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V'Rav
Welcome to Daily Bitachon. We are completing the final explanation of our first pasuk , the word ורב V'Rav /The Jewish people became many, they multiplied. The Baal Haggadah explains that they are multitudes like the grass of the fields. So the word rav means a lot. But the Sefer Shibolei HaLeket quotes Rabbenu Yeshayahu that v'rav is does not mean they became a lot. Rather, it means holech u'mitrabeh / They are constantly growing. That's why we say revavah k'tzemach hasadeh netatichech / they were multiplying like the grass of the fields. Grass of the fields just keeps on growing and growing. This pasuk actually uses three terms: gadol /great, atzum /powerful, and v'rav / many or multiply . The Maharal in his Sefer Divrei Negidim page פ tells us, these three terms correspond to the merits of our three Avot . The term gadol is in the zechut of Avraham. Like it says v'e'escha l'goy gadol / I'm going to make you into a goy gadol, a great nation. Therefore, his children became gedolim , as we explained gadol means that you're not influenced by the outside world;you are an influencer , not an influencee . Atzum , powerful, is in the merit of Yitzchak Avinu. King Avimelech told Yitzchak Lech me'imanu ki atzamta mimenu me'od / Leave us because You are much more powerful than us . That's the term atzum . Finally, the term v'rav is in the merit of Yaakov Avinu, whom Hashem told El Shaddai yevarech otcha v'yafrecha v'yarbecha , He will make you fruitful v'yarbecha/ and multiply you. So V'Rav / To multiply is ascribed to Yaakov Avinu. He had 12 children and from there everything branched out. This is a fundamental- that everything we have is zechut avot . What is this concept specifically of V'Rav ? The Sefer Maaseh Nissim asks, Is is true that we more than anybody else? The other nations are more than us. And he answers that V'Rav means they have a multiplying power but it's not that they're numerous, rather, qualitatively , they have a multiplying power. They have the potential for tremendous growth. Like a seed that grows into something else that has more seeds and continues and continues. There are trees that can become extinct. There are things that are wiped out, but grass is always there. It keeps growing and multiplying to no end. That is the potential of Jewish people- that they will be forever. We are an eternal nation. Of course, there are nations that are numerically more than us. But going back to the time of Mitzrayim , has any culture survived like us? We have that power of survival of eternity, we are the eternal nation. As we have spoken about before, in we V'Hi SheAmda , we are the eternal nation, the Jewish people. That is the blessing of V'Rav . Yaakov Avinu wrestled with the angel of Eisav Ad alot hashachar / until the morning star. The Sefer HaChinuch , in the third mitzvah, talks about the underlying reason behind gid hanasheh /the displaced sinew from the wrestling match between Yaakov and this and the angel of Esav, which is to hint to us that even though we will suffer tremendous difficulties during our exiles, in the hands of the nations, in the hands of the children of Esav, we are guaranteed betuchim shelo yovdu / that we will not become extinct. l'olam ya'amod zar'am v'shmam , forever their children will last. By constantly remembering this, they will strengthen their emunah that they will last forever. When Esav's angel fought Yaakov, he hit him on his thigh, symbolizing his seed. He was trying to eradicate the future seed. But we survived. Yaakov Avinu was limping, but the sun came out and he was healed. That is a sign for us that The sun of Mashiach will come v'yirpa'einu and heal us and redeem us. That is the seed -like aspect of revavah , that we will be there forever. The seed will never end; it is constantly replanting and restarting. Yet another lesson and Chizuk in emunah and bitachon from our Haggadah.
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Vaygur Sham
Welcome to Daily Bitachon . We are now taking Bitachon lessons from the Pesukim that we read at Bikurim, that are the foundation of Magid in the Haggadah . We're telling the story of Yaakov going down to Mitzrayim and the next two words that we're going to discuss are ויגר שם Vayagor Sham / And they sojourned there. The Baal Haggadah explains that Yaakov Avinu's intention was not to become entrenched in the land, just to be there temporarily. He proves it from a Pasuk in Bereshit where the brothers tell Paroah, "Lagur ba'aretz banu/We came just to be sojourners ." (The Haggadah quotes from Parashat Ki Tavo in Devarim , which is a short synopsis of the events that occurred in Bereshit, which we refer back to) Ki ein mir'eh la'tzon asher la'avadecha/ We have no grazing area for our sheep. We're shepherds. We have no grazing area. And we're here temporarily. There's a very important lesson hiding in this little story about them not having a grazing area for their sheep. We know that the Egyptians worshipped sheep, and they did not like the shepherds who, so to say, did not necessarily treat sheep with the same respect that they did. Their sheep were not sheared or used as a commodity the way the Jewish people did. Yaakov and his family, going back to his time in Lavan's house, benefitted from and used sheep for their own purses. This was not the way the Egyptians worshipped them. So in truth, they were coming down to Egypt with a profession that would cause them to be distanced from the Egyptians. So we can see two areas where Hashem was preparing the road for them, decades in advance. Avraham was a shepherd, Yitzchak was a shepherd, Yaakov was a shepherd. They were all shepherds. The great Tzadikim are all called shepherds. David was a shepherd... Rabbeinu Bachya on this pasuk, and many others, explain that this is because a shepherd has time to think and meditate and contemplate, and that was a way to connect to Hashem, in a profession that allows for it. That is why they chose that profession. That's the simple, natural explanation. But now, as Hashem is always preparing the future, there are another two great benefits. Benefit number one is, when you're dealing with sheep on a day-to-day basis, cleaning them, and getting down and dirty, so to say, with them, you lose your respect for them, so there's no way you're going to treat them as a god. You know what they are. You're not going to worship them. So benefit number two is that the Egyptians would distance themselves from us. They were forced to separate from the Egyptians because they were not in the business that the Mitzrim appreciated. Look how Hashem was preparing from generations before, to put us in a situation that was right for us. When they came to Egypt, they might have said, " Oh my gosh, this is the worst possible profession! No one, no one likes this profession here." But in hindsight it was actually a protection. It might have caused us to be distanced, and that might be why we moved to the ghetto of Goshen and did not mix with everybody else. But that's what was necessary, and that's what was good for us.
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ויהי שם לגוי גדול - America the final stop
Welcome to Daily Bitachon . We continue with Bitachon lessons from the Haggadah shel Pesach . The next phrase is וַֽיְהִי־שָׁ֕ם לְג֥וֹי גָּד֖וֹל Vayehi sham l'goy /they were there for a nation ( or some texts have) l'goy gadol / to a great nation. Melamed / This teaches us she'hayu Yisrael Metzuyanim sham/The Jewish people were outstanding there. Metzuyan means different. On a test sometimes you get the mark of Metzuyan . Metzuyan doesn't mean excellent , it means outstanding . Different . It could be outstandingly good or outstandingly bad. So the Jewish people were outstanding . We see this either from the word Goy , that they were a nation , which means that they had their own culture and their own ways, or the words Goy Gadol . On the words, Shnei meorot hagdolim / The two great luminaries . Maor hagadol , Maor hakaton/the large and the small. The sun is called large and the moon is called small because the sun is Gadol . Gadol means a source of light. And the moon, the Katan , is a receiver . So an Adam Gadol , as Rav Wolbe quotes from Rav Yerucham Levovitz, is someone that's able to give to Ketanim , to people that are smaller. The Jewish people are going to be a Goy Gadol . They're not influenced by the outside, they're their own source of their way of life, an independent source, not influenced by the outside world. The opposite is va'yitarvu bagoyim v'yilmdu ma'aseihem / They mixed with the other nations and learned from their ways. But Goy or a Goy Gadol means, No, we're not mixing, we're not being influenced. This is a phenomena. In Bereishit 46:3, Hashem tells Yaakov , וַיֹּ֕אמֶר אָנֹכִ֥י הָאֵ֖ל אֱלֹהֵ֣י אָבִ֑יךָ אַל־תִּירָא֙ מֵרְדָ֣ה מִצְרַ֔יְמָה כִּֽי־לְג֥וֹי גָּד֖וֹל אֲשִֽׂימְךָ֥ שָֽׁם׃ I am Hashem the God of your fathers. Don't be afraid to go down to Mitzr ayim . Ki l'goy gadol asimcha sham/For I will make you a Goy Gadol there. When you say someone's not supposed to be afraid, that means he was afraid. He was afraid. How in the world are my children going to down there to Mitzrayim? How in the world? And Hashem said, 'Don't worry. There is where they're going to become the Goy Gadol". Somehow, in the most contaminated nations, they're going to develop their status of a Goy and a Goy Gadol at that. This history repeats itself. One of the main themes of these pesukim is that it's not just about them. We're still in Galut Mitzrayim , we're still waiting for the ultimate Geulah . A famous story is told that Rav Chaim Volozhin was once praying Shacharit , and he burst out crying bitterly, but he did explain why. One of his closest students, Rav David Tevel , the author of Nachlat David , pressed him and said, " What happened? Why were you crying so bitterly during these prayers?" Rav Chaim said, " We're currently in Europe, but the time will come (this was about 150 years before the Holocaust) when European Jewry will be uprooted and will go into another exile. We have 10 exiles. From Bavel to North Africa, to Egypt, to Italy, to Spain, to France, to Germany, to Poland, to Lithuania." "And the final exile, " he said, "is the exile of America. It's going to be a very difficult exile. Who knows how we will survive that exile? "And that's what he was crying for- the last stop. Just like Yaakov Avinu was nervous, Rav Chaim Volozhin , who saw the future, was nervous as well. What's going to be? And just like Yaakov Avinu would have been surprised when he saw the Jewish people coming out, Yotzim b'yad rama / A nation on such a high level, that such a tremendous revelation, that came out specifically from that land of contamination, Rav Chaim Volozhin, when Mashiach comes, will look and say, Wow, look what America looks like. Look at the amount of Yeshivot, look at the amount of Kollelim, look at the amount of Bais Yaakov, Look what's going on! How many Sefarim were written in America? What a overturn! After the Holocaust , Rav Mottel Katz went into a bookstore on Lower East Side looking for a Ketzot Hachoshen , a book that is learned in Yeshivot. The proprietor said, " Let me look, I think I have one left." The store owner found the book, blew off the dust, gave it to him and said, " Be careful with this book, because this is the last Ketzot Hachoshen in America. " Rav Mottel Katz told him, " More Ketzot Hachoshens will be printed or used in America than have been printed since the Ketzos Hachoshen came out." And he was right. That's the unbelievable concept of Vayehi sham l'goy / Vayehi sham l'goy gadol . There, in Mitzrayim , we will turn into a nation that's Metzuyanim / outstanding . That's what we see today. B'ezrat Hashem , there is nothing better to strengthen our Bitachon than to watch these prophecies come true.
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12. 70. 600k
Welcome to Daily Bitachon . We continue with the next unit in the Haggadah . במתי מעת Bimtei Me'at/In a little bit of Meteh What does Meteh mean? One year we were doing the Haggadah shel Pesach and I asked, what is Meteh ? No one around the table knew. The truth is, I didn't know either. So we stopped right there and opened up a Chumash . Rashi said bimtei me'at bishivim nefesh , with 70 souls. But that doesn't translate what metei me'at means. So we looked at the Targum , our next choice after Rashi , and it said be'am ze'ir , a small nation. So metei is being defined as nation . The Metzudot David in Shoftim 20:48 says, metim- hu shem le'enoshut / Metim means humanity , or people like anshei . The Ibn Ezra says the word Meteh , anytime you have a tzere yud , it means the "plural of". For example, שער Shaar is a gate. שערי Shaare is the gates of . It's a plural possessive. So the word Meteh means a small amount of many people. That's a little strange term. Furthermore, the Ibn Ezra says the word מת never shows up in singular form. He sends us back to Devarim 2,34 where it says we overtook the nations of Sichon and it says we took over the whole city, metim . Which means anashim , but again, in plural. So it's a term for humanity in the plural sense. So a small amount of humanity. That's a strange term. The Jewish people went down in a small amount of humanity, and as Rashi says bishivim nefesh, they went down with 70 souls. Rav Dessler, in volume 3 page 211 explains that certain numbers are significant. The number 70 has a significance. There are 70 nations in the world, broken down into 35 nations under Esav , which we'll call Western civilization , and 35 nations under Yishmael , which we call that the Arab world. Those are the 70 nations. It's not a coincidene. The number seven is a completion, like the seven days of the week. And 10 is also a full gamut. So 70 is a completeness. 70 years is a full life. So the number 70 is not a coincidental number. When the Jewish people, hit the number 70, they were a metim . They were a small humanity, a small nation . Those 70 people had inside of them the 70 forces that corresponded to all the 70 nations. This shows us that Hashem is setting us up for greatness and every detail is measured. It says in Bereishit 46:27, kol hanefesh le'beit Yaakov haba'ah Mitzrayimah shivim / All the souls that came down were 70. The commentaries point out from the Midrash Rabbah 94:9 that if you count, there weren't actually 70. Some say Yocheved was born as they were coming in (She was the mother of Moshe Rabbenu, and God was sending the refuah before the Makkah ), others say it was Serach bat Asher . Still others say it was Hakadosh Baruch Hu who ended up being the 70th one. In Ha'azinu 32:8, it says be'anchel Elyon goyim / when Hashem started to give the inheritance to the nations, be'hafrido bnei Adam, when he separated them by the Dor Haflagah into 70 nations ( that's when the 70 nations happened). It says there lemispar Bnei Yisrael . The 70 nations corresponded to the 70 Jews that went down to Mitzrayim . So God was working out 70 corresponding to the 70. Rabbeinu Bachya on that pasuk lemispar Bnei Yisrael adds that the 12 tribes correspond to the 12 months and the 12 mazalot . We're above the stars, and we're above the mazal . Getting back to our Haggadah and Bimtei me'at , we're thanking Hashem that we came into Mitzrayim not just as 39 people, or 28 people, or a random 83 people. No. It was a bimtei me'at . It was small, but it was a force of humanity of 70 . As we say, bishivim nefesh yardu avotecha Mitzrayimah / 70 souls went down . And it says Ve'ata hena samcha Hashem Elokecha ke'kochvei hashamayim larov / We're like the stars in number- referring to when they got into the desert- there were 600,000 people. So we went from 70 to 600,000! And the number 600,000 is also not a random number. The Gemara in Masechet Berachot 58a says that when you see 600,000 people, there's a special bracha called Baruch Chacham Harazim . Blessed is God, Who has the wisdom of the secrets that He knows all the secrets of these 600,000 people . That means 600,000 includes all the personality types that exist in the world. Although we can have more than 600,000, those are offshoots of the basic 600,000 personalities and types of people that exist in the world. All of the energies of humanity are in 600,000. So we went from the 3 Avot ,which correspond to the three main traits the world stands on, to 70 children of Yaakov that correspond to the 70 nations, which includes all of the United Nations- every possible country type, German, France, every country type is rooted in the Jewish people. And then we go on to the 600,000 personalities. So the Jewish people are perfectly worked in to the entire makeup of the world. This is all part of the hashgacha of Hashem Every person makes a difference. The Gemara in Masechet Bava Kamma discusses one reason one should never have a dog. It says imagine if there were 600,000 people standing ready for the Shechinah to come down, and one dog barks and causes a miscarriage. Now the Shechinah won't come down in that way that it comes down only on 600,000 people. Every individual adds something. That's the uniqueness and the perfect planning that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is doing as He brings the Jewish people down into Egypt and eventually takes them out of Egypt and continues to watch each and every one of us.
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Anoos Al Pi HaDibbur
Welcome to Daily Bitachon. We continue our lessons with the four Pesukim that we read at Bikurim , which is also format of our Hagadah Shel Pesach story. The next two words are VaYered Mitzraimah / And he ( Yaakov Avinu) went down to Mitzrayim . Says the Baal Hagadah , ' Annus al pi hadibur/He was forced based on the word of God.' Anoos or Onness means forced . The Yalkut Shimoni on Bereshit chapter 39, letter 145, says on the pasuk "VaYosef hurad/Yosef was brought down , or, he brought down others, that Horid Avinu Yaakov / Yosef caused Yaakov to come down. A mashal is given- of a cow that did not want to go where it was supposed to go. What did they do? They put its calf in front of it and it followed, against its will. So too, Yaakov Avinu was supposed to go down to Egypt in chains of steel. Imagine Yaakov Avinu in steel chains! But Hashem said, Bni Bechori hu ? Yaakov is my firstborn son, V'ani morido b'bizayon / Am I going to take him down in disgrace? No. His son would go down first, and he would follow. This is an important concept. Hashem made a gezera and it had to happen. Hashem makes it happen. However, he was originally supposed to go down as a slave, but Hashem was able to change the gezera and make it happen in the best possible way. In Shmuel א , Perek יב , Pasuk ו – ח Shmuel HaNavi describes to the people their history, in short. It says there, " Listen my nation, to what Hashem did to Moshe and Aharon who took you out of Mitzrayim. And let me tell you ," he says, " all the good things that He did with you and your forefathers: Ka'asher ba Yaakov Mitzrayim / When Yaakov came to Mitzrayim, and your fathers cried out, Hashem sent Moshe and Aharon, and they and they came." The Chida , in his sefer Chomat Anach on that pasuk in Shmuel asks, What does it mean Ka'asher ba Yaakov/When Yaakov came ? He says, this is a hint to us. Ba means he came on his own. He was really supposed to go down in steel chains, but Shmuel is hinting to the fact that he came on his own. And he says that the four words, K a'asher B a Y aakov M itzrayim , כ אשר ב א י עקוב מ צרים have the Rashei Teivot of מכבי Makabi which stands for Mi Kamocha Ba'elim Hashem / Who is like You among the strong ones ? God was able to undo the Gezera in the Zechut of Yaakov, and he went down through Yosef. This is an important lesson in Hashgacha Pratit . Hashem will make things happen. How? With tremendous intermediary causes. The sefer Tzror HaMor on Bereshit 41:1 tells us in the pasuk, U'Paroh cholem / And Paroah had a dream , as well as " Vayehi miketz shnatayim yamim, U'Paroah ," that it should have said Paroh cholem / Paroah dreamed . Why does it say, And Paroah dreamed? He says it goes back to another dream. The Vav / and is mosif / adding on . What's it adding on to? It's adding on to the dreams of Yosef . Yosef had two dreams, both with the same theme, and Paroah also had two dreams with the same theme. He says this was all in order to fulfill the word of God that: Ki ger yihyeh zar'acha b'eretz lo lahem / For Your children will be sojourners in a land that's not theirs. As the Gemara in Shabbat 89b says, Yaakov should have gone down with steel chains, but Hashem brought it about that he went down b'kavod gadol/ great honor. This was all in order to fulfill the ma'amar or the dibbur . So Annus al pi hadibur / Yaakov was forced down . How? With respect, with kavod . But at the end of the day, he was forced . Everyone is forced. Sometimes we are forced in limousines , but we're all forced , because everything that happens is there to fulfill a gezera . You can be forced in a respected way, or chas v'shalom , forced in a disrespectful way. Yaakov Avinu came down through dreams, through famine, but he came b'kavod gadol. But ultimately, Vayered Mitzrayim a. He didn't go because he decided to go. He went because he had no choice. Hashem set it up that he had to go. This is an important lesson called Anoos al pi hadibur . Everything that we do happens because of Hashem . Of course, we have freedom of choice. We make our choices, but at the end of the day, Hashem is going to make it happen. To illustrate can look to Yosef- He was out looking for his brothers but couldn't find them, so he was ready to go back home. Then he saw a man on the road. Who was that man on the road? Rashi tells us, it was the angel Gavriel . Yosef was lost. He never would have found his brothers. He was going back home. But Hashem needed to get Yaakov down to Mitzrayim so He sent down an angel tour guide , so to speak, to send him where he had to go. And Paroah had dreams. Why? Well, how could we get Paroah to meet Yosef? No problem. We'll have a fly land in the cup, the Sar Hamashkim will have to go to jail and meet Yosef, and eventually Yosef will interpret the dreams. All of this falls under this rule of Anoos al pi hadibur . It's fascinating how HaKadosh Baruch Hu makes things happen in so many steps!
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