We started a new Chumash (Pentateuch), Sefer Shemot. Sefer Shemot is called Sefer HaGeulah because it talks about Yetziat Mitzrayim (the exodus). But before we can talk about Geulah (redemption), we're told at great length about Galut, about the exile of Egypt. I'm sorry to tell you that Galut is not an uncommon experience for the Jewish people. Galut actually is not the exception; it's the rule. Mitzrayim (Egypt) was only the first exile of many. It would be followed by Bavel, Paras uMadai, the Galut of Yavan, and the Galut that we're in today, Galut Edom and Galut Yishmael. Unfortunately, this is our story. The Jewish story is a story of exile, of Galut. And I'd like to learn some lessons from Galut Mitzrayim and apply them to the Galut that we're in today.
So let's begin with the Pesukim (verses) in the parasha that talks about Paro calling an emergency security meeting. It says he called his advisors and said, “Hava nitchakmah lo” (Come, let us deal wisely with them). He started to say that he felt the Jewish people were a threat. He said the Jewish people were numerous; they were multiplying very quickly. They had a lot of children. If we let them continue to increase as they are, one day they're going to be greater than us, and they're going to fight us and kick us out of the land. That was Paro's concern as he spoke to his advisors. The Gemara tells us in Sotah, on page 11, who these advisors were. We know their names. One was Bil'am, one was a fellow called Yitro, and the other was a man called Iyov. They were the ones who were supposed to give Paro counsel and advice.
I want to show you today how surprising and unexpected the reactions of these three men were. Each one reacted in a way that we would not have predicted or anticipated, which shows us that God must have been behind this.
Let's talk about Bil'am for a minute. The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot tells us something about Bil'am, who is no friend of the Jews. He's an anti-Semite of the highest order. But we know that Bil'am is an arrogant person. The Mishnah refers to him as Ruach Gevohah. He's high-spirited. He's obnoxious. Bil'am is filled with himself. He's filled with ego. After all, Bil'am thinks that he's impenetrable. He's the one who eventually would be hired later on in Jewish history to stand on a mountain and curse the Jewish people. He said, “You don't need armies. You don't need soldiers. You don't need tanks. I could curse them to death.” Bil'am believed that genocide of the Jewish people was in his power. He knows the moment of the day that God gets angry. He'll stand on a mountain, say some words, and there's the Jewish problem. He'll eliminate the entire Jewish people. That's Bil'am.
So when Paro says to Bil'am, “The Jewish people are a threat,” what is the normal, expected reaction of Bil'am? Bil'am normally would say, “What are you worried about the Jewish people? They're nothing. They can't harm us. I'm here. If anything, one day I'll get up and curse them. There's no need to mobilize any army.” That's the normal, expected response from Bil'am. The Baal Gaavah (arrogant person) feels that nobody can harm us. Nobody is a threat. He feels that as long as he's present, he can solve all the problems.
But instead, what is Bil'am's response to Paro? “You're right. It's a problem. They can overpower us. It's scary. We better do something.” That means Bil'am, instead of rejecting Paro's concern, confirmed it. That's out of character for Bil'am.
Who's the next advisor? Yitro. Now, what do we know about Yitro? Yitro was a philosopher, a true philosopher who was able to come to the truth of God with his own brain. He had a good brain. He thinks correctly. He was an oved avodah zarah (he worshiped idolatry). But eventually he came to the realization that what he was doing for all those years was wrong. His brain, using logic and proper mental exercise, was able to arrive at the truth that God is the God. And there's only one Hashem in the world.
So I would say that Yitro is a thinker. I would actually say he's a good thinker. His brain works correctly. So when Paro comes along and says, “The Jews are a threat. We have to kill them. We have to burn them,” you know what Yitro should answer? “That doesn't make any sense. There's no proof that the Jewish people are spies, that the Jewish people are disloyal to the government. What's your proof?” A philosopher—it has to make sense to him. But you know what Yitro's reaction was? He didn't protest, which is strange. You'd think that Yitro would write a letter to the Wall Street Journal, an op-ed saying how it doesn't make sense for a nation, a superpower, to go against a minority. Instead, Yitro's reaction was that eventually he ran away. But for a while, he just accepted it.
Who was the third advisor? Iyov. What do we know about Iyov? He was a tzaddik (a man of righteousness). But not just any tzaddik. He was God-fearing. He was wholesome. God says Iyov is almost like Avraham Abinu. If there's a second to Avraham, it's Iyov. Now, what do we know about tzaddikim (righteous people)? They fight for the truth, and they hate injustice, and they hate cruelty to innocent people.
So here, Paro is coming to say, “We have to burn the Jews. No, maybe we have to drown the Jews. No, maybe we'll put them to death by strangulation.” He's figuring out all different ways to annihilate these Jewish people. And who's sitting in the meeting? Iyov. And you know what the normal reaction of the tzaddik Iyov should be? “What are you talking about? Killing innocent babies? Where have we gone? What has happened to this government? You want to commit infanticide? You want to kill infants and babies? Is this where we have come to? You want to enslave a people without any pretense or pretext? What did they do?”
Instead, you know what Iyov's reaction is? He didn't say anything. Boys and girls, learn a lesson. When God wants to bring a decree upon the Jewish people, He brings it in a way where you couldn't predict it. Nobody thought Bil'am would have gotten scared of the Jews. His arrogance normally would not have led him to do that, but he did. So he bought into Paro's fears. Nobody thought that Yitro would accept it. You'd think a philosopher who seeks the truth would push back. He didn't. You'd think that Iyov, a man of righteousness, would have his sense of truth and compassion push him to protest. Instead, he kept quiet, and the three basically enabled Paro.
It's almost like the three presidents of the colleges. You had the president of Harvard, the president of MIT, and the president of UPenn. And Paro says, “Genocide against the Jews,” and all three say, “Yeah, well, you know, context, you know, we might have to do it.” And you're shocked. What happened? And you learn the lesson from there. The lesson applies today. Nobody could have predicted October 7. It makes no sense. I just came back. We have an army, 300,000 reserves. We have planes, an air force. We have submarines. We have surveillance. We have Mossad. We have Shin Bet. We have Yamam. We've got everything. We're in a state of emergency. And if you're caught, you'll be in a state of emergency. We could see a caterpillar crawling on the other side of the fence, and all of a sudden, on October 7, none of these systems worked.
So right away we're going to call for an investigation. We're going to figure out—okay, it's too late for the investigation. It happened. So you'll blame this one and blame that one. But ask yourself a question: how did it happen? The answer: when a Kadosh Baruch Hu wants to bring a Gezerah (decree), the Gezerah is going to happen, and He'll do it in a way where nobody could have predicted it, to teach the people a lesson: don't think it's your technology, and don't think it's your surveillance. Nothing can override the will of a Kadosh Baruch Hu.
So you can scream as much as you want, “Never again, never again.” You don't run the world. Here it happened with an army, with surveillance, with an air force, and with technology, and it happened. It's the same thing that happened in Mitzrayim. Where was Bil'am? Where was Yitro? Where was Iyov? Borei Olam says, “I want to bring the people into exile,” and nothing is going to be able to stop my decree. It's a lesson. The will of God will always prevail.
And you know what bothers me? On October 8, all the experts on CNN and Fox News are telling us how the problem is going to be resolved. Hold it. You're going to tell me how to resolve the problem? You didn't even see the problem coming. Where were you on October 6? All of a sudden, you become a genius on October 8. On October 6, nobody on the news was saying this was going to happen. Nobody thought it could happen. Nobody thought that Israel could be so vulnerable. All of a sudden, on October 8, they come on the news: “Israel has to do this, and America has to—” Hold it. All of your theory is in the past. Where were you on October 6? Now you just woke up? If you couldn't figure out and predict the problem, what makes you qualified to give us the solution?
And let me tell you how the solution is going to happen. It's going to be just as surprising, as shocking as the tragedy. Let's go back to Egypt for an example. So Bnei Yisrael (Children of Israel) needed salvation. Now, Hashem could save us in an infinite number of ways. God is not limited to one or two ways. He has an unlimited number of ways to save us. But look at the way He chose.
Paro has his stargazers. These are like forecasters, and they come to Paro and say, “We see in the stars that the Jewish Savior is going to be born in the next few months.” So Paro says, “Fine, take all the Jewish babies and throw them into the water. Drown them. Now we're going to have to drown everyone, but we're really going after one, but we don't know which one it is, so drown them all, and we'll do away with the Jewish Savior.”
At a certain point, the forecasters come back to Paro. They tell him, “We have no information. We have no intel. We're not sure if the savior of the Jewish people is going to be even Jewish. He might be Egyptian.” Now, why did they think that? Because ultimately Moshe, who was the redeemer, was Jewish, but he was raised in an Egyptian house. So they were getting cross signals. They were getting miscommunication.
So Paro says, “You know what? Not only throw Jewish children into the water, but all babies, whether they're Jewish or Egyptian. Drown them.” And again, what's the objective of Paro? If you ask him, why are you drowning all these kids? “One of them is the Jewish savior.” That's a very aggressive stance that Paro took. I mean, to drown babies? To drown Egyptian babies? Because we're worried, right? Lest the Jewish savior emerge. You're following so far?
Now, look how—I want to say—ridiculous this is, because what happened is so far-fetched. It's so beyond. Everybody's following the law. As a matter of fact, Paro sent out inspectors from the Department of Health. They would go to all the Jewish homes to make sure they weren't hiding any babies. So you really couldn't escape this law. There was enforcement. There were inspectors. And we don't read in the Torah about any people who disobeyed the law. Except one girl. Her name happens to be Batya, however you want to pronounce it. She defied Paro's law. And she actually went out and saved a child.
But who is Batya? The daughter of Paro. Could you believe it? Out of all the people you'd think would follow the decree, you'd expect Paro's own daughter. And she's the only one who defies federal law. And she goes out and saves the baby. She actually saved the baby they were looking for, the baby this whole decree was made for. And he was already in the water. Our savior was going to drown. And who ends up saving our savior? The daughter of the king who made the decree in the first place. I'm going crazy. I can't believe it. It's so beyond.
Now, incidentally, that savior who's in that Teivah (basket)—who was his mother? Yocheved. Anybody know how old Yocheved was when Moshe was born? 150? Well, that's a little too much. She was 130. But once you get that old, it doesn't make a difference. 130! Now, girls, God bless you. You should be mothers. But don't wait till 130, because you're probably past your fertility. 130 to give birth to a baby? Even in those days, it was considered exceptional. How do I know? You know another lady who gave birth at an old age? Sarah. How old was she? 90! She was 90. And when Sarah gave birth, everybody said, “Wow! A 90-year-old lady!” Guess what? Compared to Sarah, that's nothing! Yocheved gave birth 40 years later! 130! Nobody ever thought Yocheved would be able to have children, but she did. Because when God wants to bring salvation, He'll do it against all odds. All the fertility doctors said, “You'll never have any children. You're past your age.” But she had a baby.
And then all the experts are going to say, “But the king made a decree. There's no way he's going to survive.” He will survive. And you know who's going to save him? The king's daughter. And not only that, but if I were Batya, let's say I wanted to save babies. Sometimes girls have compassion, even against their father. I would have saved the baby and then hidden. I would have moved to, I don't know where, some remote village in Egypt, and raised the baby. Instead, she does it publicly. Public defiance of her father. How do I know? What does she name the baby? Moshe. What does Moshe mean? Say it, boys. Say it well. What does that mean? I drew him from the water. Well, boys and girls, you know what “I drew him from the water” means? That's the crime!
Naming the baby after the crime that you just committed? So now Paro says, “By the way, what's the baby's name?” “Moshe. Musa.” “Oh, Moshe, why did you call him Moshe?” “Oh, Daddy, because min hamayim meshitihu (I drew him from the water).” “But I made a decree not to do that.” “Yeah, I know, but I did it anyway.” If I'm Paro, what do I do? The man who's capable of killing infants can kill his daughter. What's the difference? A small baby or a big baby? It should have said, “Paro says, ‘Batya, my daughter, you committed a federal crime. We have to make an example of you.’” You know what? You don't want to kill Batya? Send her to Siberia for a hundred years. Send her to some concentration camp. But what's the first thing you do with this baby? Kill him!
Instead, what does Batya say? “Daddy, can we keep this?” This is not a puppy. This is not like Batya brought him a cat and told her father, “Hey, Daddy, I want to have a cat. Can we have gerbils?” “All right, keep it.” This is what we're looking for. This is the ace of spades. The whole decree was because of this guy. And amazing, what does Paro end up saying? “Yeah, you know what? It's cute.” But Paro, are you on drugs? The whole reason you made the decree is so this doesn't happen. Maybe this is the one. For some reason, Paro forgets everything. He forgets all the babies he had drowned in the past couple of days, and it doesn't enter his mind: maybe this is the one. I mean, my forecasters told me he's going to be born. Maybe this is the one. Instead, he tells Batya, “Yeah, no problem. And I like the name Moshe. We'll keep the name.” Which actually is public defiance of the king's decree. I mean, it's incredible stuff.
All right, now Moshe, this baby, has to eat. The problem is, he's Jewish, and he's not going to nurse from the Goyot (non-Jewish women). He only nurses from a Jewish woman. Now, by the way, there are thousands of Jewish ladies in Egypt. Hundreds of thousands. You want to talk about a one-in-a-million long shot? Who ends up nursing Moshe? His mother. How is that possible? Now, why is that significant? Who cares who nursed him? Because now Moshe will have a connection with this lady. When he grows up, he will go to this lady's house and meet that lady's husband, who is his father, Amram. Amram will teach Moshe Torah. He's raised in Paro's house, but he has a connection with his Jewish family.
But even more so, Moshe one day is going to become a leader. He's actually going to go into the palace and talk to Paro and say, “Let my people go.” He's going to have to negotiate with Paro. He's going to have to know diplomacy. He's going to have to know how to deal with government officials. Where did Moshe learn this from? He got the best education. You know who taught Moshe how to deal with Paro? Paro! He was raised in the palace, so he got a free, expense-paid leadership education from the king himself. The king gave him an education that one day would be used against him.
So one day Moshe comes into Paro's palace and says, “This and that, and let my people go.” And Paro says, “Who taught you all this?” Moshe replies, “You're my Rebbe (teacher). Thank you very much for the free education. You didn't know that you were actually teaching me this so I could use it against you one day and kill you.”
You see, boys and girls, when God wants to bring a redemption, He surprises you. He does it in a way where you will not be able to predict. And now let's talk about post-October 7, the Galut we're going through. But we need a redemption. I was just in Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel), and I must tell you, without going into detail, that it's Galut. There's a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, a lot of anguish wherever we went. This was not a fun trip. This was not a trip where we went touring and had enjoyment. We didn't even have a minute of spare time or free time to do anything personal. It wasn't a personal trip for my benefit. It was only to assess, to help, and to make a difference. But our nation is in exile in Eretz Yisrael. They're hurting. And we need a redemption.
I have good news. The redemption is going to come. And don't worry about how it's going to come. Because just as October 7 came in such an unnatural way, in such a surprising, unpredictable way that nobody could have imagined, that's the way the Geulah is going to come. It's going to come in a way where you're going to say, “What? Batya, the daughter of Paro, saves Moshe, and Paro allows it. And his mother nurses him, and he ends up getting an education. And she's 130. Wow! I didn't see that coming.”
Guess what? The Geulah that we're about to experience. And trust me, we're about to experience Geulah. In our time, your eyes will see it. It's going to be in the same stunning way. So nobody should be depressed or despondent or broken and say, “We're never going to get out of this mess.” The same wondrous way we got into October 7 is the same wondrous way by G-d. So stay tuned for another dramatic, incredible, amazing story. A story that hasn't unfolded yet. But I guarantee you that when it happens, everybody's going to come along and say, “Look at G-d. Look what he did.” The experts, the pundits, the geniuses—nobody would ever be able to see it coming, even a thousand miles away.
And therefore, my prayer is that, as we begin the book of Geulah, G-d may repeat these systems that happened. May they come true.