-פרשת שמות
Chumas Shemos opens with the Jewish people having managed to amass a staggering population in a very short amount of time in the land of Goshen where Yaakov and his sons had settled in Egypt. Chumas Shemos is nicknamed, the book of Exodus, and indeed, the primary content located therein is about how Hashem miraculously extracted the Jewish people from their servitude to the Egyptian race. Perhaps the greatest leader of all time, Moshe Rabenu, is the one chosen by God Himself to be the interface between Him, Pharaoh, and the Jewish people to set the events in motion which would ultimately be responsible for the Jews’ freedom. Moshe was commanded by God to first go establish himself as a prophet in front of the Jews, and only after this was done, was he to go in front of Pharaoh and command him to release the Jewish people. However, there seems to be something wrong with the order of the events which were to take place. Moshe Rabenu was commanded to go in front of Pharaoh, the unequivocal ruler of one of the greatest civilizations in history, and boldly command him with those famous words, “Let my people go”. Afterward, he was commanded to challenge the Egyptian magicians (who were the best in the world) to a duel in sorcery, and after all that was guaranteed by Hashem to come out unscathed. This was doubly miraculous because Moshe was on Pharaoh’s most wanted list to be executed, and yet he still emerged from the palace unharmed. Wouldn’t this have sufficed to convince the Jews of his authenticity? Why was it necessary to precede this phenomenal display with some cheap parlor tricks which were meant to first sway the Jewish people and convince them that he was genuine?
The renowned Mashgiach of Kelm, R’ Simcha Ziesel explains powerfully, that the only way Moshe and Aharon were able to go in front of Pharaoh was specifically because the Jewish people believed in God, and ultimately in them. In fact, the entire exodus could not have happened were it not for the Jews’ Emunah, which needed to be generated from the ground up, and honed to the point that they had complete unwavering faith in God, since this was only method that the Jews would merit to be redeemed. When Hashem took the Jews out of Egypt, he did so only because the Jews had successfully fostered a powerful faith in Him. The Exodus was only made possible in the merit of the Jews’ prevailing faith in God’s omnipotence. This being the case, Moshe could not have first approached Pharaoh, and demonstrated God’s power, because the Jews had not yet built up enough faith for this feat to be accomplished!
This need for the Jews to build up their faith in God before they could be redeemed is clearly demonstrated in the rest of the story of the exodus. We find that after Moshe audaciously approached Pharaoh, and demanded that he release the Jewish people, and returned from Pharaoh’s palace intact, one would have expected Pharaoh to immediately acquiesce, or at least for the Jews to begin having it a little easier in Egypt. However, instead of this happening, their work became doubly hard, and Pharaoh removed the “comfort” of mortar, and the Jews had to somehow produce their own mortar for the bricks they were building. This was a tremendous test of faith for the Jewish people, to the point that Moshe felt the need to complain to Hashem saying, “Why have you done evil to this nation?” At that point, it would have been easy for the Jews to denounce Moshe as a false prophet of God. But Hashem answered Moshe, “I am the Lord your God who will take you out of the land of Egypt”. Meaning, I purposely did this because I need to train them in the art of faith, as this was the necessary component for the Jews to achieve during their early formative years as a nation of God.
If one examines the verses closely, one sees that the Jewish people began believing in Hashem at the very beginning of the redemption process. Moshe told Hashem, I am concerned that the Jews won’t believe in me. Hashem punished Moshe for this outburst, and explained that they are believers, and children of believers, and there is no reason that they shouldn’t continue believing in you when you say that you are here to redeem them. Indeed, we find that when Moshe mentioned to the Jewish people that their creator wanted to extricate them from Egypt, they trusted him immediately.
However, one must be aware that the process of believing in Hashem is not a one step procedure, but is rather an interactive, dynamic progression, one which requires daily maintenance in order to remain strong. We find that when the Jews witnessed the splitting of the Reed Sea, the verse says, “And the Jews believed in God, and in Moshe His servant”. Does this imply that up until that point they did not believe? We just proved in the previous paragraph that the Jews believed in Hashem from the very beginning! Certainly the verse only means to say that they reached a new level of faith, even greater than the one they had reached after seeing all the miracles they had seen during their exodus from Egypt. This verse is teaching us that we must constantly be looking for new ways to increase our faith in Hashem. And ironically, when we do this, Hashem will be able to reveal himself in even more wondrous ways to us, as He did for the Jews when he split the sea, thereby creating an infinite circuit of faith and beauty between the Jews and their creator.
The Gemorah in Berachos (2b in the Rif pages) says that anyone who mentions the blessing of redemption right before they pray the daily Amidah, is guaranteed a portion in the world to come. Rabenu Yona asks, why does such a seemingly insignificant act deserve such a big reward? He explains that the exodus from Egypt is the source for all Jews in all future generations to draw their faith from, just as one draws water from a well. All one has to do is contemplate the exodus, and one will become immediately infused with a dose of faith in the Creator of the world. Prayer too, is a powerful display of faith. When a person turns to God with all their earthly needs, and all their requests, they are essentially proclaiming that God is the only source available which is capable of helping them achieve their goals. When one does these two activities together, and one goes from drawing faith, to expressing that faith on a practical level, he will essentially create a constant forward movement of continual confidence in God, and go from one faith to another, earning him the title “One who is destined for the world to come”.
During the times which we find ourselves, faith might be a particularly crucial commodity to acquire. The Jews throughout the world are in dire straits both financially, and physically, and even more so in Israel, where we are in the middle of a full fledged war. Chazal teach us (Yalkut Hoshea, 509) that we were redeemed from Egypt only because of the merit that we believed in God, and our future redemption will also be dependant on that belief. This is not only true about the final redemption, but it is also true about each one of our personal redemptions which we are in need of. It is incumbent upon every Jew, now more then ever, to foster a strong trust in our Creator, and His power to completely handle each one of our needs. Chazal taught us that the way to do this is a bi-daily meditation on the events that led up to, and the ultimate redemption from Egypt, and by putting our complete trust in Hashem through Davening to Him thrice daily with the complete conviction that He is the only one who can help us.
May we all strengthen our belief in Hashem, and thereby merit to see the redemption as our forefathers did!