Hamaayan / The Torah Spring Edited by Shlomo Katz Va'era: How Free is Your Will? Volume 20, No. 14 28 Tevet 5766 January 28, 2006 Sponsored by Martin and Michelle Swartz on the 20th yahrzeit of Martin's grandmother Elise Hofmann a"h Today's Learning: Pesachim 8:6-7 O.C. 501:6-502:1 Daf Yomi (Bavli): Pesachim 11 Daf Yomi (Yerushalmi): Demai 12 In this week's parashah we read about the miraculous signs that Moshe showed Pharaoh to convince the Egyptian king of Hashem's power. We also read about seven of the Ten Plagues that Hashem brought on Egypt. And, as we read, we are amazed by Pharaoh's stubbornness. Did he not see the hand-writing on the wall? Our Sages teach that Pharaoh was a very intelligent person; among his other talents, he spoke 70 languages. Yet, his behavior in our parashah does not seem all that intelligent. R' Avigdor Nebenzahl shlita (rabbi of the Old City of Yerushalayim) explains: The mind is, in many ways, like a computer. One similarity is that the output is only as reliable as the input. One of the key sources from which the mind derives the information that it processes is the "heart"--used here to refer to man's emotions and desires. Why, asks R' Nebenzahl, do many highly intelligent people smoke? They know it is bad for their health. If they are Orthodox Jews, says R' Nebenzahl, they also know that it is prohibited by halachah. Yet they continue to smoke. Why? Because they want to smoke! A person who wants to smoke tells himself in his "heart" that many people who smoke are healthy and many people who don't smoke get diseases associated with smoking. Like a computer that is fed bad data, the mind then takes this information and concludes that smoking is okay. Similarly, Pharaoh failed to recognize that his policies would doom Egypt because his heart had an agenda. Simply put, Pharaoh did not want to free the Jewish People. That desire led to his stubbornness. We learn in Pirkei Avot that Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai challenged his five students to identify the most desirable character trait. Each of them returned with a suggestion, one of which was, "Foresee the consequences of your action." However, the suggestion that Rabbi Yochanan endorsed as encompassing all of the other proposals was, "A good heart." How is foreseeing the consequences of one's actions encompassed in having a good heart? As explained above, one's ability to analyze his own actions is dependent on his heart's desires. (Sichot Le'sefer Shmot No. 4) ******** "Hashem said to Moshe, `Say to Aharon -- Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt . . .' " (7:19) Rashi z"l comments: Because the Nile protected Moshe [when he was an infant], Moshe did not strike the Nile to start the plagues of Blood and Frogs." This verse and this Rashi teach us the trait of hakarat ha'tov. Translated simply, this means "gratitude." However, writes R' Moshe Schwab z"l (mashgiach ruchani of the Yeshiva Bet Yosef in Gateshead, England; died 1979), there is more to hakarat ha'tov than gratitude. The midrash asks: If the prophets Eliyahu and Elisha each could revive the dead--they each revived a son of their respective landlords--why did they not return their parents from the dead? The midrash answers: This teaches that one's obligation of hakarat ha'tov to someone who has done him a favor is greater than one's obligation to one's parents! How can this be? asks R' Schwab. Who does more for a person than his parents? If one must be grateful to those who do him favors, how much more must he be grateful to his parents! We certainly cannot say that one need not feel gratitude to his parents because their caring for him was a natural emotional reaction. The halachic code Chayei Adam says that one who says this is a heretic. [See there, ch. 67 for the reason.] Rather, the reason that one's obligation of hakarat ha'tov to a person who does him a kindness is greater than one's obligation of hakarat ha'tov to one's parents is because hakarat ha'tov [literally, "recognizing the good"] is more than gratitude. Hakarat ha'tov means recognizing the Tzelem Elokim / Divine Image in every person. Bestowing kindness on another person is a G-dly act. The more distant the relationship between the giver and the receiver, the more G-dly the act is [for what is more distant than the distance between Hashem and His creations; furthermore, the kindness that G-d bestows on us is the ultimate altruistic kindness, and the one who imitates it is the most G-d-like]. (Ma'archei Lev) ******* "Pharaoh sent and summoned Moshe and Aharon and said to them, `This time I have sinned; Hashem is the Righteous One, and I and my people are the wicked ones'." (9:27) R' Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler z"l (see page 4) observes: Surely Pharaoh was too intelligent to think that he was fooling Moshe and Aharon. Presumably, at the moment he uttered this confession, he meant it. Why then was he seemingly unable to free his Jewish slaves? R' Dessler explains: There are two kinds of repentance. Complete repentance involves uprooting the yetzer hara. A lesser form of repentance involves suppressing the yetzer hara. The latter act, says R' Dessler, is like compressing a spring. The harder one pushes the spring downward, the smaller it will get (up to a point). However, the more compact the spring becomes, the greater the recoil will be when it is released. Similarly, the more one pushes the yetzer hara, the more he can subdue it, but only in the short term. Like a spring, the yetzer hara will bounce back, and the greater the force that was used to subdue it, the greater will be the force with which it returns. Pharaoh's repentance was only of the latter type. He suppressed his yetzer hara, but he did not uproot it. Therefore, the yetzer hara kept bouncing back. (Sefer Ha'zikaron L'baal Michtav M'Eliyahu II p.70) Many commentaries ask how it was fair that Hashem hardened Pharaoh's heart. If Pharaoh was not free to release the Jewish People, why did he deserve one plague after another? One of the classical answers that is offered is that having his free will taken away was itself part of Pharaoh's punishment. Rambam z"l and Ramban z"l both explain that Hashem continued to strike at the Egyptians after Pharaoh lost his free will specifically in order to teach that a person's sins can be so great that he will never be given an opportunity to repent. Nevertheless, asks R' Betzalel Ashkenazi z"l (16th century Egypt; author of the Talmud commentary Shittah Mekubetzet), why were so many plagues necessary? Couldn't Hashem demonstrate that Pharaoh had lost the right to repent by striking Egypt fewer than 10 times? The answer, says R' Ashkenzai, is that this was not the only purpose of the Plagues. Perhaps it was not even their primary purpose. We should not forget that the midrash illustrates how each of the Plagues was a punishment midda-k'negged-middah / measure-for- measure for the ways in which the Egyptians had oppressed Bnei Yisrael. (Derashot R' Betzalel) ******** R' Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler z"l R' Dessler was one of the most profound thinkers and teachers of mussar and Jewish thought in the last century. He was born 1891 in Lithuania to R' Reuven Dov Dessler, a wealthy Torah scholar and one of the leading students of R' Simcha Zissel Ziv, the "Alter of Kelm." R' Eliyahu Dessler's mother was a granddaughter of R' Yisrael Salanter, the founder of the mussar movement. Like his father, young Eliyahu studied in the "Talmud Torah" (as the local yeshiva was known) in Kelm. By the age of 17, he completed the entire Talmud. He was recognized as a master of halachah, but, unlike typical Lithuanian yeshiva students, he also was a devoted student of chassidic works. R' Shlomo Elyashiv, a leading kabbalist, invited young R' Dessler to become his student, but R' Dessler declined, a decision he later regretted. As was customary in Kelm, R' Dessler also read many classics of Western literature in Russian translation. R' Dessler was offered a rabbinic position in Vilna alongside his uncle, R' Chaim Ozer Grodzenski, but he turned it down. In 1927, he became rabbi of a shul in East London, England. In 1941, he was invited to head a new kollel that was being formed for newly-arrived Eastern European refugees in the northen-England town of Gateshead. He accepted this post and became both the spiritual head and the chief fund-raiser of the fledgling institution. At the same time, he commuted regularly to London to continue teaching the students that he had tutored privately during his years in the capital. In 1949, R' Dessler was invited to serve as mashgiach ruchani of the Ponovezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak. (Typically, the mashgiach ruchani is responsible for the character development of the students, a role that he fulfills through lecturing on ethical and philosophical topics, group and private counseling, and, of course, setting an example of personal righteousness and ethical behavior.) R' Dessler accepted the position in Ponovezh on the condition that he be allowed to maintain his relationship with the yeshiva in Gateshead. R' Dessler passed away on 25 Tevet 5714 (1954). He left behind thousands of essays and letters which were assembled posthumously into the five-volume Michtav M'Eliyahu. R' Dessler revolutionized the study of mussar by introducing kabbalistic and chassidic sources, as well as the writings of the Maharal of Prague, which previously were unknown or virtually ignored in Lithuanian-style academies. One student summarized R' Dessler's key teachings as follows: (1) One must study Chumash with the same depth and rigor with which one studies Gemara; (2) G-d judges the righteous according to a yardstick that is appropriate to them alone; therefore, the Torah's accounts of the sins of the righteous cannot be understood in our everyday terms; and (3) Every person can and must aspire to greatness. In addition, R' Dessler's essays on love have become standard material for Torah-based marriage counselors. He notes that the root of the word "ahavah" / "love" is "hav," which means "Give." Thus, true love comes from giving, not from receiving. An additional collection of R' Dessler's teachings and letters was published on his 50th yahrzeit. An excerpt appears above.