Day: January 19, 2023

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By Rabbi Shloimie Lindenbaum

ויצעק משה אל ה’ על דבר הצפרדעים (פרק ח פסוק ח)

There are many times throughout the מכות that Pharoah asked Moshe to daven and remove the מכה. The wording describing Moshe’s prayer, however, is unique by the מכה of צפרדע. Every other time that Moshe davened, the פסוק uses the word “ויעתר”, only by צפרדע do we find a different expression, that of צעקה. The חתם סופר explains based on the גמרא in סוכה that discusses the etymology of the word “ויעתר” when used in the context of prayer. The גמרא there says that an עתר is actually a pitchfork, used to turn over piles of grain. When describing prayer, the word is meant to connote a prayer similar to a pitchfork- a prayer that turns the מדת הדין (Divine Judgement) into a מדת הרחמים (Divine Mercy). Therefore, by nearly all of the מכות this was a very apt description of Moshe’s prayer. After all, he was begging Hashem for undeserved total mercy on the Egyptians. By צפרדע, however, we find that even after the מכה finished the Egyptians still suffered from it’s aftermath. The פסוק says that the land of Egypt was filled with putrid dead צפרדע. Therefore, although there was an element of mercy that removed the intensity of the מכה, the prayer did not result in a totally merciful approach and it would therefore be inappropriate to describe Moshe’s prayer as “ויעתר”.

והברד ומטר לא נתך ארצה (פרק ט פסוק לג)

After Moshe davened that Hashem remove the מכה of ברד, the hail stopped immediately, even freezing pieces of hail in midair. R’ Moshe Feinstein asks, why was this נס important? Why did Hashem stop the מכה in this miraculous fashion? He answers that Hashem was trying to instill in everyone a lesson of אמונה. We usually view the world as running with certain rules of nature because that’s what makes sense in our understanding of physics. For example, we assume that heavy objects will immediately fall towards the ground because a force of gravity necessitates it. Hashem was showing that everything in this world is His will and that we understand things in the way that He presents them to us. The instant that Hashem desires that the hail not continue it’s descent, it will cease, and we will be find new ways to “explain” an occurrence. There are no rules of physics controlling nature, rather Hashem is controlling nature and the rules of physics are fashioned around His will.

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By Rabbi Naftoly Bier

In שמות פרק י:א, Exodus 6:1, it states, “and G-d said to Moshe, ‘Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh; for by a strong hand he will let them [the Jewish people] go. Indeed, by a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.’”

There seems to be a contradiction; first it says that Hashem will against Pharaoh’s will force him to send them away; and then it says the “deliverance” will be against the will of the Jewish people!
The same perplexity is seen in Deuteronomy 16:3 where it states “…Seven days you shall eat matzos, the bread of affliction, for you departed from the Land of Egypt in haste… as you should remember the day you left Egypt…”.

Again the pasuk states that matzoh is a representation of the terrible slavery, for a slave is forced to eat matzoh, rather than bread, for it satiates quicker and takes less time to bake. Immediately the Torah says that matzoh represents our freedom due to the fact that we left in haste and didn’t have time to allow the dough to leaven and rise. Which one is the “real” reason?

Rashi in both places teaches us that our moment of freedom was not due to our own volition, but rather the Egyptians forced us to leave on a moment’s notice.

What is the meaning of this? At the moment of deliverance, at the moment of ecstasy when we became a free people, it wasn’t our decision to leave that actualized our newfound freedom, but rather Hashem forced Pharaoh to force us to leave! We as a people, in contradistinction to other nations, never had a moment when we weren’t subjected to the dominion of another, either Pharaoh or the Almighty Himself.

As Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch explains (Devarim p.346) :
“Your departure from Egypt was marked by enforced haste. The hand of G-d lay heavily on the Egyptians, so that they, who earlier had refused to grant you three days’ freedom from your labors- indeed, not even a moment’s respite from your labors – now actually drove you out into freedom. And even as they had done during all the years of your slavery, so now, too, they did not permit you sufficient time to bake proper bread for yourselves. Thus, even at the moment of your redemption, you still were slaves. You did not achieve your freedom by your own power; you received it from G-d, by means of your oppressors. Your oppressors were driven by G-d, and you were driven by your oppressors. G-d alone acted in freedom on that unique day in the history of mankind.
”And all this is למען תזכר את יום צאתך מארץ מצרים כל ימי חייך, because this is meant to be the starting point of all of your future thoughts and actions. For on this day you did not become “your own master”; rather, from the oppression of human violence you passed into G-d’s possession; you left the servitude of man and entered into the service of G-d.”

In Exodus Chapter 6:6, one of the four connotations of גאולה deliverance is וגאלתי, which the רמבן (Nachmanides) translates to mean that ”I, Hashem, will acquire you from Pharaoh.” The Torah is emphasizing that there was no moment where you- Klal Yisroel- were not under the dominion of “another party”.

Why is this important? It defines the pathway to true human development and actual greatness.

A human being yearns for control of one’s destiny. A human being enjoys controlling others rather than being instructed what to do. Even when abiding by another’s instruction, one still yearns to retain some control, i.e. when, how, what etc.

Chazal teach us “אין בן חורין אלא מי שעוסק בתורה”, a person only experiences freedom when one follows the dictates of the Torah. How can that be? I have no say over determining my path of life!
Freedom doesn’t mean I can do what I want; that’s slavery. The true definition is that all my actions are consistent with the objectives and path of life I have embarked upon. To develop a system that is perfect necessitates an Absolute Being who gifts us with an absolute system. For otherwise, my intellectual, emotional, and hedonistic makeup, my desire for attention, fame, material wealth, power, physical desires, will wreak havoc to my planned path. Yes, we were given a wonderful gift by Hashem, we were given the great ennobling opportunity to become subjects of Hashem, never having the “freedom of Western civilization” but the true freedom of Torah life!