Hamaayan/The Torah Spring Edited by Shlomo Katz Parashat Sh'mot Volume VIII/Number 13 (348) 18 Tevet 5754/January 1, 1994 R' Aaron Lewin asks in haDrash v'haIyun: Why did Hashem take the children of His beloved Avraham to Egypt, to hand them over to brutal and cruel masters who oppressed them and embittered their lives? The answer, says R' Lewin, is that this is how Hashem prepared Bnei Yisrael to be the "Kingdom of Priests" that possesses every good trait. One who has never suffered cannot feel the pain of the oppressed and the depressed. On the other hand, one who was himself steeped in sorrow will, when his lot improves, understand what is incumbent upon him to do for the less fortunate. This is why so many commandments in the Torah conclude with the reminder, "For you were a sojourner in Egypt." We might add, that the shemittah can serve a similar purpose. Obviously, a vast gulf separates landowner from the beggar. How can the former understand the misery of the latter? The answer is that by observing shemittah, when the landowner is suddenly on equal footing with the beggar as both compete for the produce which lies in the open fields, the landowner hopefully comes to understand the plight of the less fortunate. ************************************ "...and the land filled with them. And a new king arose over Egypt...." (1:7-8) R' Meir Kahana, hy"d, quotes the midrash which states, "'The land filled with them' -- the theaters and circuses filled with them." Once this happened, the midrash continues, Hashem caused the Egyptians to hate the Jews. This is the way Jewish history goes, says R' Kahana. Hashem sends us into exile for some purpose, whether as punishment or to sanctify G-d's Name. However, we fail to recognize His purpose, and instead turn the exile to our own material advantage. When the time for the exile ends, Hashem therefore has to force us to return to Eretz Yisrael, as he had to do with the generation of the Exodus. (Ohr haRa'ayon) ************************************ R' Yosef Dov haLevi Soloveitchik uses the above idea to explain an enigmatic juxtaposition of verses in Tehilim (ch. 105), "Give praise to Hashem...He turned their [i.e., the Egyptians'] hearts to hate them [i.e., the Jews]." Why do we thank Hashem for causing the Egyptians to hate us? The answer, as shown by a host of midrashim, is that when we try to assimilate (as the Jews did in Egypt), Hashem makes sure that we are not accepted. (Bet haLevi) ************************************ The Torah relates that Moshe Rabbenu, the Patriarchs, and many other great figures were shepherds. R' Avraham haLevi Horowitz (father of the "Shelah haKadosh") explains that they did this because they sought solitude where they would not be tempted to speak "Lashon haRa." Based on this thought, R' Avraham explains the well-known midrash that as a baby comes into the world, an angel slaps his mouth and causes him to forget the Torah which he learnt in the womb. In addition to its literal meaning, this midrash is a parable for a person who goes out into the world. Immediately, an angel, i.e., the "Yetzer haRa," slaps his mouth, i.e., causes him to speak Lashon haRa (which is the greatest blemish a mouth could have), and he forgets all that he learnt in the Yeshiva beforehand. (Yesh Nochalin 8:8) ************************************ We read in the Pesach Haggadah, "Look what Lavan tried to do to Yaakov. Pharaoh decreed only against the males, while Lavan wanted to uproot everything." Why is this statement in the Haggadah, whose purpose is to relate the evil of the Egyptians and how Hashem took vengeance upon them? Why downplay Pharaoh's evil as compared to Lavan's? R' Eliezer Dovid Gruenwald, zatzal, explains that Hashem has already promised that the Jews will never be destroyed. The world cannot exist without Jews. This is why Moshe prayed, "If You do not forgive the Jews, wipe me out as well" (see Sh'mot 32:32). If one Jew (Moshe) survived, the Jewish people would survive no matter what Hashem did to the others; but if Moshe refused to be the lone survivor, Hashem could not kill the other Jews. Lavan's plan to uproot Yaakov's entire family was doomed to failure, because it would have eliminated the Jewish people entirely. Pharaoh, however, was more cunning -- and more evil. He would kill only the males, and thus might succeed. We therefore recount Hashem's miracle that Pharaoh did not. (Chasdei David, p.51) ************************************ Chazal say that because the Nile saved Moshe, as we read in this parasha, Moshe refused to strike the Nile to bring about the plagues of blood and frogs. Similarly, because the earth allowed Moshe to bury the Egyptian that he killed (and thus escaped detection, Moshe thought), Moshe refused to strike the earth to bring about the plague of lice. Is it really necessary to show gratitude to inanimate objects, asks R' Avigdor Nebenzal, shlita (Rabbi of the "Old City")? The answer, he explains is that gratitude is not for the benefit of its recipient. Rather, it is for the benefit of the one who shows gratitude. This parasha shows us the harmful effects of failing to show gratitude. The parasha opens with a king "who did not know Yosef." It is not possible that this king had never heard of Yosef; rather, he minimized what Yosef had done for Egypt or he rationalized that Egypt had already paid its debt to Yosef's family. To what did this attitude lead? When Moshe came to Pharaoh, the king said, "I don't know Hashem, and I will not release Bnei Yisrael" (5:2). When one denies that he knows "Yosef," he will eventually deny knowing Hashem also. (Sichot l'Sefer Sh'mot) ************************************ HUNA BAR MAR ZUTRA NASI and MESHARSHYA BAR PAKOD On this day in 470 C.E. -- corresponding to year 781 of the Seleucid era -- Huna the son of the Exilarch (the political head of Babylonian Jewry) and Mesharshya ben Pakod were executed. Both of then had been arrested on a Shabbat earlier in the month of Tevet, together with Rabbana Ameimar bar Mar Yenuka. (He would be killed in Adar of that year.) These executions were part of ongoing Persian persecution of the Jews. Four years later, all of the synagogues in Babylon (not the country, but the city -- also known as Sura) were closed, and Jewish children were handed over to the Magians (Persian priests). This period coincided with the time when the Talmud Bavli was being "sealed": by the sage Ravina II. R' Sherira Gaon writes: On the fourth day of the week, which was the 13th of Kislev, in the year 811 [500 C.E.], Rabbana Avina the son of R' Huna, i.e., Ravina, died, and he was the end of halachic determination. With his death, the era of the Amoraim -- sages of the Talmud -- came to an end. While Ravina was the final halachic authority of the Talmud, the "literary" work of the Talmud, i.e., the clarification of language and ideas, was continued by succeeding generations. This was the era known as the "Rabbanan Savorai." The first of these sages was R' Yosef, who is mentioned in two places in the Talmud. It is believed that the Talmud Bavli was first written down in his day. Regarding the counting of years by the Seleucid era, in Hebrew this is known as "Minyan Shtarot" -- "the reckoning for contracts." The midrash Seder Olam Rabbah (ch. 30) instructs that the Jews in exile should date their contracts based on the number of years that had passed since the Greek conquest of Eretz Yisrael. (According to R' Shimon Schwab, shlita, this refers to the conquest by Seleucus Nikanor, a general of Alexander the Great.) One reason for counting thus was to give honor to the king and, hopefully, to keep him on friendly terms. Our present method of counting, i.e., from creation, was introduced by R' Sherira Gaon in the 10th century C.E. ************************************ The learning schedule for this Shabbat is: Ma'aser Sheni 4:5-6 Kitzur 150:1-5 Kiddushin 28 Yerushalmi -- Bikkurim 13 ************************************ The hard copy distribution of this weeks Hamaayan is sponsored by: Philip and Shelly Stein on the bar mitzvah of their son, Mordechai (The bar mitzvah was on Shabbat Parashat vaYigash. Hamaayan apologizes for inadvertently omitting the dedication.) ************************************ DONATIONS TO HAMAAYAN ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE