Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

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

Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the Parsha Podcast. Today's class is dedicated in the memory of Yehoshua ben Yehuda Leib and Sarah Bat Yisrael Vilea. These are two wonderful people. I never met them, but I know that they're wonderful because I know their son. Their son and their grandchildren are fabulous people, great and dear friends of mine. And today would have been their 75th wedding anniversary.
Today's not the yahrzeit of their passing. Today is the day of their anniversary. So we still, because we bring up their memory, we wish that their neshamah have an aliyah, and the Torah that we study today and that we are inspired by should be a merit to their holy and lofty souls. This week's Parsha is so fascinating. The second portion in the book of Exodus, and we start talking about the plagues. The Jewish people, last week's Torah portion,
we know that the Jewish people were enslaved and Moshe becomes their leader and Moshe is saying, what am I going to do? How am I going to speak to the Jewish people? The Jewish people don't listen to me. You think Pharaoh's going to listen to me? Pharaoh's for sure not going to listen to me. And this is the whole discussion that's going on, the conversation that's going on. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Good morning.
That's going on between Moshe and God is really fascinating. And then we know that we have the 10 plagues. Seven of the 10 plagues are in this week's Torah portion and the final three are next week's Torah portion, Parsha's bow. So we learn this every single year. We learn through these Torah portions. We see about the plagues and we're like, wow, that's pretty cool. It's pretty neat. Hashem took care of them. And then we also have this at our Pesach Seder.
We talk about what happened to the Jewish people in Egypt. And we recall all of the slavery and the bondage. And we talk about the difficulty of serving God when you're not a free person. And then we talk about how God saves us with this outstretched arm. God took us out of Egypt. He gave the Egyptians 10 severe plagues, which according to our sages was 250 actual plagues. Because imagine if your wife bakes you a birthday cake
and suddenly you're really, really thankful for that delicious birthday cake, but then you cut open the cake and there's a frog in there. Imagine you're going to blow a fit. What is this, a joke? So you start slapping the kids and then the kids go out to the playground and then they're fighting and they're now gangs. The outcome of one plague was really many, many multiples of plagues that came out of each and every plague.
What's there really for us to learn about from all of these plagues? What do we really learn from these plagues? So of course we know that everything is the hand of Hashem. Everything is the hand of Hashem. We shouldn't see anything as a guarantee. You see, there are many people who have all the confidence in the world that my health is going to be so strong. I'm going to live forever and ever because I'm so careful with what I eat. I'm so careful with my diet.
I'm so careful with my exercise. I'm going to live forever. I have a very, very close dear friend who passed away. He was the healthiest 75-year-old I've ever met. I mean he rode his, he was a big cyclist. He would ride his bike, I don't know, maybe 100 miles every morning. He had a group of people that he, and sadly one beautiful morning, he went riding with his friends. He didn't see a tree stump that was on the path.
He hit himself on the head and he was like that. God took him away. Tragic, tragic story. I was so sad to hear it. I was so sad to be at his funeral. It was really, really sad. But here's a guy who's so strong, so confident, and then it disappears. So I want to read to you a piece of Talmud. A fascinating piece of Talmud. The Talmud is in Tractate Chagigah, and the Gemara brings from Rabi Yosi.
Tanya, Rabi Yosi, there was a bridesmaid that was taught. Rabi Yosi says, Woe to those people who see, but do not realize what they are seeing. You know, you imagine what happened to Pharaoh the night before the plagues began. It's like, think of Maduro, the night before he was Maduro'd. Right? You think about that. Like, everything seems normal. Everything seems quiet. It's calm. Look, the water is beautiful in the Nile. Right? All the animals are where they're supposed to be.
Everything is just perfect. And suddenly, it's not. What does the Gemara say? Woe to those who see, but do not realize what they are seeing. Those who stand, but do not realize upon what they are standing. The earth, upon what does it stand? As it says, who shakes the earth from its place? And its pillars tremble. The pillars stand upon the waters. So those pillars that shake the world, what are they standing on? They're standing on the water.
And he brings a verse, because it says, to him who spread out upon the earth, upon the waters. The waters stand upon the mountains. As it states, upon the mountains stand water. The mountains, what do they stand on? They stand on the wind. Because the verse states, for behold, he forms mountains and creates wind. The wind, what does it stand on? It stands upon the storm. As the verse states, the wind, the storm, does its bidding. And what does the storm stand on?
The storm is suspended from the arm of the Holy One, blessed is He. I don't understand anything from this Talmud. Like literally nothing. It just doesn't make, what's really going on over here? Right? We're saying, woe to creation that they don't even understand what they're standing on. What are they standing on? They're standing on the world. The world is standing on pillars. The pillars are standing on water. The water is standing on the mountains. The mountain is standing on the wind.
The wind is standing on the storm. But don't worry, it's standing in the hands of Hashem. What did we become smarter from this Talmud? What did we learn from this Talmud? We learned something that is critically important. And that is, you have nothing to worry about. Because at the end of the day, Hashem controls everything. You understand? When you go down to the end of it, what do you see? It's all the hand of Hashem. Hashem is the one who's holding the keys.
Everything is in the hands of Hashem. So yeah, while I might not understand what I'm standing on, I do know I'm standing in the hands of Hashem. While I don't understand how the earth balances itself, I know it's the hand of Hashem. Even though each individual step, I don't understand. It doesn't even make sense to me. But I know one thing is that the storm is in the hand of Hashem. Meaning, the whole world, the life that we live,
the storm that we face every single day, is the hand of Hashem. It's all the hand of Hashem. There's a story that's told about Rabianko Ligalinski. Rabianko Ligalinski was once traveling. He used to travel a lot to the United States, around the world, to raise money for Torah institutions in Israel. And one time he comes to someone's house. He walks out and he sees this. The house looks like a palace. He knocks on the door and the daughter opens up
and she says, my father's not home. So he says out loud, if you're not here when you're here, then where are you going to be when you're not here? Meaning, he was there sitting on the side. He tells his daughter, tell him I'm not home. Tell him I'm not home. He says, if when you're here you're not here, when you're not here, where are you going to be? You're not going to be anywhere. It's going to be even worse. It's going to be tragic.
So the person ended up bringing him in, sitting down with him. He gave him a nice donation. But he says to him, what you said really is frightening. What do you mean? When I'm here, I'm not here. But I'm not here. See, he says, we have this sort of confidence that what we have is ours. I have my money. But what's if your money loses you? What's if you're gone? He says, we're so confident that what we have is ours.
But what's if the things that are ours are going to lose us? Meaning, we can go like this. Yeah, maybe your money will stick around. But maybe you won't. We're so confident. You know, the Talmud says an amazing thing. Anybody who has bread in his basket and says, uh-oh, what am I going to eat tomorrow? He's one of those who have little faith. What does that mean? You see, here's the problem. You know, I'll tell you.
Someone posted a video, a message on their status. I saw last week. It was a little shocking. It was a little shocking. It was jarring. He brought a quote from a midrash. The midrash says that there's going to come a time right before the Messiah where all wealth will be removed from the world and the entire generation will be destitute. So it gives you like this like, oh my gosh. Okay. It's like imagine subtle inflation.
It doesn't make a difference how much money you have in your mattress. It's like not going to be worth anything. Like gold, nobody's going to be able to buy it. So what's it going to make a difference? So suddenly you get into this like, what's going to be? No, a person shouldn't think that way. A person should know everything is always the hand of Hashem. We're always in the hand of Hashem. And this is the lesson that we need to learn from the plagues.
What do we learn from the plagues? We learn from the plagues that is all the hand of Hashem. That's what we learn from it. That everything in this world Hashem has control of. In fact, our sages teach us in the midrash that God specifically chose these things because all of the heretics, all of the non-believers in Egypt said we control the water. We control the atmosphere. We control the animals. We control the night and the darkness. We control everything.
God picked each and every element of the world to show they have no control over any of it. It's all the hand of Hashem. You see, this is the greatness of learning the parasha the way our sages teach it because it opens up a whole new perspective to how we're meant to look at life. You see, does anybody here have a problem-free life? We all have issues. We have one makkah, one plague or another plague, one form of plague or another form of plague.
This one, it's their job. This one, it's their livelihood. This one, it's their marriage. This one, it's their children. This one, it's their own personal illness. This one, it's a family. It's a friend. It's a neighbor. Everyone has got something. So what do I do? Have this plague and you know who's causing it? It's that person or it's that person. It's this one. It's that one. We can point. It's my doctor. It's the medicine. It's the insurance.
Everyone has blame and a person could live their entire lives, each one of us individually, respectively, blaming everybody else. You know why I'm not successful? It's because that person abused me when I was a child. You know why I didn't get that job? Because that HR person didn't like me and they just were sticking it to me. And then you know what? That one, this one, that one, we're pointing fingers to everyone. Instead of learning this week's parasha, we learn,
you look up and everything is from Hashem. Hashem is pulling all of the strings. Hashem is showing us, look, look, look, look, look. This is where you need to go. There were many, many Jews who were in Egypt who didn't like what was going on with all of these miracles. So Hashem says, you know what? It's probably better for you not to enter into the land of Egypt. It's probably better for you not to be 40 years in the desert
if you're so small in your belief and knowledge of Hashem. It's probably not a good idea. It says that a great percentage of the Jewish people died during the plague of darkness that the Egyptians shouldn't mock the Jews who died. They didn't see anything. They were frozen in time, in darkness. The Jewish people died. They were buried. And only those who were believers left Egypt. What we have is we have the ability to see our own Egypt, our own plagues,
our own bondage to our own selves. We have a flaw that we can allow to take hold if we aren't conscious about recognizing that everything is from Hashem. Let me ask you a question. We said the Talmud says that someone who has bread in his basket and asks, where's my bread coming from tomorrow? He's from those who don't have proper faith in God. Why is that so? Like I'm worried. Tell me, are you worried about
how you're going to pay your electric bill next month? How you're going to pay your mortgage next month? No, I'm worried about this month. But who's going to take care of this month? The same person, not person, the same creator who's going to take care of it this month, who gave you this piece of bread in your bag, is the same one who's going to take care of it next month. And the same one who took care of it every single day of your life.
We mentioned in a previous episode, we talked about how anyone over the age of 70, you must stand up for them. You hear this? Anybody over the age of 70, you need to stand up for them. Why? Because they have wisdom. And we value wisdom. You stand up for them. You know what wisdom people get by the time they're 70? They realize that they had 70 years that they needed to maintain their lives. They needed to feed themselves.
They needed to pay those tuition payments. They needed to make those payments for mortgage or rent. They needed to sustain their lives. And by that time, you realize, it's all Hashem anyway. Who am I fooling? Who am I kidding? We think we're in control. We know we're not in control. By that time, we know already we're not in control. And that's the wisdom that we respect. Because you come to someone at that age, if you ask them for advice,
they'll give you advice that's quite different than they would have given you when they were 20 years old. Because they have a bigger picture now. They have a bigger perspective where they can say, you know something? Don't waste your time with small stuff. Focus on the big stuff. Focus on the things that are important. Focus on the things that are value. Don't focus on the things that are a waste of time, that are useless, things that are fleeting.
Pharaoh was a person who was dedicated to the here and now. He didn't see a bigger picture. Right now, everything looks fine. When he looked out, he saw those animals. He saw the Nile. He saw everything. Everything is great. He didn't see what the world stands on. He didn't see the layers and layers upon which everything rests on the hand of Hashem. Everything is on the hand of Hashem. You look at the soil. What is the soil? You look at it.
It looks like some dirt, some rocks. Well, what is it? It's all a creation of Hashem. You can look at the food that you eat and you say, oh, I love this brand. The best food. It's organic. It's healthy. Whatever it may be. You have to realize this is a creation of Hashem. This is something that Hashem gave us. Always linking it to the source. Every single benefit, every single joy, every single pleasure that Talmud says
that a person enjoys from this world, you have to thank Hashem for it. Recognize the source. The pleasure that you have is not just the pleasure that you got from someone or from something. It's from Hashem. And this is the lesson we need to learn from the plagues. Everything is the hand of Hashem. And we need to ensure that we always link it back to Hashem. Not to take the personal that it's me. Look at my wisdom. Look at my business.
Look at my intelligence. Look at my skill. Look at my talent. Where do you get that talent? With one flip of a switch, that's gone. It's gone. So where does that talent come from? It comes from the gifts Hashem has given us. We can never ever forget this, which is why every single day we have a mitzvah to recite the Shema. What do we say in the Shema? Remembering that Hashem took us out of Egypt. Why is it so important?
Because we remember what is the purpose of everything. To remove slavery from our lives. Any type of slavery. Some people could be slaves to, you know, my children were very excited yesterday about the Texans. But there are people who are, it's not, I wouldn't even call it an addiction. It's a religion. It's an idolatry to sports. It's an idolatry to money. It's an idolatry to fashion. It's an idolatry to materialism. We say every day, remember, Ani Hashem elokechem.
Asher etziticha me'eretz mitzrayim. I am Hashem your God that took you out of Egypt. Hashem elokechem emet. You want to know the only thing that's true? You want to know the only thing that lasts forever? That's Hashem. We have a constant in our life. Our parents, hopefully all of our parents, live to 120 in good health. But that's it. It's 120 is the max. Do you know who's forever? That's Hashem. So we can put our trust
in so many things that are fleeting or we can put our trust in eternity. And Hashem gives us those tools in His Torah. Hashem gives us those tools in His mitzvahs. That is our eternity. Hashem should bless us all to have that eternity in our Shabbos. Our Shabbos is part of that. The observance of Shabbos is connecting with the eternity of the world. It's removing all of our worldly pursuits and focusing in on God. That's what Shabbos is.
Shabbos is an opportunity for us to get rid of all of our distractions. We put down the phone, we put down the television remote, we put down the computer, we put down the radio, we put down the car, we put down everything. Now Hashem, I'm investing in my relationship with you. I'm investing in my relationship with my spouse. I'm investing in my relationship with my children, my relationship with my community. I'm not going out there now. I'm in. I'm in.
I'm in the zone. The whole week we're distracted with so many different things. Shabbos, how do they call it? Zen. You get into the frame of mind. We get into the state. You know, there's this whole thing with 6-7. I'm sure you've all heard about this. So I saw some rabbi, he says, if you have teenage children, you'd know about this whole 6-7 thing. You know, David, right? So I saw a rabbi, he says, you know what 6-7 is?
6-7 is six is the sixth day of the week. Seven is Shabbos. He says, we use the sixth day to prepare ourselves, get ready for Shabbos. He says, that's what it's all about, getting ready for Shabbos. And every day of the week, leading up towards Shabbos. Every day, Sunday. You know what we call Sunday in Hebrew? Yom Rishon. Why? Because it's the first day to Shabbos. You know what we call Monday? There's no names to the days.
Every day of the week is a number. Day one to Shabbos. Day two to Shabbos. Day three to Shabbos. That's what we call it. In Hebrew, you ask someone, how do you say Tuesday in Hebrew? Yom Shlitchi. The third day to Shabbos. Because our central focus as Jews is the time that we have our closeness with Hashem without interruption. God tells us, in the beginning of the world, the creation of the world. Six days work. Work, work, work.
No Sundays off. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Every day work. But the day of Shabbos is a day of rest. It's a time to just bask in your closeness, in your relationship with Hashem. It's a time to be, not to do. Shabbos is not a day to do. Shabbos is a day to be. Just be. My dear friends, have a magnificent Shabbos.

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