The Seesaw of Life | Rabbi Nachum Binder

When learning the Parsha of Parshas Beshalach, it struck me. The Torah starts off and the Torah tells us, that Klal Yisroel listened to Moshe Rabeinu and they went back. They started heading back, towards Mitzrayim. And Rashi brings from Chazal that it's bringing out the praise of Klal Yisroel, the שבח of Bnei Yisroel, that they didn't complain and they said, And they went right back to where they came from. If you look a few psukim later, when the Mitzri’im started chasing them, they, all of a sudden, started running and complaining and crying to Moshe Rabeinu, Why did you take us out of Mitzrayim? The same thing we see when they finally got to the Yam Suf and they were about to cross the Yam Suf, it was בזכות האמונה. Tremendous levels of Emunah that they reached. But a little bit after קריעת ים סוף, there was no water, they were thirsty וילונו, they started complaining again. Did you take us out in order to die? And the same thing happens with the Man. And the whole Parsha seems like one seesaw. Sometimes they're on the high and sometimes down on low. What do we learn from this? And I think the תורה הקדושה is teaching us a tremendous Yesod. We don't judge our successes by our failures. If one was successful and at that time they said, אין לנו אלא דברי בן עמרם if one overcame a Nisayon, which was hard for him to overcome, the fact that the next day he had the same Nisayon and he wasn't successful, doesn't diminish in any way the success that he had the day before. And it's time to pick yourself up and try to succeed again. We tend to judge ourselves in a general form. Am I generally successful or am I generally a failure when it comes to ענייני רוחניות? It's not like that. Each and every Nisayon is a world by itself. My success in this Nisayon has nothing to do with the fact if in a different Nisayon I wasn't able to overcome. And if I wasn't able to overcome a Nisayon, it doesn't stop me from working on the next one, to make sure that I do overcome. And that is the life of a Yid. And with that Klal Yisroel is zoche to ultimately succeed and ultimately be close to the Ribono shel Olam in a way that we cannot begin to imagine, and ultimately to be zoche to ביאת משיח צדקנו במהרה בימינו, אמן.