Va'Era: The Storm Before the Calm

0:00These are definitely from the exciting partios. Everybody likes a good action film. And there's plenty of good action, especially when it's the enemy's falling that we like. A last week's partio was a little bit distressing and depressing, right? The Jewish people, they're getting whipped, they're getting beaten. And just when you thought it couldn't get worse, it got worse. But here is the turnaround. Here is the turnaround we had mentioned last week. And that summed up in the first pussing. That God speaks to Mosheh Elohim, right? He uses the name of God. That's of that of judgment, that of a sternist, that of strictness, right? Vyomere A love. And he says, Mosheh, Niashem, I am God. That's what's a strange pussing, right? What does he say? It says,

1:00Hashem spoke to Mosheh and he said to him, I am God. What does that mean? And you see the change. Vyadabeir means to speak sternly with somebody. Vyomere means to speak softly with somebody. Elohim is the God of justice. Hashem is the God of mercy. So what, why does it change? Vyadabeir Elohim means ooh. Vyomere. Vyomere. Vyomere. And yes, Hashem. Mama Softy. How did he go from, why does it flip back and forth? What's the explanation of it? So we mentioned that at the end of the parasha, Mosheh is upset because he signed up for a job to be the redeemer. He didn't want to be the redeemer. I didn't ask for this job. He didn't want to be the redeemer. But God, he pushed him into a corner.

2:01He boxed him in. He pushed him. And he told him, no, no, no, no, no. You got to be the redeemer. Okay. So Mosheh agreed that he be the redeemer. Fine. And then what happens? He goes to Pharaoh. He's ready to take the people out. And Pharaoh said no deal. Now Mosheh had already read the book. He already knew that Pharaoh was going to say no deal. But what he didn't, what God didn't tell them was that it was going to get worse. That not only are they not going to have, not only are they not going to be redeemed, that he said Pharaoh, I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart. He's not going to let them go. He knew that. He had already saw that in the script. But what he didn't see is he didn't see that the straw is going to be taken away, which is going to cause the Jewish people to go from a situation from bad to worse, not only physically, but spiritually. Because the Torah says that first when Mosheh came, the people believed, and Pharaoh didn't accept. Okay.

3:01That was, that was expected that. Right. But what happened then is that from the Abu Dhakar Shah and Kotsarur from the, from the, the, the, the, the, the unbelievable pressure of having to find the straw and having to, and having to still produce the quotient of bricks, that's an impossible task. And therefore, there was no longer any spiritual space in order to not mentally, not physically, to have anything left for spiritual aspiration. And therefore, he's, he's down on two accounts. Right. Pharaoh is getting stronger. The Jewish people are getting weaker, physically, spiritually, emotionally. And so God, Mosheh says to God, I didn't sign up for this. Alamari also, Alamari. Alamari says, Alamari says, Alamari says, Alamari says, Alamari says, Why did you do it bad? Why did you make it worse for the people? And why did you send me?

4:02The briskerov says that akhadeshbahu is replying to Moses. He's answering him, he asked me a question, he's giving you an answer. What's the answer? Right. What's the answer that he's giving? So the briskerov says as follows that Mosheh was under the impression that this increase in labor was part of the exile, was part of the punishment. It was part of the, it was still part of the slavery. What God was answering him, according to the way the briskerov explains it so beautifully, is that there was a problem. God had said that the Jewish people, He promised the forefathers, they're going to be strangers and estranged land. They're going to be there for 400 years. The problem is that the forefathers are not up.

5:05So while we're talking about redemption, the answer is that if God waits to 400 years, there's not going to be anything left to the people. There's not going to be nobody left to redeem. The spiritual annihilation is going to occur before the physical, before there's going to be no one left to redeem. They're going to be so Egyptian, if you will. They're going to be so part of the culture. It's going to be nobody left. And therefore what did God do? He had a problem on his hands. It's got to clock. That's ticking. He needs another 190 years on the clock. He needs another 190 years on the clock. And they're not going to survive the 190 years. So what he did is, he increased the intensity. And therefore he was increasing, increasing, increasing the intensity, in order that they should cross the finish line, right? In order that they should cross the finish line earlier so there should be somebody to redeem.

6:08Says God to Mosheh, what looks to you as L.A. Kim, what looks to you as strict justice is really mercy. And you give a beautiful analogy, you'll understand. If a person, God forbid, person has gangrene, and they need to surgery. They need to amputate the foot. When the doctor starts, does the surgery. Is the doctor part of the curse? Or is he part of the healing? He's making things worse. The person has the foot. Now he's taking away the foot. He's making it worse. The answer is he's saying, no, in order to make it better, you got to make it worse. That's part of the healing. That's part of the healing process. The same thing is, says God to Mosheh. You're asking why I sent you. What am I helping? Hatsalee Hattata, you didn't help the people.

7:09The answer is no, yeah. I have to amputate them, they're going to be nobody left. I have to make the pressure more. I have to intensify the pressure. It was not going to be anybody left. And that's the explanation. So, therefore, what looks to you as the worst situation is really a beautiful situation. I have a story, a true story. It just happens. I sent my daughter was going to Heratisal, a stilisa. She was going to Israel. So, I sent her on Air Canada on Thursday. Okay? I sent her to Thursday. She's going to go from here to Canada. From Canada to Heratisal, it's famous. It's a popular one of the popular roots. No problem. It's plenty of time to get there at 10 a.m. and Friday.

8:11In Heratisal, it's no problem at all. Fine. She takes it off. Okay? We're all a little bit nervous when the President Trump is going to decide. In the end, President Trump decided no deal. And all the planes were still flying. Right? She gets to Canada. She gets to Canada. The airport. I don't know how it's possible in Canada where they have snow all the time. Close the airport. Close the airport. No flights leaving. No flights leaving. My first day said, one hour, two hours, three hours, cancel. No flights leaving. No. Because of the snow. Okay, we tried to. Oh, cancel flights. What's she going to do? She's in the middle of Toronto, okay? So, I called United. She was on the United ticket. I called United. First, I called Air Canada. It was going to stop. I didn't like call American Express. It was going to stop.

9:11So, I called United. I get to very nice lady. Very nice lady. I'm on the phone with her. Not an hour. Okay? She's trying to help put me into a... I said, my daughter is stuck in Canada. Can you help us find? We'll bring her back to California. I think I... I'm changing the order of the story, but just to try to help. We try to get into Israel right away. You're not going to wait. She can't get on the plane. We'll not make it to Israel. She's very nice. She helps me. I can get her there at 10 p.m. Friday night. It's Israel. That's not going to work. That's not going to work. Okay, fine. Jennifer, you got what to do? Okay. Can you get her... Okay, can I... You said that, I tell her... Okay. Can you get her to... Can you get her to Newark? Yeah, Newark. Can you get her to Newark? Okay. This is Thursday night. Okay. We're not talking about Thursday night. I can get her to Newark. No problem. We'll get her to Newark. What time is she going to get there? 5 p.m.

10:11No 5 p.m. It's not going to work. Got the same problem. Okay. JFK. No. Can't get her to JFK. Okay. Okay. Bring her back to California. Can you send her back to California? We'll try again. Send her back to California. We're going back three hours. There should be any problem. Right? Yep. We can get her to California. What time can you get her to California? A stopover. We'll get her there at 3 p.m. 3 p.m. No, it's not going to work. It's not going to work. I'm too afraid. If she gets stuck in the stopover, she's going to be in the middle of... Somewhere in the middle of America. Okay. Got a spoke. So now. Got a spoke in our kindness. They send her downstairs to the luggage. The whole plane. They tell everybody out out of the airport. Go down and pick up your luggage. Good luck. That's what they said literally. And they send her downstairs. She gets a luggage. She's in the middle of Canada. I'm a little bit sweating because she's in the middle of Canada.

11:12I can't get her not to New York. Not to California. Another. Shops in Canada. A couple comes... A couple and a girl comes over to her. So she's a little bit... I can't say she's crying terribly, but she's not happy camper. I mean, this is not a good situation. Which I understand. Who wants to be in a little Canada? She doesn't know anybody. At all. We don't have anybody in Canada. A couple goes over to her. She says, this shop is... This is not good. Why did I leave? Because she was supposed to leave Sunday. She jumped on the plane early. It's gonna hurt. She's too early early a whole. She'll... She'll... She'll... But she can't be... People come over to her. People come over to her. What's wrong? Get there on the plane with her. You... You stop. But they realize the situation. Because they calculate. They're ready to go. Come with us. Are they religious people? They're religious people. We'll come with us. We have no idea who she was. She had no idea that they were. But they know. Yeah, you can tell that they're religious. And they had a daughter at her age. Her age. Exactly. She says, I see you're stuck. They got...

12:12You're stuck. They know where to go. They understood the problem. So, come home with us. Fine. She's a little bit reluctant. But not reluctant. She knows who they were. I mean, not who they were. But what type of people they work, right? She goes... She's a little bit teary-eyed. You know what I mean? Nobody wants to be stuck in Canada. Right? I should do this. Yeah. The whole question. I can't... Is that the point of the situation? No. No. It gets better. She says the family tells her, you know. We have no idea why we flew to Israel on Thursday. We made up. We're going two days ago. On Tuesday. We get... Go to take the tickets. On Tuesday, we get ready to go to the airport. Somebody booked the tickets for Thursday. They booked it like three months ago. Except the idea of what we booked. All of us thought we were leaving Tuesday. Right? For vacation. There's a vacation. No idea. They're not going to change the tickets.

13:12There's too much money. So, we went on Thursday. We came to the airport. And now we're with you. Oh, that was that. Said, I kid you not. I opened the phone aftershabbers. I spoke to them before. Shabbers everything was okay. They don't work. Show everything was okay. To homes. They live in Canada. These people live in Canada. She was going to Air Canada on that type of flight. They lived in Canada. They lived a few minutes away from the airport. I opened the phone aftershabbers. I bought best shabbers in my life. I kid you not. I kid you not. In that language. Best shabbers of my life. Don't you out. God has his ways. God has his ways. Right? It was the worst situation. I'm not equalizing every problem that we have in life. But you have to say, hey, you have a situation. What the world is going on? And she writes it was one of the best shabbers she had in her life. I experience in everything. But if I say, you start off by your doubly. It starts off with sternis.

14:13You don't know what comes out. You don't know what's in life. So, that is the Michelle here. That's exactly what the politics is telling us. Michelle, you understood it's going down. I don't know. But it's one of those like this. It's got to go like this in order to go up. That's just the idea of going up without going down. If you want to jump, how do you jump? You can't jump. You have to jump. You go down. And you push yourself up. You jump up. And that's the idea. The idea is that the aliyah, the going up, only comes from the radar, from the going down. That's what the expression is in the place that the Baal Chua stands. The great righteous person can't stand. Because the person that's sinned, when he does the Chuvani, bounces back, he can go to a higher place because he's pushing himself harder and higher.

15:14And that is the beginning of the aparsha. Is that the way people should look at negative things in their life? Is that that's clearing something that's God's making space for advancement? Yeah, person, once it happens, there's no mitzvah to be in a difficult situation. But once you're in a difficult situation, right? We say that, yes, this could be a few different things. One is, it gives us an opportunity of growth. Failure is always an opportunity to learn more. There's no mitzvah to fail, but if a person fails, person sins, it's the opportunity. The reaction has to be a reaction is what should I do now? The it's a horror wants nothing more than to get a person stuck in sin. The goal is the person has to realize that Chuvvah is the ability to bounce back.

16:21But the it's a horror wants us to throw up our hands and say, it's hopeless, it's useless, what's the difference? The it's a horror loves quicksand. The last words that we say on Yom Kippur is that, God, you give a hand to the sinner, right? Because the only way out of the quicksand, right, is that somebody has to pull you out. The quicksand is, right? The quicksand, you're stuck. You can't get yourself out. And therefore, the metaphor is that God's leaning down and He says, I'm going to pull you out. The only thing we have to do is take His hand, because God can't do that. God is ata no say ni'ad, laposim. God extends His hand to the sinner. There's only one thing that the sinner has to do. Each of us have to do. You have to take His hand. You have to take His hand. That God can't do. You have to, you have to, right? Generally, you have to take God's hand, right? That's what all of us have to do.

17:21And that is, that the it's a horror wants nothing more than we should dismiss ourselves as a sinner that God doesn't want to touch, right? That we are a leper that God doesn't want to connect with, right? And the truth is that's the opposite, but that's what the it's a horror tries to tell us, because then, right? There's no aveira, right? Yiyush is giving up hope, right? It's the worst thing, right? It's the worst thing, right? Each umyush bolam in Bres teor it's there's no such thing as Yiyush, Yiyush means, hopelessness. There's no such thing as giving up hope, right? There's always, right? God has hope for every single one of us, right? We have to realize that if a person has to realize that once we're in a situation, that's God sent me here, right? There's no midst to getting into a difficult situation. But if a person's in a difficult situation,

18:21You don't jump off a roof, if God wants me to, something to happen, it doesn't work like that. But once I'm in a situation, then yes, I attribute that situation to what does God want me to get from there. There's a million varieties of it, but you have to be open to realize what does Hashem want from me. In the... There for tell the Jewish people, I am Hashem, now Moses is going to speak to the people who again inspire them toward redemption. They'll say, see, asrem, I will take you out, me takasivlo smitsrayim. From under, I think the article translates it, the burdens of Egypt. I will save you from their enslavement, they call out to you, I will redeem you, Bizarre, and the two of you with an outstretched hand and with great judgment.

19:27I will take you to be a people, I will be for you for God, and you will know that I'm the one who took you out from the burdens of Egypt. Now bring you to the limit. What does the word syvloce mean? I translated it from the art school. That syvloce means the burdens of Egypt, but others learn it differently. That what does syvloce mean? Anybody speak Hebrew? Patience. Patience, syvlonut. Right, syvlonut. Patience, syvlonut, syvlonut. Vega, Vega. Vega. Right, they have to have patience. So they explain that the word syvlo, and the word syvlonut, it's one word. What's the relationship between, what does it mean? I'll take you out from the patience of Egypt that we can understand it from the Iranian situation, the current Iranians, or the last 40 years of the Iranian situation.

20:29What's happening now different than it was before? We'll see what will happen. I don't know I'm not a prophet, but as we pray that they should overthrow the government. But what's the difference in this revolution from three years ago and certainly from before that? The answer is that they lost patience. The people, the 90 million against the IRGC, they lost patience with the situation. Revolution is born out of an impatience of the people, for the change. They need change. They can't bear the burden anymore. The problem with the Jewish people is that they accepted their condition. They accepted their state of being. The state of being slaves, the state of being spiritually impoverished, the state of being not seeing themselves as the children of a Ram Yitzra Kinyakov to a certain extent. They couldn't imagine they lost the dream. The first thing that God had to do is He had to tell them to dream.

21:30They had to make them dreamers again. That was it that they had to aspire to something more. There was a person, a great person, Dr. Hoffman, in Eritish Surah. Some people became much more famous after life than during life. He was a Shiva Bacher, literally, a Shiva Bacher. And through life circumstance, he ended up being the chief therapist for the Israeli jail system. Whatever the technical term is. But basically, he was the therapist for the jail system. And here is a Shiva guy that I've learned under many of the greats of Israel. The great rabbis and thinkers of Israel.

22:31This goes back 50 years. And his success rate in dealing with criminals in Israel was through the roof. And no one could duplicate it. It was a fascinating story. No one was even close in the charts of being able to deal with criminals. And they're going to understand what is the explanation. And what they did is they basically broke it down. His therapy was based upon, most of everything he did was based on Torah. He went back with it. He went from Torah and got the degree, not from the degree in the Torah. So everything he had was based upon Torah. He had asked Godot and had a great rabbis, had a deal with each of these issues. He got a degree, but I've really got to. But the degree came later in life just because they couldn't have him as the chief.

23:33He was working already before he had a degree. But he couldn't be the head of the Israel system. He didn't have a doctrine. So the doctrine came later. Everything was based on first on Torah. His system was very simple. He believed in people. And from day one, he believed in people. Now I can't tell you this would work everywhere, but certainly worked in Israel. This is that he spoke to the criminals that they were already rehabilitated. He spoke to them that this is your expectation. It's just who you are. You have a problem. So you do the problem. But you are rehabilitated. You have to see yourself that you're rehabilitated. Now you have to get from here to there. So we have to discuss how to get there. But that's where you are. He would see it already. And he would paint the picture. So they believed in themselves. You believe in yourselves.

24:34You could do it. That's just a question of how. We have to see. But you have to believe. That was the secret. That was the secret for everything. The secret for everything. Because he saw people where they would be. And he helped them see it. How are you going to get? That's the essence of who I am. I probably got to deal with it. That is the first thing Moses had to do was to tell the Jewish people this is not who you are. Because you get the identity. They had the identity of an Egyptian slave. Both the Egyptian part and the slave part. He had to break that. He had to break that. That was the battle between Moses and Pharaoh. Pharaoh was telling them, no, no, no, no, no. You are a slave through and through. You have no aspiration other than being a slave. And that's where he took away the straw.

25:34We had mentioned, I think, last week. Well, I have a better idea. If he wants productivity, Pharaoh made a mistake. What is Pharaoh want? He wants maximum productivity. The maximum productivity is, instead of 100 bricks, what they were making for the last 100 years every day, make 120 bricks. Because Pharaoh was able to cut the straw faster than they could cut the straw. Whatever Pharaoh's system was, it was better than having the slaves very inefficient. Have the slaves walk from here to there, go get the straw by hand. Much better. Whatever he was doing till now, importing the straw was doing faster. This is inefficient. Everybody is going to walk around looking for straw. That's not efficiency. What was Pharaoh doing this? Have them make 120 bricks. The answer is, it wasn't the bricks that he wanted. He didn't need the bricks. He wanted them to see them. They could think of nothing other than the brick.

26:34They were total slaves to and through. Absolutely nothing in life. They could think about dream about, speak about only the bricks. Only this being a slave. They also said in the commentary that it was a form of anti-Semitism. It was not only just having them a slave, but it was mind control. But at the same time, they were a threat because of their numbers. So he had to push back on the males, but also use mind control with things economically. We're not even viable. Right, right, right, right. So definitely, the numbers and the challenges of the numbers was definitely Pharaoh's earlier plan. It waxed and waned the whole idea of exactly this process of the 210 years or the 100 years that they were more enslaved.

27:36It was definitely that Pharaoh was doing a number of things, but over here you find a number of my Kichels, but over here Pharaoh was certainly trying to constrict them into totally seeing themselves as once again, once again as total slaves with nothing, no ability to see any light. And that is so you see the order. The order is first you have to dream. Right, once you dream, okay, then I'll save you from the enslavement. Then I'll save you from the enslavement, then I will redeem you, and then I will take you out to be my people. And we mentioned that that that that's a Pharaoh was doing it because there was a shortness of spirit, right, or may have owed a caution, a tattoo of, of, of, of, of hard work. And that's the idea is

28:44that always we have to realize that a person needs to have some level of, of, of, of, of, of sanity, of, of, of, of space, of time. Right, in Shukranar it says that you're not allowed to run into the shul and start shimon, so you start davening right away. Right, even how do we, how do we have a chakras? Right, the chakras says we have a long pizooka de zirra, then you have a mida, the shwan esor, and then you come down. Right, even mincha, we have ashrai. Right, the Ramam writes, if I remember correctly, the Ramam writes in his description of mincha, is you walk in, you sit down, you say ashrai, yoshwe, wei, wei, secha, yoshwe means to sit. Right, then you get up

29:45and you say the amida. Right, what's the idea of the sitting? If the sit a little bit, if the sit a little bit, the problem is we're always running. We're always running. Right, the mind is not settled. The mind is not settled. Right, the person, this is, it's a problem, it's a problem. Right, that the mind has to settle. Right, as I did coming in, you sit down, you come in to shul a little bit early. Right, and he sit down. I heard, I had a, I had a teacher, I had a great, great mentor person by the name of Mr. Abhi Shulmin. He taught a lot, a lot of, a lot of us trainees, rabbinic interns, he, he would teach us speaking, public speaking, and other things, but primarily public speaking. And he used to always introduce his class with the same, with an expression. Yeah,

30:48these expressions, he was brilliant. So one of the, one of the things that he taught us was, oh yeah, he had a stick. You know, Jews, I don't know, there seems to be that Jews are late, and young Jewish rabbis are very late. That seems to be just the way it is. So he had, the way he did it is, we had a two hour class with him, and we were coming from all over from Lakewood, from New York, from Muncie, all over the place, the two classes that worked. And the first five minutes of the class, he devoted to a saying, and each saying was brilliant. And then he would erase the saying, and he would begin the class. So if you were on time, you got to be part of it. You weren't, you weren't. No punishment. That's who he goes. So remember, I guess that week I was on time. See how the saying is phenomenal. He said, the difference between five minutes early, and five minutes late is not ten minutes. Again, the difference between five minutes early,

31:55and five minutes late is not ten minutes. That took me like 20 years to learn this, but right, the idea is when you walk into a room, right, you walk into a room, a meeting, you walk in to davening. It's a difference, right? It's a difference. Now you see, I don't always live by it, but yeah, I understand that. The davening is davening is a different davening. The meeting is a different meeting. When you run into a meeting and you're late, your mind is all over the place, right? You come in, you sit, you settle, right? Here, where is it? The for many. That is, right? What Pharaoh, that's what Pharaoh wanted to steal away from us, right? The meta, Egypt is a metaphor of all future exoils. One of the exiles that were presently in is just everybody rule, not all of us. Everybody is the intensity of light. It's like we're living in a whirlwind. Just everything's spinning around. Everything's spinning around. You have to just,

33:04right? If you ever had, I should never have it, but if you ever had Vertigo, right, everybody have Vertigo. Everything's just spinning, right? Right? I'm sitting, but I'm spinning, right? It's a terrible feeling. It's terrible, terrible, terrible feeling. Now we should have it, but you're just spinning. It's hard to explain, but it's like, I know that I'm in one place, but yeah, I'm going like this, right? And that's really what's happening in the world, right? You have to, right, ground yourself, right? And that's really the bit canister that's supposed to be a ground, right? This idea of mindfulness, all of these things are Torah concepts. Take it to extremes, we mean that, but the idea itself is to be present, right? The davenings of it, you have to take this, don't allow everything to shake you up. That's what Pharaoh wanted. If Pharaoh wanted that they had no mind, they got to get destroyed, they got to get the bricks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the holo confusion. I guess what it is is that all of us have to realize is that, no, you've got to be grounded. You have to have a certain amount of stability, right? Of strength, right? Of presence,

34:09presence of mind, be present where you're dawning, be present with the people that you're at, put everything on hold, right? And the, the, the, that is the message. And therefore it's just to be cap. With the Danielia Sherwin. And just to be cap. In the projects, just to be cap.