you "Oh, did you go Did you Did you Did you PICK UP THE STUFF?" "YEAH, YEAH, I PICKED IT UP." "YOU PICKED IT UP?" "YEAH, I PICKED IT UP." You go over there. The whole thing is a bigger mess than you left it. "You told me you picked it up." "Oh, yeah, I did. I don't know who did it." "I don't know who did it." "Oh, VARDA DID IT." "WHAT ABOUT VARDA? HE'S SLEEPING FOR 2 HOURS ALREADY." "He's sleeping for 2 hours. What are you talking about? SARAH DID IT." "YOU SARAH I DON'T KNOW." YEAH, THAT'S HOW KIDS YEAH, kids That's the way kids are. Kids You don't know the significance of lying, not lying. "Did you go? Did you this?" They lie. So now, with little kids, it's obviously don't be a cop on them. But the point is is that you have to understand this. You have to know some of these things because you don't know. Certain times you ask them a question, it's really important you know the answer. You know the important answer. "You do your homework?" They say yes, but they're going like this and they're laughing and they "Yeah, I did it. I did it." Most likely they didn't do it. So, Job is telling us, "Look at the message I got from Hashem. Hashem made people. These people are constantly anxious. These people are constantly lying. These people are constantly depending on something that's beyond them. Whereas I, Hashem, am the only one that can turn purity from impurity. I can produce purity from impurity. So what does it mean tame tahor mitame? Rav Ephraim says, "Look at this beauty. Mi yiten tahor? Numerical value gematria, 730. Tziporah and Moshe, 730. Who can make such an ugly picture that looked impure? Some Egyptian Shabbat Yisrael and Shabbat Yisrael's husband wants to leave her and then they fight and they kill out Moshe and then this and all this happened, it looked terrible. Looked tamei. Looked disgusting. But look at the beautiful marriage that we have in the end of Moshe Rabbeinu and Tziporah. The prophet Job is telling us, "Look what Hashem told me here. If he can make such an ugly picture turn into something so beautiful, needless to say, he's also the only one that can make your personal ugly picture into the most beautiful story in the world. It's the same God. Why do we have the stories in the Torah? Not so we can learn it like a history book, chas v'shalom. It's to tell us that the same thing can happen to you. "Yeah, but I've been alone for 6 years." PERFECT. THAT'S WHAT HASHEM WANTS. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN? HASHEM WANTS ME ALONE?" YES. "Why does he want me alone?" So you prepare yourself for the opportunity he's going to give you after 6 years. Meaning, both the suffering and the celebration are coming from the same place. If a person simply saw that, already suffering ends. Why? Cuz they realized, "Okay, this is difficult, but this difficulty is also part of the mission. It's part of the equation. It's part of the whole thing. There's [music] a lot of really cool stuff on our websites, new features, and a lot more projects that are on the way that Hashem will help get closer to >> [music] >> Hashem to publicize Hashem's name. And know that he is the one and only God.