Today's class is dedicated in loving memory of Adina bat Yocheved, Jeanette Feldman by her family.
In the beginning of Parashat Bo, before Hashem warns about the plague of Arbeh/ Locust, Hashem says, “The goal of this is to tell your children and grandchildren, that I made a joke, that I taunted and made a fool out of the Egyptians, etc.. “
Rav Shmuel Berenbaum asks, Where do we find this concept of making a joke out of people? If anything, it says in Mishleh that when your enemy falls, you should not celebrate. Furthermore, why do we have to say this? Isn't enough to tell about the plagues? We also have to tell our children that we made it a joke out of the Egyptians?
And thirdly, why specifically about the plague of Arbeh does it say this concept?
His answer is that there are two goals in Yetziat Mitzrayim. This is very important.
Goal number one is belief.
Goal number two is to humble yourself, as it says in this week's Parasha, “How much longer are you going to hold back to humble yourself in front of me?”
Hashem wanted two things out of Paroah: Number one, to realize there's a God and He has power.
Number two, to humble yourself to that power and realize that you can't do anything.
At this point Paroah was already admitting that there is a God. He got that clear. He said it straight out, and yet he still wanted to fight God.
When it says that he got his chariot ready, it means he was ready to fight God. He thought, ‘Okay, yes, there's a God, but I'm a fighter as well.”
So Hashem says, “Now we have to humble you. We have to break you. We have to make a joke out of you.” How do we do that? How do we show you that you can't do anything?
We're going to us this creature called a locust that you can literally step on. God is going to show how these weak locusts can wipe everything out. And then you're going to see how powerful I am and how little you can do. God says, I don't need an atom bomb. I'm going to use the locust. We find a similar concept with Titus in Masechet Gittin 56B, where he was all arrogant.
He said he knew who God was and yet he wanted to take Him on. So God said, ‘I’m not going to take him down with an ocean. Titus said God could only use oceans. So God said, “I’ll use a little mosquito. The mosquito will go into his nose and enter his brain, and eventually he'll die that way.” God says, I don't need any great power. You'll see what I can do with a little mosquito against you. We find a similar concept by Goliat HaRasha. David Hamelech takes on Golait. And Goliath comes and taunts him, and he taunts God. Then David comes at with a few rocks and Goliat says to him, “Am I a dog that you're coming to me with sticks to fight me?”
And David, with his slingshot, scored a direct hit through the armor, and brought him down.
Rav Shmuel Berenbaum goes on to say that quite often when a person becomes arrogant, God has to show him. He uses the Titanic as an example. They said it was the ship that even God couldn’t sink, and on the maiden voyage, it went down. Even when it hit the iceberg, they felt like they could handle it. And in the end, so many people died, because they didn't have enough lifeboats. They didn't ever think they would need the lifeboats!
This was the goal of the Makot, not only to realize how powerful God is, but to realize that you can't do anything. En Od Milevado. And if you think otherwise, God says, let Me see what you think you could do.
That's why we needed this point of making them into a laughingstock. He goes on to say, and we've mentioned this before, that certain people think, “I can handle things, but just God don't interfere.” That is a mistake. The fundamental is I can't do anything. I can't do anything at all. That's what Hashem showed Paroah, and that's what we're supposed to realize.
This really continues what we've been talking about over the past few days, about having Bitachon in Hashem on the Pratim, on the details. With every little detail, there's nothing that we can do without Hashem, and those that think otherwise, Hashem shows them the truth. Have a wonderful day and a Shabbat Shalom.