Rabbi Eliyahu Maksumov - Parashat Va'eira - Man's Greatest Enemy...

there was a funny story of a truck driver who worked for a cement company who had an extremely low temper and the number one thing that really ticked off this guy was when somebody would block his driveway even by a few inches he had no patience he right away started calling the cops and the entire neighborhood knew not to mess with this guy one day he comes home from an extremely long tiring exhausting day at work and he sees how there's a car parked in his driveway forget blocking his driveway somebody parked in his driveway he was in such Fury his blood was boiling he had steam coming out of his nose and he decided he's going to teach this guy who blocked his driveway a lesson that he'll never forget he takes out a bat and he starts smashing all the windows he starts smashing the headlights he takes out a pocket knife he starts slashing the tires and just to teach this guy a real lesson he gets back into his truck and he starts backing up into this guy's car a few times and just to top it all off he releases the cement from the truck onto the car so this guy will never forget his lesson he'll never even come to dream about blocking his driveway forget about even parking in his driveway and he feels all good about himself he really taught this guy a lesson he walks into his house the lights are off and he switches on the light and suddenly he starts hearing surprise he looks around and he sees from every corner of the room his family standing there screaming happy birthday and they're singing happy birthday and from the center walks up his son and he presents to him keys keys to a brand new car and he says here you go Dad here are the keys to the car that you've been always dreaming of a brand new W Royce wait waiting right right outside for you in the driveway and he's like you mean you mean the car outside the the car I just smashed and and slashed and bashed the car I just destroyed in my driveway that car was mine when we're in a time of Fury when we are enraged when we are angry we start making the most irrational decisions we start doing things that only end up hurting ourselves we learn in this week's we learn about many of the makot and from each one of the makot every single one of the plagues we could learn a different lesson we could learn a very fundamental lesson from the Mak of the plague of frogs the PUK tells us a frog emerged from the Nile now we know that there were many frogs that infested the land of Egypt why does the verse tell us only one frog came out of the Nile and the rabbis teach us that it all started off with just one frog we'll call this frog frogzilla this huge gigantic ginormous frog just pops out of the Nile and the all the Egyptians gather together to try to figure out how they're going to get rid of this frog so they started hitting it and every time they would hit it it would start multiplying so they hit it again it started quadrupled and before they knew it the entire land was filled with these frogs comes the styler and he asks if you see that hitting it doesn't work and it doesn't make sense why would you continue to hit it I mean for a somewhat sophisticated Nation Egypt was known to be the most sophisticated the smartest smartest nation in the world they were advancing Every Which Way in archaeology in in sorcery in building pyramids which is not simple How could a somewhat smart people come along to make such a foolish mistake if you see that your strategy is not working why would you continue to hit the fraud find a different strategy find a different method find a different approach says the STI that we could learn a very important Mida from the Egyptians a Mida that we should all stay away from and that Mida is the Mida of C anger when when we are in a moment of rage we do things that only hurt ourselves the Egyptians thought that the more they're going to hit the Frog the the more they're going to get rid of it and they thought that the only reason they're not getting rid of it is because maybe they're not hitting it hard enough so they start are hitting it harder and so too we're no different we think that if we get angry we're going to teach that person a lesson if we get angry we're going to take control of the situation when in truth the situation is taking control of us so we have to take a lesson from the Egyptians to stay away from our greatest enemy and that enemy is anger the gimar teaches us that anger is T amount and comparable to idol worship but idol worship doesn't make sense it's illogical it's irrational to worship sticks and stones and call it your God and says the gimar that's exactly why we are comparing the two because just like idol worship doesn't make sense anger can bring a person to doing things that don't make sense things that are irrational we learned that there are three things that the gimar warns us to stay away from because these three things can take a person out of this world and those three things are anger lust and ego when a person is in a moment of Pride when a person is in a moment of Desire when a person is in a moment of Fury all logic is out the window and this such a person cannot be spoken to logically and if they don't take control over this midot this midot these character traits will take over them just like they took over the Egyptians so may we take a lesson may we take a lesson from the Egyptians the Mida of anger how it's our greatest enemy how far we should stay away from it because in the end we're going to regret the decisions that we are going to make as a result of our anger as a result of our rage I yet heard another interpretation behind why they kept hitting those frogs and that is one word ego each Egyptian said that you don't know how to hit the Frog properly let me teach you a lesson let me show you how to hit the Frog and he came along with his stick and he started hitting the frog from this angle and the other one said no you have to hit it from that angle and their ego destroyed them so may we be aware of this midot may we stay far as possible from these midot take a lesson in Anger take a lesson in Anger from the truck driver take a lesson in Anger from the Egyptians and when we apply this lesson and carry it on throughout the rest of our lives