Rabbi Frand on Parshas Beshalach
These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi
Yissocher Frand's Commuter Chavrusah Tapes on the weekly portion:
Tape # 132, Standing for Krias HaTorah. Good Shabbos!
Did Pharoah Forget All That Happened In One Week?
In this week's Parsha the Jewish people, having just left the slavery
of Egypt, camped by the Red Sea. The verse tell us that "Pharoah heard
that the people had escaped and his heart and the heart of his servants
changed vis a vis the nation, saying 'What is it that we have done to
send Israel from serving us?'" [Shmos 14:5]
Here it is a week later -- the seventh day of Pesach -- and Pharoah
wakes up and says to himself, "We had such a great deal going for us
all these years -- 600,000 people working for us free labor -- why
did we do such a stupid thing as sending them out?"
This is amazing -- it doesn't make sense! Everyone knows that Pharoah
didn't "send them out." The country of Egypt was suffering through
nine terrible plagues; finally the Plague of the First Born came. By
this point it was well established that this was the Hand of G-d and
that Pharoah had no choice in the matter but to let the Jews go. How
can he say "we sent them out"?
Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, zt"l, says that we see from this verse an
insight into human nature. We see this insight everyday -- when we
look at our friends and acquaintances. The trouble is that we don't
always see it when it comes to ourselves.
There are two things that vie for control of a human being -- his
emotion and his reason, his heart and his intellect. Whenever there
is a conflict between the emotions and the rational part of a human
being, the emotions will overcome and make the rational part forget
the things that were so clear just yesterday. If the emotions can
find even the smallest excuse to understand something in a way that
will coincide with the wants and desires of a person, the emotions
will twist and corrupt that which is so obvious to any rational
person. The emotions and passions will overcome the intellect.
Pharoah had a good thing going. The free labor was an economic boon
for Egyptian society. Their desire, more than anything else, was to
re-enslave the Jewish people. Pharoah, seeing the Jews encamped in
front of Ba'al Tzefon [14:2] (Ba'al Tzefon was an Egyptian idol),
reasoned as follows: "G-d was victorious over all our other gods, but
now that I see that they are encamped in front of Ba'al Tzefon, the
Ribbono shel Olam has met his match."
Even though any rational person would have to conclude after all that
had happened that G-d is Almighty, Pharoah was so desperate to find a
justification to re-enslave the Jews that he reached out and grasped
this far-fetched theory.
When Pharoah came to the Red Sea and saw that the Sea was miraculously
split, with the Jewish people marching through in the middle, he did
not draw the conclusion that would be obvious to every rational
person -- that this must be the Hand of G-d. What kind of idiot would
chase after Klal Yisroel under these circumstances? People are afraid
to walk under a ladder because it may fall on them -- so how could he
do such an insane act as to follow them into the middle of the sea?
No. He again came up with a far-fetched theory -- "a strong easterly
wind" [14:21] was responsible for the water's separation, not the
Hand of G-d. The emotion says, "it must be the east wind". Rational
reasoning says, "it must be the Hand of G-d". But if a person wants
something, his emotions will distort that which is obvious to
every other individual in order to satisfy his own desire and
passion.
This is the moral lesson of "we sent Israel out from being our
slaves". Whenever we are in a situation where we know that our
emotions are in conflict with our logic, we have to be extremely
careful and on the lookout. We have to seek counsel from
disinterested third parties. We ourselves cannot judge the
situation. Emotions and passions can be terribly blinding.
Personalities & Sources:
Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky -- (1891-1986) Rav of Tzitevian, Lithuania;
Toronto, Canada; and Rosh Yeshiva of Mesivta
Torah Vodaath, New York.
Glossary
Gehennom -- place of punishment in the Afterlife.
chas v'Sholom -- Heaven forbid
l'havdil -- to distinguish (between unequals)
This week's write-up is adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi
Yissochar Frand's Commuter Chavrusah Torah Tapes on the weekly Torah
portion #132. The corresponding halachic portion for this tape is:
Standing up for Krias HaTorah. The other halachic portions for
Parsha Beshalach from the Commuter Chavrusah Series are:
Also Available: Mesorah / Artscroll has published a collection
of Rabbi Frand's essays. The book is entitled:
