Yesterday we spoke of the concept that if it our hishtadlut does not have with it, bitachon, not only will it not help us, but it will backfire.The Malbim, in his commentary to Iyov, used the story of Yosef and his brothers as an example of this concept. The brothers were, of course, righteous, but they thought that Yosef was a danger for the Jewish people so they decided to prevent him from becoming king. They first decided to kill him and then to sell him into slavery. But not only did selling him into slavery not prevent him from ruling over them, it actually made him into the king! By selling him into slavery, he went to Mitzrayim and ended up in jail where he translated the dreams, and that made him into the Viceroy. So Hashem took those very actions of the brothers, and they ended up being the cause for Yosef to become the king. Similarly, the Kli Yakar points out that Paroah decreed that the children should go into the Nile, thinking that would stop the savior from becoming the savior. Little did he know that he actually was bringing about the redemption, because he ended up raising Moshe in his palace.
As the Ibn Ezra says, Moshe was the leader because Hashem made him be raised in a kingly way, which made him into a leader.
So Paroah did not learn the lesson. And interestingly enough, the Kli Yakar reads into the pasuk, a beautiful explanation. The pasuk says A new king rose over Egypt who did not know Yosef. Simply, that means that he literally didn't know Yosef, or that he acted as if he didn't know Yosef
But the Kli Yakar gives an even deeper explanation. What does it mean he didn't know Yosef? It means he didn't learn the lesson of Yosef. We're supposed to learn the lesson of Yosef. What's the lesson of Yosef? That your activities do not change the future. The only thing that's going to change the future is your reliance on Hashem. If anything, your tactics will backfire, because Hashem has the ability to take anything and use it the way He wants to.
So what you think is going to get your way, is not going get your way if Hashem didn’t decree it. It’s going to bring about the opposite.
Another example is Haman. Haman decided to make a very high pole- 50 amot/seventy-five feet high, an extremely high pole. And what was the goal of the pole? So that when he was sitting at the party with the king and Esther, to really give him full enjoyment, he’d be able to look out the window and see Mordechai, his nemesis, hanging from the pole. What better way to enjoy his steak dinner?
But that ended up backfiring terribly because Esther pleaded with the king, saying that Haman wanted to kill Mordechai, who saved the king's life, who was close to Esther. And to really add insult to injury, the messenger came in and said, “Look out at the window, there's the pole that Haman wanted to use to hang Mordechai!”
The evidence was apparent. If Haman would not have made that tall pole, we would never have seen the evidence. Haman set up the evidence to be seen by Ahashverosh at the exactly perfect moment.
We will end with a nice Shabbat story about the famous Yosef Mokir Shabbat- he took care of Shabbat and respected Shabbat. A certain man, wealthy man had a dream (or the stargazers told him) that Yosef was going to get all of his wealth.
He said, I'm not going to let that happen. He took all of his wealth, all his fields, all his properties, sold it all, and put it into one large gem, that he put in his turban, so that at all times, the gem would be with him. That way, there was no way that Yosef could get his wealth. Then one day he was crossing a bridge, and a powerful wind blew his turban into the ocean.
He said, “If I don't have it, at least Yosef won't have it either.”
Then a fish swallowed it. They brought the fish to the marketplace right before Shabbat. It was a large fish and they didn’t have refrigeration. They had to get rid of it. Who would buy such an expensive fish today?
Yosef Mokir Shabbat would buy that fish, because he respected Shabbat. Sure enough he bought it, and when he opened it up, there was the jewel!
Once again, not only did the plan not help to protect his wealth, it backfired. He actually played into giving Yosef Mokir Shabbat all of his wealth.
The lesson is quite clear. All of our tactics will not get us anywhere. They will just backfire, unless we add the secret ingredient of bitachon.
Shabbat Shalom.