Sparks of Alshich: Why 210 Years of Suffering? The Hidden Purpose of Egypt - Rabbi Shmuel Wagshal

And as we're starting paras starts with the fundamental question, what is the purpose of all the suffering? Why did the Jews have to endure 210 years of suffering, anguish, spiritual suffering, physical suffering, abuse? What was the purpose? And he immediately rejects that it could only be that the Jews suffered for a punishment. something of Ramavinu said something they did wrong. It does not make any sense. He says and he goes through it that the Jews should have suffered for 210 years, several generations for a punishment. There must have been something happening. There must have been some purpose to every to the suffering. There must have been sur some purpose to going down to Mitzim and having to endure those 210 years and that we we got something out of it. What was the purpose of the world in the first place? Got to go all the way back. What was the purpose of everything? Why did Hashem create the world? Hashem created the world, he says, so that there could be a people who are going to serve him, a people who are going to connect him. And he wanted that this should happen through the medium of the Torah. People learning the Torah, studying the Torah, and acting with with the words of the Torah. That is the purpose of the world and that is what Hashem essentially wanted and that's what Hashem Hashem created the entire world for. Now the first generations of people Hashem and again there was nobody and no group of people that were worthy of receiving the Torah. And obviously you know he goes he goes a little bit we can't go through the entire history but essentially what happened was that until Arainu there was nobody worthy of accepting the Torah. When Abramu came to the world and found Hashem in a way and started flooding the light of Hashem, Hashem finally found one person who through him will be worthy in fact to give the Torah. Through him the entire purpose of the world will come to fruition. And then through his son Yitk and then through his son Jacob. And Hashem understood understood. Hashem knew through these people this is who the perfection of the world has to be uh made through. This the purpose of the world was going to be done through these people. But the reality was that not everyone coming from Arak and Yakov originally were worthy of being part of the Jewish people. So there was a mit and Yakov very worthy people but Abram had and had a so not all of them all the children of these people were worthy. And then Yakov had 12 sons and these were the 12 tribes. But even the children of the 12 tribes were not quite all worthy to be called the Jewish people. So this was the issue. Hashem wanted that only the most holiest and purest nishas should become the Jewish people. So what should we do? So, Hashem decided that the way to deal with this and the way to this the way to filter out the nishas that weren't the purest, the way to filter out uh the nishas that weren't the holiest and the highest level namas was to put us through a very hard test. A very very difficult physically difficult emotionally difficult spiritually difficult test. and the the nishas that were going to come out some sort of connection to Hashem with some sort of clinging to Hashem that will show that they are the fittest in the end to receive the Torah and the souls that fall and the souls that are un they're not unable to endure those are the souls that are not going to make it. So the alik uses the famous words and he compares it to what he calls ahab the iron uh the iron stove the iron uh the iron stove which basically the idea is that >> to find melting pot >> a melting pot >> melting pot if you it's actually literally has to be a melting pot the idea is that you have fine fine metal integrated inside stone inside all types the things that are not so valuable. So you put this stone inside a very very hot stove, very very hot pot and through tremendous amount of pressure and through a big big process you knock out all the what we call pislet all the extras everything that isn't the finest and it goes through a very very harsh process and only in the end of this very very harsh process does the fine metal come out and the harsher the process the finer the metal. So Egypt really was nothing but a a process of getting the finest most beautiful namas out and this was the purpose of the servitude. This was the purpose of putting them specifically in the most spiritual wasteland in the whole world. There was a tremendous amount of challenges from every place physical, emotional and spiritual. And what did it say happened in the end? In the end, there were only a few things that the Jews did to kept to keep who they were, to keep their connection to the Hashem, their connection to the Shina. What was that? They didn't change their name. They kept their identity. They didn't change their language. They didn't change the way they dressed. It's the brings down that they didn't speak and they kept their morality and didn't intermar. That was it. That was their entire connection pretty much. to what it meant to be a Jew. And the way that they were able to keep that is because they looked back to what they were in their essence. They looked back that there was a Yakov. They looked back that there was a Yosephic and through their connection to who they were to their to their to their uh ancestors that was what was able to keep them in this very minimal level to know and to give them the power to overcome the tremendous struggles that was the 210 years in Egypt to the point where in the end of the time only about one in 50 or one in 500 actually made it out. What's the point? The point was that those were the souls that were able to endure. Those were the souls that were able to connect and stay related to the to a certain extent. And what did that prove? That was a that was a kind of survival of the fittest. That was kind of proving that these are the souls that are the most connected to the that they couldn't totally disconnect from it. And these were the pure souls. And then what happened? Hashem said that these souls need now earned the right to leave Egypt. And he says that was why they had to have the the the and of the mitzvah of slaughtering the carbon pes. This was what gave them now this merit. They connected to the they survived. Now what gave them the merit to leave Egypt? The current pes. And that was what that was the story of the exodus. And then what happened? Now they had to spend 50 days preparing themselves to finally get the purpose of the entire world which was to receive the Torah. So the alik is looking at literally the entire story of the world and saying that and of course you could spend a lot of time thinking about each element and each level but the idea is that not to look at the entire story of gracious and chamos as individual stories but understand that it is a process to come to the final moment when Hashem is going to give the Torah to the Jewish people. the people that finally were worthy to accept it after all the years of struggle after all the years of humanity's first first humanity had to go through a process then had to go through a process then the 12 tribes had to go through a process then the 70 souls had to go through a process until eventually eventually all the souls of the Jewish people had to go through a process to finally come out with the purest specimen and each one of us are uh descendants of those souls the souls s that made it through the finest souls that Hashem decided to give the Torah to. And this is why the beginning of the par says has to repeat. These are the children of Yakov. These are the 12 tribes. Why does the Torah have to repeat that? We know the 12 tribes very well by now. We know Yakov very well by now. To say that this is one continuation. This is the story. The Jewish people were able to survive through the hardships of Mitzim because they looked back to where they came from. They knew their roots and in that merit they're able to stay strong and connect to the and the entire story is a brace to shimos and the exodus and then of course the giving of the Torah was one long story of the refinement purification and the process of the Jewish people ultimately receiving the Torah and that was the purpose of all the suffering. It wasn't as a punishment God forbid it wasn't as to make people uh suffer. It was purely for the good of the world that there should be the finest souls and the most purest souls coming out. The ones that are going to be able to endure and cling to the against all odds showing that they are the most related to the showing that they are the closest thing to the because they were unable to be detached from it. And this was what the merit that they had to receive the Torah.