שמות

In this week’s parshah, we encounter the yetzias Mitzrayim. Pharaoh will tell you, Moshe and Aharon, to show him some miraculous proof that you are agents of Hashem and you are not just saying it on your own. Say to Aharon, take your staff, throw it down before Pharaoh, and this stick will turn into a serpent, a type of a snake. Interesting, the choice of words that Hashem uses, tanin, a word that is also used to refer to sea serpent. This was similar to the miracle that Moshe performed for the Jewish nation when he first came to see them but over there the staff became a nachash. In front of Pharaoh it didn’t become a snake. It became a tanin.

This week’s parshah begins by discussing the galus Mitzrayim, followed by the yetzias Mitzrayim. Every time you learn a sugya, you have to know its essence. Yetzias Mitzrayim has so many lessons, but you have to understand what is the essence of yetzias Mitzrayim. If somebody would ask you, what does yetzias Mitzrayim mean to you, you’d first have to know what galus Mitzrayim means in order to answer that question.

We’d like to stay on the topic of ‘Getting out of Your Mitzrayim’ and today’s shmooze is on a Chazal we find in Parshas Vayechi on the passuk of ‘לישועתך קויתי ה – for Your salvation I long, Hashem (Bereishis 49:18). We mentioned before that Yaakov Avinu said this passuk in regards to Shimshon Hagibor, when he was at a moment of darkness. It was after Shimshon’s hair was cut, his gevurah was gone and he reached out to Hashem one more time. He asked the child holding his hand if he could take him over to the pillars. He wanted to lean on the pillars.