Berina Yiktzoru · Shemot

A word from the editor

In the Humash of Shemot, we begin the story of the exile of Egypt, the slavery and hard work, and then the redemption with miracles, a strong hand and an outstretched arm. A lot of people ask, why did Hashem take us as His nation even before he gave us the Torah and Eretz Yisrael and why did we need the hardship of being slaves in Egypt? It would have been easier and more natural if we would have stayed in Eretz Yisrael, became many there, received the Torah and we would have inherited the land without having to leave it. The Ben Ish Hai explains this through a parable: There once was a rich man who was raising a young orphan in his house. The orphan ate with them and lived with them and he was a part of the household. One day, the rich man was sitting with his wife and eating a meal and a poor person came to ask him for a donation. The poor person expected to get maybe 5 coins or 10 coins. The rich man took 100 coins out of his pocket and gave it to the poor person. The poor person was surprised to get such a big donation and he began to praise the rich man and thank him profusely. He continued blessing him until he left the house. Even as he was on his way outside, you could still hear him heaping blessings onto the rich man.

The rich man's wife told her husband, "Look how many blessings you received for the 100 coins and this orphan that we are raising in our house, we have spent already thousands on him and I have not heard one word of thanks from him"! The rich man replied, "Wait a little while and you will get an answer to your question. "He called over the orphan and told him, "All this time that you were a young boy, we raised you in our house and you were provided for. Now that you are older and not a boy anymore, you are capable of working and making your own money. So go out of my house and take care of yourself. "The young man trembled and asked, "Now"?! The rich man replied, "Now, immediately"! The young man was left speechless. He went into the street. He had no money, no food and no place to sleep. He slept in the corner of the street, woke up in wrinkled clothes, and was hungry for bread. Having no choice, he began working as a baggage carrier for the women who went shopping for food and in return, the women would give him some vegetables to eat. On the third day, one of the servants of the rich man found him and told him, "The rich man wants you to come". The orphan came before the rich man and rich man said to him, "I see you are having a hard time. You can come back to live in our house as before". The rich man asked for the table to be set and the orphan sat down to eat after three days of having no food. With every spoon that he ate, he blessed the rich man for his goodness and he did not stop blessing him. The rich man turned to his wife and whispered to her, "Here is your answer for the question you asked. A person cannot appreciate something that he thinks is coming to him naturally. That poor person got a donation from me that he never dreamed he would get and that is why he did not stop tahnking me. This orphan who has been eating at our table all this time did think that someone is doing a Hessed (an act of loving kindness) for him. Only when he saw that no one is obligated to give him anything did he realize that he could appreciate what he has.

The moral of the story says the Ben Ish Hai is that if the Jews would have stayed in Eretz Yisrael and received all these good things naturally, it is very possible they would not appreciate the good that Hashem was giving them. What did Hashem do? He took them down to Egypt, into slavery and they realized they had nothing. When they were redeemed, they sang a song for Hashem as they saw that everything Hashem did for them was a Hessed and they need to thank Hashem for everything. This is why we say Eretz Yisrael is a great gift and it is acquired only through suffering. The reason for the suffering is that we should appreciate it and thank Hashem for giving it to us. Every day before we pray the Shmoneh Esrei prayer, we mention the redemption right before it. Why? In order that we should remember the lession of Egypt in our prayer; that we should know that everything we have is a gift from Heaven and we should open our eyes and see Hashem's kindness every step of the way. The 20th of Tevet is the yahrzeit of the Rambam who enlightened the world with his Torah. There is a whole section about him below in the newsletter.

Shemot – a summary of the points in the Parashah

1. Seventy Jews go down to Egypt and the first generation dies.

2. The decree of Paroah that Bnei Yisrael has to do backbreaking work.

3. The decree of Paroah to kill all the baby boys and the midwives saved the baby boys and received reward for this.

4. The birth of Mosheh Rabeinu. He was hidden in his house and then put into the Nile and taken to the house of Paroah.

5. Mosheh goes out to do good for the Jewish people. He saves a Jew who was being hit by an Egyptian and kills the Egyptian. This became known to Paroah and he decrees that Mosheh should be killed. Mosheh runs away to Midyan and arrives at Yitro's house and marries Tzipporah, Yitro's daughter.

6. Mosheh becomes a shepherd for Yitro's sheep. He sees the burning bush and Hashem sends him to redeem the Jews.

7. Mosheh returns to Egypt with Tzipporah and his sons Gershom and Eliezer.

8. An angel asks to kill Mosheh until Tzipporah circumcises Eliezer.

9. The meeting between Mosheh and Aharon after many years of not seeing each other.

10. Mosheh tells the elders about the redemption, shows them the signs and they believe Mosheh.

11. Mosheh and Aharaon come to Paroah and ask him to let the Jews go. Paroah makes the work harder and harder.

12. Mosheh prays to Hashem and hashem says that the hard work is for the good of the Jews and is needed for the redemption.

"And she sent her maidservant and she took it" (2, 5)

One time the sages of Lublin and some of the community heads gathered together with the city Rabbis to discuss an important matter that had to do with saving a lot of Jewish lives.

The people who were involved in this got and said, "This matter that we are here to discuss is too heavy for us and we cannot solve it by ourselves". Rav Meir Shapira, the Rosh Yeshivah of Hachmei Lublin in those days, stood up and very emotionally said, "Our sages explain the verse 'And she sent her maidservant' as 'she stretched out her hand'. And they also say, 'Paroah's daughter's hand was too short to reach Mosheh's basket in the Nile River, but since she stretched out her hand to save Mosheh, a miracle happened and her hand stretched out longer and she was able to save Mosheh. 'What was Paroah's daughter thinking when she did this? But from this Parashah, we need to learn a lesson. A person should always try to put in the effort to reach his goal with faith and trust in Hashem. Even if he feels it is impossiblle to attain his goal from the perspective of the natural world, it is prohibited for him to despair. Also, we, my teachers and rabbis, need to do what we can for this matter with all our strength and with the help of Hashem we will be able to achieve what we need to achieve".

"The place upon which you stand is a holy land"

"Do not say when I have time I will learn (Avot 2, 4). A person thinks that when Hashem will improve his situation, then he will toil in Torah and Mitzvot, but not now when he is in a difficult situation. This is why the verse says, "Because the place upon which you stand" (3, 5), meaning in THIS situation and at THIS moment "it is holy". Hashem wants your service exactly at this moment of hardship. Our sages have said, "One who learns Torah in distress, receives one thousand times the reward. Without distress, only takes two hundred times the reward". "According to the pain is the reward".

"And these are the names of Bnei Yisrael who came down…" (1, 1)

To let them know how precious they are to Him, because they are likened to stars (Rashi). Bnei Yisrael need to know that Hashem loves them and just like Hashem created the stars so they would give light in the darkness of the night, He created the Jews to spread out the light of Hashem to the darkest and lowliest of places. (Sfat Emet).

Allegorical explanation – "And these are the names of Bnei Yisrael who came down…"

In the Parashah it says, "ואלה שמות בני ישראל הבאים" - "And these are the names of Bnei Yisrael who came down". The letters at the end of each of these words spells out the word תהילים – This is coming to tell us that Tehillim is what will help us in this exile and especially in these coming six weeks which are the weeks of "Shovavim" - שובבים (which stands for the Parashas of Shemot, Vaera, Bo, Beshalach, Yitro, and Mishpatim)". The Arizal reveals that these weeks are favorable to repair the foundation of the spiritual worlds connected to the reproductive organ and the sins that are related to it. Therefore, in these weeks, some people fast every Monday and Thursday, say extra Tehillim and give charity.

Another hint in the words "ואלה שמות" – And these are the names is "וחייב אדם לסיים הפרשה" – A person is obligated to finish the Parashah in Beit Knesset every week and to read שניים מקרא ואחד תרגום - the Parashah twice with Onkelus' translation once which is hinted to in the word שמות - names (Shulchan Aruch, Orah Haim 285).

Shovavim – Halachah

Shovavim – שובבים – These letters are the first letters of the six Parashas coming up – Shemot, Vaera, Bo, Beshalach, Yitro, Mishpatim (in a leap year, we add two more weeks of Terumah and Tetzaveh). On each Thursday of these weeks, some people fast. The Halachah for these fasts is that you do not have to accept it upon yourself the day before at Minhah time because they are a set fast day. In a leap year, there are two extra weeks added to Shovavim because the winter days are longer and there is more than a six-month difference between the fast of Monday-Thursday-Monday of the months of Heshvan and Iyar. Since these Monday-Thursday-Monday fasts that the pious fast to atone for the sins of the nation is once every six months and a leap year causes the Monday-Thursday-Monday fast to be pushed off, we add two extra weeks to Shovavim to cover these fasts. Also, the law was really too fast for four weeks, every Monday and Thursday which would total eight fasts, but because of it becoming a burden on people, they made it that the fast should be every Thursday for six weeks. They chose Thursday because that is the day that fish were created when Hashem was creating the world and fish represent the commandment of being fruitful and multiplying (having children). The main point of these fasts is that people should have many children and women should not have any miscarriages.

These fasts begin the week of Parashat Shemot in which it is written "But as much as they would afflict them, so did they multiply and so did they gain strength" and the fasts finish the week of Parashat Tetzaveh which talks about the finishing of building the Mishkan (tabernacle) in which the divine presence resides and through the divine presence, we are blessed.

We do not fast on Rosh Hodesh or Tu B'Shvat. These fasts are favorable for repenting for sins connected to the reproductive organ and some other things to be careful with as well during these weeks is giving charity, reading Tehillim, having proper intentions during Kaddish and with answering Amen Yeheh Shmei Rabbah, learning Mishnah and honoring the Shabbat.

"And she opened it and she saw the child and behold the lad was crying" (2, 6)

The Midrash says (Tanchuma 8) "This teaches that he was a boy, but his voice was like a young man". Mosheh was a baby so why does the Torah write a young man? We can explain this through the following story: Many years ago, when the Czar was ruling Russia, a lot of harsh decrees were made against the Jews. They were forbidden to keep any of the holy Mitzvot. The Jews who desired to keep the Torah and Mitzvot did not know what to do? When they started to feel like they were collapsing under the burden of these decrees, so they decided to ask their Rav for advice on how to nullify these decrees. The Rav whose writing would make an impression on anyone who read it decided to write a letter to the Czar to nullify the decrees. The Czar would get hundreds, if not thousands, of letters a day so in order to get the Czar to read this letter, they would have to bribe the Czar's household with money. They were successful in doing this and the Czar read the letter. While reading the letter, the Czar began to cry as the letter was written in a way that would play on anyone's emotions. When he finished reading the letter, the Czar asked for this Rav to be invited to come before him so he could tell the Czar what the decrees were and why they were being decreed on the Jews. When the Rav arrived before the Czar, he began to scream and cry from the pain he suffered due to the decrees. When the Czar saw the Rav's behavior, he was shocked. He turned to the Rav and said that it is hard for him to believe that he is the one who wrote the letter. The Rav did not understand why the Czar felt this way. The Czar explained to him that from the letter he understood that the writer was a gentle person who is very polite and suddenly he sees the Rav screaming and yelling like an ordinary person. The Rav explained to the Czar that when he wrote the letter he was describing his own pain, but now that he was given a chance to come to the palace of the Czar, the screams of all the Jews who are collapsing under the burden of the harsh decrees are coming out through his throat. So too, Mosheh Rabeinu's cries in the Nile river was the collective cry of all the Jews who were falling apart under the backbreaking work they were given to do in Egypt.

Tefillah – a prayer

Master of the World! Help me add holiness to my life because this is the only solution to overcome the evil inclination who is pulling me at every single moment towards the desires and pleasures of this world. Help me Hashem to make everything that wants to pull me away from You into something that will draw me closer to You. Help me my Father to see everything and connect to everything in a spiritual way. Instead of me asking You all the time for my needs, help me ask You: Creator of the World, what do you want from me? What can I do to give you pleasure now? Instead of running away from people because I have no strength, no patience, and no time for anyone right now, help me be happy to do any type of Hessed that I can for another person. Master of the World, give me the glasses (the proper outlook on life) so that I can succeed in getting closer to You and connecting to You through anything and everything that there is in this world. Master of the World, do not allow me to lose out on the things that will bring me closer to you and those things that will awaken me to serve you like the blessings and the prayers that I say, the Mitzvot that I do, and the Torah that I learn and that I should be able to do these things with all my heart.

Master of the World, help me add holiness to my life because I feel that only this can save me….

From my elders, I understand Rav Mosheh ben Maimon Ztk'l – the Rambam

The Rambam was born on the 14th of Nisan, year 1135, 1 and 1/3 hours after midday in Cordovero, Spain to a family of famous judges. His father and teacher was Rav Maimon who was the student of Rav Yosef HaLevi Even Migash. His son was Rav Avraham HaHasid HaNagid who was born when the Rambam was 51 years old. The Rambam's son was appointed in his place to be the governor in Egypt and the king's doctor. The Rambam's grandson was Rav David Nagid and his student was Rav Yosef Shimon.

When Spain was conquered by the Muslims in 1148, the Rambam and his family moved from place to place in Spain. For a while, they lived in Almeria. Between 1159-1160, when the Rambam was 22 years old, his family moved to Fez, Morocco, but they were forced to leave there as well because of the Muslims. On the 3rd of Sivan in 1162, the Rambam arrived in Eretz Yisrael at the port of Akko after they nearly drowned in the ocean (his brother died while traveling by boat). They arrived in Yerushalayim on the 6th of Heshvan and on the 9th of Heshvan they went to visit Hevron and the graves of Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov. After visiting Eretz Yisrael, the Rambam traveled with his family down to Egypt where he began to lead the Jews and serve as the doctor for the king Tzalah Adin. His main service was to the son of the king Adin, Alfatzel, and he became known as the greatest doctor in his era. In his letters, the Rambam writes about his busy schedule.

He spent most of his day in the palace of the king and when he would return home, he would treat patients that were standing at his door waiting for him.

The Rambam was one of the greatest Rabbis of all generations who codified halachah, explained the Mishnah and Gemara and who was also known as a great philosopher among the Muslims. He was a scientist, doctor, and leader. We will list some of his books that he wrote.

Halachah books

"Pirush HaMishnah" – The Rambam wrote this in when he was young. It has three introductions. An introduction to the Mishnah, an introduction to chapter of Helek and an introduction to Masechet Avot which is also known as "Shmoneh Perakim". In these introductions, the Rambam deals with topics about faith like the oral Torah, prophesies, free will, the structure of the soul, and working on one's character traits, reward and punishment, relating to the words of sages, and the 13 fundamentals of faith.

"Mishnah Torah" – His magnum opus of halachah book that deals with all aspects of Jewish law known as Yad HaHazakah which is 14 volumes. The night he finished the Yad HaHazakah, his father appeared to him in a dream accompanied by another person and he told him that he has come with Mosheh Rabeinu who wanted to see him and Mosheh Rabeinu looks at him and says "Yashar Ko'Ach" (Blessed you will be).

"Sefer Hamitzvot" – A book in which he points out the laws of how to count the Mitzvot in the Torah and what the 613 Mitzvot are.

In the matters of faith

"Moreh Nevuchim" – This book talks about faith and the thoughts of man.

"Milot HaHegayon" – A book that deals with logic. He wrote this when he was 16 years old.

In the matters of medicine: He wrote 11 books in the field of medicine:

"Pirkei Mosheh" – A book that is comprised of 1500 chapters talking about all areas of medicine.

"Hanhagat HaBriut" – Here he speaks about the influence of the soul on the physical body.

"Biur Shemot HaTerufot" – In this is listed 2000 names of medicines in Arabic in alphabetical order with a short description of each. In his Halachah books, the Rambam also included some of his knowledge about medicine in order to guide people in a health lifestyle as it is one of the commandments of the Torah which is to "guard yourself".

His letters

As a leader and a central figure in the Torah world, the Rambam sent many letters, some of them very long.

"Igeret Teiman" is the most famous of them. This he wrote in 1168. This letter was to give encouragement and guidance to the people of Yemen who had a false Messiah appear among them.

"Igeret HaShmad" – Guidance for times when Jews are in danger, how to deal with the Morannos and the Mitzvot of sanctifying Hashem's name.

"Igeret Tehiat HaMeitim" – A letter meant to remove doubts about resurrection of the dead. In this compilation, he talks about resurrection of the dead, the next world, divine providence, reward and punishment, miracle and nature.

Before he died, the Rambam asked his students to bury him in Eretz Yisrael according to his lectures where he states "Do not bury me in Egypt". On Sunday night, 20th of Tevet 1204, he returned his soul to its Creator in the city of Postat (the old city of Kahir) in Egypt. His students fulfilled his wish. His coffin was placed on a very fancy chariot pulled by six horses that the king of Egypt lent to them. They followed the coffin until it arrived in Eretz Yisrael. The Jews of Eretz Yisrael then joined them and the question came up as to where to bury him. The Jews of Yerushalayim felt it proper that he be buried there and the Jews of Teveriah felt that it would be proper that he be buried close to his relatives. While they were arguing, a group of bandits appeared and the horses began to gallop away towards Teveriah to the place where he is buried until today.

They say about the Rambam: "From Mosheh until Mosheh, no one got up like Mosheh" and he was given the nickname "Nesher HaGadol - the great eagle".

The Rambam, the king and the cat

The Rambam was very close to the Spanish king. One day the king said to the Rambam, "I do not agree with you. In fact, I disagree with you. I can prove to you that you can change a character trait through practice or teaching". They both agreed to meet again in one month. The king took a cat and commanded his servants to train him to be a waiter.

On the appointed day, they gathered in the king's lounge – the servants, advisors, important people and also the Jews.

The cat was brought out and amazingly enough, he was walking on two legs and offering drinks to the guests that were there. The cat passed by the Rambam and the Rambam immediately took out a mouse from his pocket and let it loose in front of the cat. The cat did not think twice. He dropped the tray of drinks and began to run after the mouse.

The king saw this and approached the Rambam, shook his hand and said to him, "Your Torah contains the truth and there is nothing that can counter it".

With blessings of Torah

With blessings of Torah, Ron Barina

Rav Ron Barina is a 30 year veteran of the air-force. Since he retired, he has served as a consultant who travels from Israel to USA to also meet with USA air force representatives in the area of engineering/technology. He now dedicates most of his time to learning, teaching and spreading the sweet Torah. He learns with the Gaonim Rav Meir Mazuz Shlita, Rav Yaakov Edelstein, and Rav Avraham Yosef Shlita. He resides with his lovely wife and children in Ramat Hasharon.

"The preparation of the heart are man's, but the answer of the tongue is from Hashem" (Mishlei 16, 1)