Blood before Frogs
Blood before Frogs
G-d's battering of the Egyptians began with the waters of the Nile River turning into blood. Next, G-d smote Egypt with a plague of frogs, which swarmed from the waters of the Nile into the Egyptians' homes, bedrooms and kitchens.
The Torah's name for Egypt, Mitzrayim, shares a common root with the Hebrew word meitzar, constraint. Accordingly, the Ten Plagues that brought down the mighty Egypt represent the steps we must take to break out of our personal Egypts as well—the internal limitations that hinder and restrain our service of G-d.
The first two plagues both involved water. In the spiritual Ten Plagues, water, which is cold by nature, symbolizes an attitude of coolness—detachment and indifference. The first plague, in which the waters of the Nile were transformed to warm and life-giving blood, thus symbolizes that we must imbue our service of G-d with warmth and excitement. In contrast, the second plague, in which creatures of the water, frogs, swarmed everything related to Pharaoh and Egypt—and particularly, their hot ovens—symbolizes that bringing down our internal Egypts requires developing a coolness and disinterest in material passions and pleasures.
Now, under normal circumstances, ridding ourselves of competing loyalties—symbolized by the Plague of Frogs—would be the first step we need to take before attempting to live a life devoted to G-d and G-dliness. We see, however, that the Plague of Frogs was not the first plague but the second; the Plague of Blood preceded it. The order of these two plagues teaches that even before we have succeeded at cooling down our material passions, we must already infuse our Torah and mitzvos with fervor and enthusiasm. The light and warmth of our passion-filled mitzvos will assist in dispellingany dark and undesirable passions that remain.
—Likkutei Sichos, vol. 1, pp. 123-125
Sponsor a Lightpoints email
A project of Or Hachassidus
ביוזמת ולזכות הרה״ח הרה״ת ר' ישעי' זושא ווילהעלם שליט״א להצלחה רבה לו ולכל משפחתו בגו״ר
This email is sent from Machon Or Hachasidus - likras shabbos. We'd love to stay in touch with you, but if you wish to be unsubscribed from this list please click here, or click here to manage your subscriptions. Sent via ChabadOne Communicator
1/6/16
Fwd: Blood before Frogs
1/5/16
Escaping the Cold
Escaping the Cold
Escaping the Cold
Bnei Yisrael's exile in Egypt seemed interminable. Slavery in Egyptwas so much a part of Bnei Yisrael's reality that they refused to accept Moshe's message that their redemption from Egypt was imminent. The subjugation and oppression of Bnei Yisrael was so severe that even Moshe struggled to understand how it could be part of G-d's plan. It was only when G-d struck the Egyptians with the Ten Plagues, starting with the water in Egypt turning to blood, that Egypt's grip on Bnei Yisrael began to crumble.
"In every generation and every day, one must regard himself as though he has come out of Egypt on that very day," say our Sages (Mishnah, Pesachim 10:5, cf. Tanya, chapter 47). The Torah's name for Egypt, Mitzrayim, shares a common root with the Hebrew word meitzar, constraint. Accordingly, the above teaching of our Sages is explained in Chassidic teaching as an instruction that, "in every generation and every day," one must constantly strive to escape his personal Egypts, the internal constraints that hinder and restrain his devoted service of G-d. In this context, the Ten Plagues represent ten steps through which we can breach even the toughest internal barriers, freeing our souls to fully experience their attachment to G-d.
In the first plague, the waters of the Nile River turned to blood. Water is naturally cold. Thus, the waters of the Nile, which were a false Egyptian deity, represent coolness and indifference toward ideas that are truly G-dly and holy.
This attitude of coolness is the root of all spiritual ills. For it is impossible for a person to remain perpetually unexcited about neither holiness nor that which challenges holiness. Therefore, even if a person observes all the mitzvos but he does so coldly and apathetically, his detachment will invariably lead him to be attracted to ideas that counter a life of holiness.
Therefore, the very first step toward breaking out of your spiritual Egypt is to rid yourself of the cold waters of the Nile. Replace them instead with warm and life-carrying blood—warmth, passion and enthusiasm toward all things G-dly.
Coolness is the number-one weapon in the arsenalof our Yetzer Hara—the part of us that is naturally inclined to the unholy. Correspondingly, the first and most crucial step toward our escape from Egypt is to infuse our Judaism and Torah observance with passion and excitement.
—Likkutei Sichos, vol. 1, pp. 119-124
Sponsor a Lightpoints email
A project of Or Hachassidus
ביוזמת ולזכות הרה״ח הרה״ת ר' ישעי' זושא ווילהעלם שליט״א להצלחה רבה לו ולכל משפחתו בגו״ר
This email is sent from Machon Or Hachasidus - likras shabbos. We'd love to stay in touch with you, but if you wish to be unsubscribed from this list please click here, or click here to manage your subscriptions. Sent via ChabadOne Communicator
1/3/16
The Fathers
The Fathers
The Fathers
In the first verses of Parshas Va'eira, G-d assures Moshe that He will soon fulfill the promises He made when He appeared to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. In his commentary, Rashi quotes the word "Va'eira, — And I appeared," from the verse, and describes the people to whom G-d appeared with one phrase: "to the fathers."
By summarizing the verse and stating that Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov were "the fathers," Rashi is pointing out that though Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov each had distinctive qualities, their primary virtue was the one they had in common—they were "the fathers."
Avraham is called by the prophets, "Avraham, who loved Me" (Yeshayahu 41:8); his worship of G-d was characterized by a love for his Creator. Yitzchak's relationship with G-d is described in the Torah as "the Fear of Yitzchak" (Bereishis 31:42); his life was primarily defined by his awe and fear of Heaven. Yaakov represented a balance of both these emotions, as he attested, "Had not the G-d of my father, the G-d of Avraham and the Fear of Yitzchak, been for me…" (ibid.), meaning that he incorporated both his father and grandfather's spiritual traits in his worship of G-d.
Now, though love and fear of G-d are obviously unalike, but what they have in common is that they both inspire action. As explained in Tanya (chapter 4), love of G-d motivates observance of the positive mitzvos commanded by G-d, and fear of G-d ensures that one distances himself from transgressing any of G-d's prohibitions.
Rashi hints to this with his emphasis that Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov were "the fathers." Our Sages teach, "The principal offspring of the righteous are their good deeds" (Rashi on Bereishis 6:9). Accordingly, describing Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov as "the fathers" emphasizes that their emotional attachment to G-d did not remain abstract; it translated into "offspring," i.e., practical good deeds.
Additionally, by highlighting that our forefathers were, first and foremost, "the fathers," Rashi underscores that their primary merit was their influence on others. More so than the remarkable qualities that they each exhibited in their personal service of G-d, our forefathers' main accomplishment in life was that they bred and inspired successive generations to go on the path of G-d.
—Likkutei Sichos, vol. 3, p. 860
Sponsor a Lightpoints email
A project of Or Hachassidus
ביוזמת ולזכות הרה״ח הרה״ת ר' ישעי' זושא ווילהעלם שליט״א להצלחה רבה לו ולכל משפחתו בגו״ר
This email is sent from Machon Or Hachasidus - likras shabbos. We'd love to stay in touch with you, but if you wish to be unsubscribed from this list please click here, or click here to manage your subscriptions. Sent via ChabadOne Communicator
