Dvar Torah for Parshat Shemot

"On the day you were born you were cast into the open field...I made you grow like the plants of the field. You flourished and grew, and became charming" (Ezekiel 16:5, 7).
Know! There is a field in which grow trees and grasses that are very beautiful and handsome...[These] are the holy souls that grow there. There are also any number of naked souls, wandering outside the field, waiting and longing for tikun (repair), so that they can return...they all await the Master of the Field who can take care of their needs...who will see what needs to be done and will do it.

OY! Such tzoris (troubles)!

That's what we had in Egypt–tzoris and plenty of it. Not that there's any great shortage of it nowadays, but at least in this day and age most everyone of us gets to go home at the end of the workday.

One of the traits of greatness that Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our teacher) had, even from his youth, was his empathy and concern for others (Exodus 2:11; see Rashi). "He saw their suffering" and what did he do? Moshe Rabbeinu went to Pharaoh and told him, "If one doesn't give his slave rest one day a week, the slave will die!" Pharaoh consented and Moshe Rabbeinu set Shabbat as the Jews' "day off" (Shemot Rabbah 1:28).

Rebbe Nachman points out something very interesting. When a person is in pain he shuts his eyes. Why? When a person wants to look at an object that is far away, he squints in order to better focus his vision. Squinting helps by eliminating the side-"distractions" that compete for one's sight. When pain reaches a certain level of intensity one has to look very far–to the ultimate future–to "see" the purpose of that pain.

The pain and suffering our ancestors underwent in Egypt was horrible. When they were slaving away–and they slaved day and night–they were constantly screamed at. If they scratched themselves while slaving, they were whipped. Pharaoh bathed himself twice daily–in the blood of Jewish infants. The physical and emotional anguish they suffered is beyond description.

Moshe Rabbeinu knew that the Jews needed something extraordinary to help them survive their situation. He knew that their tikun required a tremendous amount of strength and fortitude on their part. Where were they to get it?

Shabbat. Undoubtedly, the Jews enjoyed the physical rest they had from their "day off." Yet, that wasn't going to help much in dealing with the misery of the other six days of the week. For that, the Jews needed to make sense of the unceasing torture that their Egyptian hosts constantly fed them.

Shabbat is a bit of the ultimate future (Berakhot 57b). Even though it is a mitzvah to eat and drink in celebration of Shabbat, Shabbat was not given for eating and drinking, but for Torah study (Jerusalem Talmud, Shabbat 15:3). While the study of other subjects may give us an appreciation of the beauty of this world and the knowledge of how to manipulate it, only Torah study feeds the soul, by giving her to understand the Divine purpose of the various pieces of this world (see Likutey Moharan I, Lessons 1 and 18:1).

This knowledge helps us to "squint" and maintain our focus, so that if we do not see any immediate reason for our pain, we can transcend it by looking to the future, when its purpose–and the benefit–will become known.

Our ancestors, too, studied with delight the scrolls they had, in which were recorded the history of mankind as well as the guarantee that God had given the Patriarchs–that He would redeem them (Shemot Rabbah 5:18). May we see it soon, in our lifetime. Amen.

agutn Shabbos!
Shabbat Shalom!