The first thing we are told in this week's parsha is when Pharaoh let us go... Hashem did not lead us in the 'normal' way, the shortest or the most logical from our stand point. And, we were armed (with what)? And that Moshe took the bones of Yosef HaTzaddik.
Hashem was leading us night and day. Literally. We saw visually the pillar fire and cloud. Obvious and overt leading of us night and day... So?
Then we are made privy to a personal conversation: "Hashem spoke to Moshe, speak to the children of Israel"... and tell them exactly whats going to happen next. No surprises my dear people, I'm telling you what's going to happen IN ADVANCE...
Pharaoh is going to come after you and I'm going finish him off and the Egyptians once and for all.
Then this is exactly what happens and... Israel panics! Why? What are we missing here? Were we not told exactly what was going to happen? And if that's not enough, we're armed! The key is right in the next pasuk....
"The children of Israel raised their eyes, and they were very frightened; then they cried out to Hashem, (Ah, there is something here), then they said to Moshe "Were there no graves in Egypt so that you took us out to die in the wilderness? COMPLAINTS!!! "Is this not what we said to you while we were still in Egypt when you came to take us out... "Let us be and we will serve Egypt". Better to be slaves than to disrupt your daily lives, we like our suffering.
What happened from the time of the miracles of the geulah mitzrayim (the exodus from Egypt) until now? How is it that we fell from the level of emunah that we experienced on the night of Pesach (Passover) when we saw the open manifestation of Hashem's ratzon (will)?
How? From this: We raised our eyes, we wanted to believe again in determinism (derek hateva), the seemingly natural events of the world. We chose to close our eyes to ratzon Hashem and opened them to our own determinism. When we realized we could not handle it, we started to doubt all over again. Then the mixed multitude looked up to us and saw we were wavering and started to complain. We did not guard our eyes, we began to look around at the world and as soon as we did we fell from our Emunah. We are told to guard our eyes!
We are told we did not deserve to go out from Egypt on our own merit, so in fulfillment of the promise to our forefathers Hashem added to our Daat to increase our Emunah so we we could leave. A free undeserved gift. Hazal tells us that 'a prisoner can not free himself on his own, he must have assistance from without'. But as soon as we went out we lost our lofty Daat. Then they had to re-earn it through emunah in Hashem, and now we must do the same, through guarding our faith in Hashem.
We can not and must not trust what we see, especially in the media! Or we hear in the news! What lies! To have Emunah is to not look at the media wrapped events of this world with their commentator-talking-head explanations of it's happenings. Emunah is knowing the only commentator to whom to listen is the Torah, and the only explanation is Hashem.
In the She'ma we are told in the third perek "They shall be to you as tzitzit (fringe-strings), and you shall look at them (big hint) and remember all the commandments of Hashem and to fulfill them and not to follow after your heart and after your eyes by which you go astray..." We are told to specifically not use out sekel (intellectual understanding) or to trust our eyes! WHY? Because we start to think our own hagasot in our chochmah, broken chochmah, then we start to look into how we can go about doing it without Hashem. This is what Adom HaRishon (Adam the first man) did, he thought he could fix the shevat hakelim (broken vessels of divine energy) himself.
Every time we think we can do it on our own we have fallen into self generated heresy. We make ourselves into gods and try and remove Hashem from the throne. It is much easier to just listen and do than to try to be a king.
Moshe said to the people "Do not fear! Stand fast and see the salvation of Hashem that He will perform for you today..." Why 'the people' and not 'the children of Israel'? What happened? Or is Moshe speaking to someone else?
The answer is both: we got out of our troubles and said 'thanks for the help we can take from here, we'll call you if we need you.' Unfortunately this seems to be a recurring theme in our national history.
When we KNOW that Hashem sustains all, that the Hand of Hashem runs all, then we will have expanded Daat (knowledge of Hashem) such as was on the night of the first Pesach (Passover) and the exodus from Egypt. And then, may it be today, we will open the door to the next and final geulah.
Mystical Paths
