Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Bo 1

good evening today we are learning parashat bow and may our learning be little flash Lima for all the Jewish people that need refreshlema and here about Zoya and Joshua Ben Leia we are using the article homash and we are on page 341. last week we started speaking about the plagues that God brought upon Egyptians for the Jewish people to see and to be inspired one of the reasons that Hashem brought the 10 plagues on Egyptians is to punish the Egyptians so that the Jewish people see the Revenge that God did upon their enemies and they see that God is just and second reason is that the Jewish people should see the Miracles and learn about the power of God the greatness of God that God is uh supervising the world and is uh in control of nature he he can change the rules of nature ah sorry he can change the rules of nature according to what his people need what the Jewish people need and in this case the Jewish people needed two lessons number one they needed to learn that God is just and he gives reward and Punishment according to people's uh actions and the second lesson Jewish people needed to learn was about the power of God that God is not a being that is far away not connected to us but rather he is whatever Hersh calls a personal God uh that means that God has connection to every person every individual he's not a national God he's not a universe God he is my God personal and that is why in our prayer we say hello we say you are my God and the god of my forefathers first of all Hashem is my God and after that he is the god that we had in our family and in our nation all the way from our forefathers and these things we learned from the 10 plagues because Hashem said to Paro let my people go let my firstborn son go so Hashem showed his love to the Jewish people by calling us he's first born baby and his chosen Nation and through these ten plagues Hashem showed that he means business that he actually can provide what he promised he promised that he will make us a great nation that he will give us the land of Israel and he promised to avraham that the Jewish people will be enslaved for 400 years in the land not their own and then they will leave that country with a great wealth and now time came for him to fulfill his promise okay now chapter 10 verse 1 on page 341 Hashem said to Moshe come to Paro and speak to him again because I have made his heart and the Heart of his servants stubborn why verse 2 explains why does Hashem make Paro stubborn so that you may tell your son and your grandson that I made mockery of Egypt I made fun of Egypt with my signs that I placed among them with the Miracles Hashem once that we should actually say these words the Egyptians thought that they are Mighty and Powerful both physically and spiritually they can control the physical world and they can control the spiritual world that's what they thought and Hashem showed them no you were able to turn water into blood you were able to turn stick into snake you were able to bring out frags through sorcery but that's where your powers finish after that every other Makkah from number three and on the sorcerers could not reproduce so Hashem showed them you're not in control of the spiritual world and Hashem said you're not even in control of the physical world everything that you hold dear will be destroyed from your River to your ground to your crops to your animals and even to your own selves until the last plague the death of the firstborn people so we are supposed to speak to our children and tell them you know Hashem made fun of Egyptians he played with them they try to fight and he like with uh with toys he was throwing them one way and then another and they were trying to fight and they couldn't Hashem was mocking the Egyptians enjoying the game and today I heard from the bitahan hotline an interesting idea about what's going on in the world now he said the same idea is happening all over the world people are saying we are in control we have advanced technology we have advanced medicine and we're not afraid so Hashem says okay what about my little creature a virus the tiniest one catch and we say that's okay we're gonna close the borders and we're gonna put on masks and we're going to be protected and Hashem says no if I wanted to spread throughout the world I'll make it spread no uh border closings and no masks are going to help and the virus attacked everybody and the people said it's okay we will use our buyer engineering technology and we will develop a vaccine to kill the virus and Hashem said try and they tried and they administered the first dose and Hashem said that's okay I'll send a a a a a brother of the virus and the people said oi what gun are we gonna do so they developed a second vaccine so Hashem said I'm gonna send the cousin of the virus and they developed a third vaccine and Hashem said I'm gonna send an uncle of the virus and they developed the fourth vaccine and as you see it's it's a cycle that until people realize it's not in our hands we give up Hashem please help it's going to continue and thank God people start to wake up and as I was listening to radio I heard two wonderful things finally one commentator said amicron variant is a gift of God to humanity what does he mean and he explained because until now we've been trying to fight the virus and we couldn't and we were scared and God sent us such a virus that infects everybody so everybody is going to get sick as it's happening now and he's gonna send the virus that is mild it doesn't kill people so much it's safe and the antibodies that it produces are good against all the other variants so far so Hashem decided to put a stop to this pandemic so he sent a virus that's going to go against the first vaccine the second vaccine the third vaccine against the natural immunity and he's going to infect everybody and through that virus he's going to heal everybody amazing thing the same thing that Hashem sent to punish people once the people realize that there is God and I better change my ways a sheb says I'm going to send the virus itself to heal you amazing with the same as it says in Russian clean clean and will be wild you fix something with itself and that's what the way of God is he shows us that the same thing the same thing that causes the disease can cause healing and the next day I listened to the radio and another commentator says God willing we will see the end of pandemic soon how often do you hear the such words on the radio it's a gift of God God willing secular radio stations are speaking about God I was shocked and I was happy to hear that they are saying God willing the end of pandemic is near so that is what's happening Hashem says I'm making the heart of Paro and his people stubborn they will not realize that these plagues are coming from Hashem and as long as they don't realize the plagues are going to continue to come until the final plague when people start dying only then Paro and his people are going to wake up now verse 3 motion Aaron come to para and say until when will you refuse to be humbled before me that's the solution as soon as you become humble the plagues will stop send out my people that they may serve me but if you refuse to send forth my people behold tomorrow I shall bring a locust swarm into your border it will cover the surface of the Earth you will not even be able to see the Earth and it will consume the remaining residue that was left to you by the hail and then motion are on left and paro's servants said to him in protest how long will this be a trap for us send out the Jewish people and let them serve their God don't you see that Egypt is lost so some of his servants are not as stubborn and they already realize that their end is near and they plead with power please let them go so Paro summoned them motion are on return and he said to them go and serve Hashem your God now on page 343 but his heart right away became stubborn again and he qualified his uh statement yes you may go I let but who is going I need a list of everyone who's gone and Moshe said our children and our elders our girls and our boys everyone is going to go even our animals and Potter was very surprised before he had before this he already had a similar discussion he told Moshe go serve God leave the animals here why do you need animals because Egyptians don't eat animals and then don't sacrifice animals so Paro said why why people serve Gods animals don't serve Gods leave the animals behind and Moshe said no our way to of serving God is not to do human sacrifice but rather to do animal sacrifice we value people more than animals and therefore we don't kill people rather we kill animals and that was very hard for Potter to understand because Egyptians don't eat animals they put animals above people so that attempt failed and now power similarly asks who's going Moshe says everybody's gone and Paro says why does everybody need to go you're going to serve God who serves God the man let the man go why do you want to take the grandmothers and their little babies they don't need to serve God and Moshe said yes why not among the Jewish people Everyone serves God from Little to elders and Paro said to them so be Hashem with you as I will send you forth with your children and again it seems like Paro is giving in saying okay I'll let you go together with your children may God be with you and again his heart strengthens and he says look the evil intent is visible on your faces he said I figured out that you really want to run away from Egypt that's why you want to take your families and he said not so let the man go serve Hashem for that is what you seek if you are honestly looking to serve God just take the man serve and come back and the women are going to be hostages over here so that men come back and he chased them out so Hashem told Moshe let the eighth plague come Moshe stretched his staff over the land of Egypt and strong wind came the entire day and night and the East Wind carried the locust swarm why did we need the wind why not just make the Locust appear and that is because Hashem wants to make it look like it's a natural phenomena to give Egyptians an excuse to interpret it as if it just happened by chance and the similar thing will happen again with the splitting of the Red Sea before the sea split the entire night there was a strong wind in the morning Egyptians see that the sea split so they again made a an excuse or must be is the strong winded blue the entire night somehow it had an effect and made a Furrow in the ocean such a thing is not possible but when a person wants to deny he grabs on to straw so the locust swarm ascended over the entire land of Egypt before it there was never a locust swarm like it and after there will not be its equal it covered the surface of the entire land and the land became dark they ate all the grass and all the fruits over the tree that were left from hail no Greenery remained in the entire land of Egypt amazing para quickly admits his guilt begs for forgiveness and asks to remove the plague Paro rushed to summon motion Aaron and said I have sinned to Hashem your God and to you please forgive my sin just this time and ask Hashem your God that he removed from me only this death one last time I'm asking you please save me I'll let you go so motion left power and pray to God and Hashem again made it look like it's natural he made a very powerful West Wind to below and the wind carried the locust swarm and hurled it toward the Sea of reeds verse 20 but Hashem strengthened the heart of Paro and he did not send out the children of Israel now um today I heard from a wonderful uh the person in the name of Rabbi Deutsch from the book let my people go he asked the question why is Paro being punished like this if Hashem would leave him alone he would let the Jewish people go why is Hashem strengthening his heart and taking away his freedom and uh making him stubborn and he answered because Hashem wants to preserve a person's freedom of choice however if a person is subjected to pain she will not be able to choose with Clarity rather he'll run away from Pain he'll choose whatever is going to save him from Pain just like Paro here he's running away from Pain and he's saying just save me I'll let you go take this death away from me and I'm gonna let you go so Hashem says that's not fair you're only saying that because it hurts so I'm going to give you anesthesia I'm going to make your heart stubborn so that you don't feel the pain you don't feel the worry and the suffering and then let's see what you're gonna say and as soon as Paro doesn't feel the pain he makes a conscious decision I'm not letting the Jewish people go so Hashem says look it's your fault you are bringing it upon yourself I'm giving you the freedom to choose and I'm not taking away your freedom and that is one of the answers why Hashem strengthened paro's heart and another answer was that actually it was good for Paro you see that paro's defenses are breaking apart he is already admitting his guilt he's saying Hashem is the righteous one and I'm guilty and we know that after the the last plague of the firstborn Paro let the Jewish people go and then again his heart became strengthened and he ran after them and he witnessed another miracle and another plague by the Sea where his entire Army drowned and it says that at that moment said God I believe you please give me another chance and Hashem saved Paro he was the only Egyptian that was saved from the splitting of the sea he survived and he ran away from Egypt he didn't want to have anything to do with Egypt and he became the king of ninja king of Nineveh and the king of ninvee we we hear about him in the story of Jonah the prophet Hashem told Yona go to the city of ninvee they're doing bad things and tell them that they've done if they don't change their ways I will kill the entire city and Jonah went and he came to the marketplace the center of the town and he said in 40 days neither is going to be destroyed that's it he didn't say anything more and as soon as people heard such words in 40 days Needville is going to be destroyed they said there's a Madman talking nonsense and they reported it to the officers and officers reported it to the king of Nineveh as soon as the king of Nineveh heard 40 days ninvee is going to be destroyed why must be God is unhappy with us again and he quickly decreed that the entire city should stop doing all evil they should put sackcloth on and they should fast they and their children and their animals everyone fasted and Hashem forgave them so we see that strengthening is part of his heart was actually for his benefit so that eventually he should do the if Hashem would not strengthen his heart he would let the Jewish people go early and Paro would continue being evil Paro as he was and he would die peacefully in his bed and that's it he would disappear together with his Evil Soul but Hashem saved him he made his life difficult and because of that eventually Paro repented and he died as a righteous man so suffering can be viewed as punishment but more precisely it's viewed as kindness of God to bring the person back to the right path now we are on page 3 45. and that is the ninth plague Darkness Hashem said to Moshe stretch forth your hand and there shall be Darkness upon the land of Egypt and the Darkness will become tangible like you are in a swimming pool you cannot move it's hard to move something is blocking you that's for Egyptians they couldn't walk normal and there was a thick Darkness throughout the land of Egypt for a three day period and after that no man could see his brother nor could anyone rise from his place for a three-day period so together it was a six day period of Darkness for three days they just couldn't see and for another three days they couldn't even move so thick the darkness became but for all the children of Israel there was light in their dwellings for two reasons I would say just say that the plague of Darkness was preparation for Exodus in two ways number one the Jewish people had light and this was a special light that the Jewish people were able to see through walls like x-ray vision they could see into Egyptian houses into their closets and into their inside the walls and they saw all the treasures and they saw all the a precious gold and silver and clothing that the Egyptians were hiding so that the night before they they leave they will ask Egyptians to borrow all those golden and silver vessels and clothing for their trip and the Egyptians will hesitate and the Jew will say yeah yeah I know it's right there it's right there so many of them bring them out I just need to borrow and Egyptians will be shocked how did he know must be they have power and they would get scared and they would bring out all the precious utensils and the second reason why the Jewish people had light while the Egyptians had Darkness was so that those Jewish people who did not believe that God can save them and who did not plan to leave Egypt they should stay and die and be buried in Egypt during those six days and Hashem didn't want to embarrass the Jewish people and let Egyptians see that the Jewish people are dying and therefore the Egyptians were placed in darkness in current team for six days while the Jewish people the righteous among them were able to watch and see where Egyptians are hiding their gold and at the same time do kindness to their Brethren who were dying and bury them now verse 24. after the six days of Darkness power called motion said go serve Hashem only your flock and cattle shall remain behind but your children can go with you again paru is playing his dishonest he's telling them yes everyone can go but don't send don't I'm not going to send animals and Moshe makes fun of Paro and he tells him not only we will go and we'll take our animals but even you will give us some of your animals so that we offer sacrifices for you on your behalf not a hoof will remain in Egypt and the more she explained because we don't know how much Hashem is going to demand of us maybe he'll ask for all our animals they