Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

Good morning and welcome back everybody to the Parsha Review Podcast. In this week's Parsha, Parsha's Beshalach, also known as Shabbos Shira, the Shabbos of Song, where the Jewish people sang the song of Az Yashir at the edge of the sea. They just stopped and sang praise to Hashem. But what's really, really amazing about human beings is that we all fall into the same trap.
Where when things are going not so well, we cry to Hashem, we say, Hashem, we need your help, Hashem, we need your help, Hashem, we need your help. Please help me. No atheists in a foxhole. And everyone's like, oh God, I need your help. And what happens the moment success rides in? I'm a smart guy, I'm a good investor, I'm very talented, I'm gifted, me, me, me, me, me. And it's very easy, very, very easy
for each and every human being to fall into the trap of the self, of the me, of the I. And we see this right when we start this week's Parsha. We start this week's Parsha, Vay'hi b'shalach paro esa'am. It was when Pharaoh sent out the people from Egypt. Let me ask you a question. How bad is our memory? That we saw in the last two portions, Parsha's bow and v'era, we had 10 mighty plagues that destroyed Pharaoh, his kingdom, his people,
their cattle, I mean everything. Everything was thrown out. And now, who do we attribute the exodus to? It was Pharaoh who sent us out. It wasn't Pharaoh. His arm was more than twisted. He had absolutely no ability to keep the Jewish people in. He's like, and we're giving the credit to who? To Pharaoh. That's how stubborn humanity is, that we need to attribute something to ourselves. In Pharaoh's mind, it wasn't that God was taking them out.
Me, I'm the one who's letting them out. The Jewish people are looking and they're saying, who's bringing about these miracles to us? Oh, it's Pharaoh. So what does God need to do now? God needs to bring about another miracle to the Jewish people that they can't attribute it to anything else but to Hashem. What's that? The splitting of the sea. What happens in the splitting of the sea? They walk through Yam Suf on dry land. We pointed this out in the Parashur review
that you can, you know, scientists will tell you that if you have a wind current coming at a certain angle towards the water at a certain pressure, it could split any waters. It can split any waters. So that's not a chachma, that's not a whole big, you know, a big thing for God to do that. But for them to walk through on dry land, that even the scientists can't figure it out. Even the scientists can't understand how is that possible
for the water to be split, to remain split, and for the Jewish people to walk on dry land. By a bush of Beso Hayam. Because if you were to step, let's say you go to the beach and the, you know, the tide comes out and goes back in, goes out and comes back in. What happens when you step on that sand? Your feet will sink in. There's no water there, right? But it'll still sink in. When you go further in,
the more water has been saturated into that earth, your feet will sink in. Which is what the Egyptians experienced when they came after the Jews. When they came into the water, suddenly the floor of the sea, the bedrock of the sea was soft. And their chariots got stuck there. Their legs got stuck there. And if you go today to the bottom of the sea, of the Yam Suf, you'll see the chariots are still there. It says it in the Torah that till this day,
those chariot wheels are still there. And there've been many who've gone down there. There's the Jewish Museum, the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York City that purchased one of the chariot wheels for over a million dollars to bring it into their museum. This is from 3,300 years ago. They, someone, divers went down there and were able to get a wheel out and bring it back. Unbelievable. But the Jewish people went on dry land and they're sitting there in the sea, walking through,
and then the water is surrounding them completely from all sides. And the Jewish people have no choice but to recognize that the salvation comes from Hashem and only from Hashem. The miracles that sometimes are in front of our eyes that we are so defiant and we refuse to see them because we prefer thinking that we are so powerful, that we are so great, and not willing to recognize the power of Hashem. And what does Moshe do? What does Moshe do at this point?
Moshe's praying, Hashem, please, and what does God say? This is not the time to pray. What was Moshe praying for? Moshe's praying for the Jewish people. He's saying, look at the Jewish people. Look how they refuse to see the hand of Hashem. Every plague, scripted, exactly how Moshe said it would be, it happened. And the Jewish people still refuse to recognize that these are miracles from Hashem. So Moshe's praying, we're about to experience the splitting of the sea.
And they're still gonna refuse, perhaps. He's praying that the Jewish people's eyes be opened and they see God for what He is, the benevolent, kind, merciful King of the universe who brings about all of these miracles and gives us all of the amazing things that we have every single day. Moshe prays that the Jewish people recognize finally that everything is indeed the hand of Hashem. This is what Moshe's praying for. Hashem says, let's go, we gotta move. The Jewish people will get there.
We need to understand that God many times brings stumbling blocks in front of us so that we recognize that He's there. Many times we think that, oh, we have the path to success. Nothing's in my way. And suddenly problems come up. Why do those problems need to come up? For what? Why do those problems, why do we need to have those difficulties? Why do we need to have things interfere with our success? Let it just be successful.
Why can't the business deal just go through smoothly? There always has to be something. There always has to be a hiccup. Yeah, you're about to come to the closing table. Oh, there's a problem with this. There's a problem with that. Whatever it is. Why can't things just go smoothly? Because Hashem is constantly trying to wake us up from us thinking that it's all our power, that it's all our goodness. It's all me, it's all me, it's all me. Hashem says, stop a second.
Even Pharaoh believed that it was all him. You look at the miracles that the Jews experienced in Egypt. You look at what the Egyptians experienced. And it doesn't make sense for anyone to declare this was Pharaoh. But yet, the Parsha here identifies, v'hi b'shal hachpar o'asam. That's what they felt. They felt that it was Pharaoh. Wow. They couldn't even understand that it was Hashem. It's amazing that if you look at the many mitzvahs that we have, they're all declaring
zaykher li-yitzias mitzrayim, in the commemoration of the exodus from Egypt. For example, if we look in the Kiddush that we recite Friday night, Shabbos day, we see the beautiful text of the Kiddush declaring this day as being a sanctified day. What do we say? Ki hu yom t'chir l'mikra k'oydesh. For that day is the prologue to the holy convocations. Zaykher li-yitzias mitzrayim, a memorial of the exodus from Egypt. Every single Shabbos we recite this in our Kiddush. We put on tefillin.
You know what that's for? Zaykher li-yitzias mitzrayim, a memorial of the exodus from Egypt. We put on tzitzis, a remembrance. We say the Shema every day. Zaykher li-yitzias mitzrayim. Everything is about the exodus from Egypt. Every mitzvah that you can imagine has this constant recollection of the exodus from Egypt. So the first reason is because there's never, there's never going to be a revelation as clear as it was at the exodus of Egypt. The clarity, which we're trying to bring back
every time we do a mitzvah, is the clarity that we had when we left Egypt. The never-ending miracles that were experienced, that we were exposed to, where it's black and white. This is amazing. You know, what miracle would everyone like to see that they say, you know what? If a miracle happens right here in front of us, you know, a hand from heaven just comes down and puts a can of Diet Coke right in the middle of the table.
Then I'll believe that there's a God. And then it happens. They're like, wow, what a coincidence. But not that it's a miracle. People ask for miracles. They get those miracles. And still they can't believe that this was the hand of Hashem. Oh, it happened to be, there was a truck passing by and it threw a bottle and it landed right here on the table. It's like, we right away try to find a way that, oh, it was pre-planned.
The rabbi knew when he said it, he knew that this was going to happen. So it was really a trick that was pre-planned. No, no, no, no, no. When there are miracles, there are miracles. The question is whether or not we are willing to see those miracles. It's very interesting that there are two specific areas that the Talmud refers to as difficult as splitting the sea. The first is, it says that the zivog, the bringing together of a husband and wife
is as difficult as splitting the sea. And the second is someone's livelihood. The Talmud says, koshe zivogo shel adam kekrias yamsof. This is tractate Sotah 2a. Talmud says that the bringing together of a husband and wife is as difficult for that match to be found as the splitting of the sea. And the Talmud in Psachim 118b says, koshe mezonosof shel adam kekrias yamsof. The livelihood of a person is as difficult as splitting the sea.
What do these two things have to do with splitting the sea? Now it's a little bit clearer and understandable. You see, the idea of splitting the sea is that it's such a clear sign from Hashem that there's no ability for a person to take credit for it. What's the likelihood that a guy is looking for his significant other, a woman who's looking for her significant other, and they happen to meet at a friend's birthday party that neither of them knew.
You know, it's like all of these happenstances, all of this, it just happened to be was such a great coincidence that my friend invited me, I really didn't wanna go. How many stories have we heard like that? It's a needle in a haystack at best. And Hashem brings it about. Someone can think with arrogance, me. I just, you know, I have the charisma. It's me, I'm the matchmaker. I'm the matchmaker, I wanna give credit to my daughter. My daughter just had the incredible blessing
of a shidduch going through her hands where she set up a friend of hers and someone she knew from the community here in Houston, and she made a shidduch. They just got engaged on Sunday. So mazal tov to her. And you know what the Talmud says about that? Milgal gilin schus alidei zakai, that God brings goodness through those who are good. It's a special merit. God brings merit through those who are meritorious. Anybody could have thought of that idea.
But God popped that idea into her head. And what a person needs to recognize is that bringing together a couple, it's not me. It's the hand of Hashem. It's the hand of Hashem. But it's that difficult. And for a person to get the right job, to bring livelihood to their family, you happen to meet somebody who tells you that this company is looking for a new director and this and that, and you apply for the job. And it's exactly the day that they're looking
for that position to be filled. And your application happened to come onto their desk that day, that hour, that minute, when they came back from their coffee break. How many stories do we hear like that? Because it's very easy for us to take credit for such things. The Talmud says such things you have to know it's just like the splitting of the sea. Where the Jewish people thought, what, it just happened to be that the sea split. No, no, no, look around you.
You see there's water on all sides. The only thing you can see is up to the heavens. Recognize that everything is from heaven. And if we look into our lives every single day, we can attribute our health. You know why I'm healthy? I'm healthy because I do exercise. I'm healthy because I'm just naturally gifted with, you know, all of, no, no, no, no, no. Recognize that everything is from Hashem. And there's nothing that we can do on our own.
And what Moshe says in his prayer, Hashem yilachem lachem v'atem tacharishon. God is the one preparing the way for us. You just have to plow ahead. Recognize that everything is the hand of Hashem. Recognize that every single gift that you are gifted by the Almighty, is not your own doing. We'd like to believe that it's our own doing, but that's our arrogance. And this is the incredible message from the first few words of this week's parasha. V'hi b'shalach paro esaam.
This was Pharaoh, right, Pharaoh. After all of these miracles, after all of the hand of Hashem that we see going on, it's still Pharaoh, you still believe it's Pharaoh. Wake up and smell the coffee. Recognize that it's all the hand of Hashem. And when we're in the hand of Hashem, it's like a child. Think of a little baby, a baby's crying. When does the baby calm? When does the baby calm down? When it's in its parents' arms.
Oh, I realize that they're taking care of me. They're gonna feed me, they're gonna clothe me, they're gonna protect me. This is the gift that we have to feel like we are in our parents' arms. Our Father in heaven is there holding us, swaddling us. You know what, we could be 50, 60 years old, but guess what, we're still a child to the Almighty, where the Almighty loves us and cares for us and takes care of our every single need.
And the more we recognize and bring that clarity into our daily lives, the more blessed we will be. And by the way, we correct this every single year at the Pesach Seder. Every single year at the Pesach Seder, what do we say? We declare, Vayotzienu Hashem mi Mitzrayim. You know who took us out of Egypt? God took us out of Egypt. And we say, Lo alidei malach. Not by the hand of angels. Ve lo alidei sarof.
And not by any of the ministering powers and forces up in the heavens. Ve lo alidei shaliyach. And not in the hands of any messenger. Elo hakadosh boruchu b'chvodo b'atzmo. But the Almighty himself was the one to take us out of Egypt. We declare that every year again and again and again. To correct the mistake of the V'hi b'shalach paro esa'am. We think, oh, it was just Pharaoh. Pharaoh, he became a nice guy overnight.
No, we have to recognize it's all the hand of Hashem. Hashem should bless us all. That we should merit to see His loving guidance every single day of our lives. That we should see the kindness. We should see the mercy that Hashem has for each and every one of us. And recognize and thank Hashem. The way we do every morning, we say, Mo de ani lefanecha. Hashem, I'm giving thanks to you. Thank you. Recognizing that everything that we have is from Hashem.
And be weary and be cautious about taking credit for things when really everything is ultimately from Hashem. My dear friends, have an amazing week and an amazing Shabbos.

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