The following is a brief summary of some of thoughts said over by R' Frand on the parsha last evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.
The parsha begins by stating in Shemos 13:17 - וַיְהִ֗י בְּשַׁלַּ֣ח פַּרְעֹה֘ אֶת־הָעָם֒. Chazal teaches that the word וַיְהִ֗י denotes trouble or pain. Who was in pain? R' Frand answered that Pharaoh was in pain.
R' Frand then told a story about R' Zevulun Groz who was the Av Beis Din in Rechovot. The Sefer Meir Derech states that before R' Groz went away to yeshiva his father told him a Medrash. A person found a pile of pearls and did not know what it was. He asked someone on the road, do you want these balls? The man took them. He then went into the town and sorted them by size and set up a "pop up shop." The seller later entered the town and saw a line outside the pop up shop. People were asking for the price of the smaller and medium pearls and when he heard their price, he tore his clothes and exclaimed "I had it all in the palm of my hand, but did not know its value."
The Medrash said that the nimshal is Pharaoh who when he saw that he had 600,00 Jews after Moshe counted them, he cried out woe is me that the Jews were leaving.
Sefer Meir Derech asks - what is the parallel? The man who gave up the pearls did so voluntarily. But Pharaoh did not give them up by choice!
The answer is that Pharaoh realized that he had 600,000 wise and industrious people and he used them as brick layers. This is the mashal and nimshal.
R' Groz's father said to him - you are going off to Yeshiva. Don't waste your time. A Yeshiva career is finite and you don't want to look back and say - I had Gan Eden - I had no concerns and could have sat and learned without distraction. And I wasted it.
R' Frand said that he got a text from a former student who had been in mechina. He remembered sitting in a shmooze from R' Tendler who said to him - don't waste your life. One day you will have children and your son will ask you to teach him a perek of Gemara and you would want to be able to do so.
R' Frand said a second vort related to Tu BShvat in 1944. The Belzer Rebbi's father and uncle had miraculously made his way out of Europe to Israel on Tu BShvat. At the time there were a few Belzer Chassidim in Israel, but not many. The Chassidim came to him and said that they had all lost family in Europe and they wanted some Chizuk. He told them that the Jews sang Az Yashir on the 7th day of Pesach. But these are the same Jews who must have lost most of their relatives in Choshech in which 80% of the Jews died. How did they say Shira? He answered based on Rashi who said that they sang that in the future there will be Techiyas HaMeisim - when everything will make sense.
If you have seen this post being carried on another site, please feel free to click www.kosherbeers.blogspot.com to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!
No comments:
Post a Comment