Chapters
Transcript
Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
The pasuk in this week's parsha says as follows: We're talking about when Klali Yisrael was going through the Yam Suf And now the waters come crashing down. All the waters come crashing down; they cover the chariots, the horsemen, the entire army of Paro. That was chasing after them into the sea. Listen to these words: Lo nishar b'hem ad echad. What do those words mean? Lo nishar b'hem ad echad. What would you say? What would you guess? The waters came crashing down. On the horses, on the chariots, on the entire army of Paro, lo nishar b'hem ad echad. What do you think it means? No one survived. You said that. No one survived. You say it's not like humble. You can. I said it. Lo nishar b'hem ad echad. The simple explanation of the pasuk is no one survived. Lo nishar b'hem ad echad. Listen to the medrash. There's three pshatim here. You just said the simplest explanation.
There's three pshatim. Pshat number one, no one survived. Pshat number two, listen to the words of the medrash. Aval echad nishar One survived. Lo nishar b'hem ad echad doesn't mean not even one of them survived. It means only one of them survived. So listen to the words of the medrash. Who survived? The who paro? It's a medrash. Many of us are familiar with this medrash. We heard about it in the telling of the story of Yitzias Metzrayim on the night of the Hagada. Who was the only one who survived? Paro survived. V'hadichsiv b'sefer Tehillim, and this is what it means in Sefer Tehillim: Echad mehem lo nosar, ha'inu mikol amo That one survived from the entire nation. From the entire nation. Listen, what the Medrash says. The Medrash says, what did Paro say to Moshe Rabbeinu? You guys, listen to this. You ready? He says, 'Mi Hashem Asher Shama B'Kolah.' Who is this God that I should listen to? The Medrash says, 'Mi is begamatria fifty, forty plus ten. Mi is begamatria fifty.' The Medrash says that the Malach Gavriel held Paro under the sea.
Read the full transcript
Held Paro under the sea for fifty days. The gematria is fifty days Paro had to sit there in the sea, surviving, watching everything be destroyed. In other words, if Paro survives, it's a punishment. Hitler Yehi Machshemo, he killed himself. In a certain way, if Hitler survived, what would he have had to see? What would have been, in a certain way, a greater punishment. To watch everything you built be destroyed. Imagine being paro if we're taking the medrash literally for a second, and you're sitting there 50 days into the process 50 days into the process of watching everything you ever built be destroyed. That's a ridiculous thing. That's a terrible punishment. So far, we have two pshatim. One is the simple pshat that's easy. The other is a pshat many of you are familiar with. I was familiar with both of these pshatim until today. But there is a perkeid the Rebbe Elazar that I want to share with you today. It is a wild perkeid the Rebbe Elazar. Before I teach you the perkeid the Rebbe Elazar, it was worth traveling six thousand miles just to hear this perkeid the Rebbe Elazar. Before I share it with you, I want to share with you a pasuk
The simple explanation, and then we're going to see the deeper explanation. The simple explanation of the pasuk is there is a love in the Torah. It's brought down. It's the fifty-fifth love in the Torah according to the Mitzvah of the Rambam. Lo tesaiv Mitzri kiger hayisa beartzo. You're not allowed to agitate. You're not allowed to hurt an Egyptian. Why? What's the simple explanation? Kiger hayisa beartzo. Because you were a sojourner in their land. Meaning for 210 years, really more than that, for 400 plus years, we lived in Mitzrayim. Therefore, we have to have some level of gratitude to the Egyptians. Lo tesaiv Mitzri. You're not allowed to agitate. You're not allowed to bother. You're not allowed to go after an Egyptian. True, good question. We'll see in a moment. Perhaps there's a deeper explanation. So listen to the words of the Medrash. Perkei the Reuvelazer. Unbelievable.
Paro survived. And what happened next? Never ask that question. Everybody grew up knowing that Paro maybe survived. What did he do next? Says the Perket, the Rabbilazar, very good. Where did you go to school? So Valley Torah makes sense. Rabbi Stolberger was just here. Excellent Valley Torah education. Paro went to Nive. Why is that important? So listen, what the Perket, the Rabbilazar, says. We all know the story of Nive. What happened in Nive? Jonah was sent to Nive. Why was Jonah sent to Nive? Because Jonah had to tell the people of Nive to do tshuva. And Jonah was nervous about what was actually going to happen. They were gonna do tshuva. Why was Yonah nervous that they were going to do tshuva? Because they had a king that had gone through all of this before. Who was that king? That king was Paro. Perketar Veleser says that Paro lived for so long that he was even the king of Nineveh. And when Yonah came to Nineveh and said the city is going to be destroyed, Paro stood up from his throne, tore his clothes, he tore kriya, he put on sackcloth, he put on sackcloth and ashes. And he told everyone in all of Ninve that they have to fast for three days. And anyone that didn't fast, he said, we're going to burn you by fire.
Paro ultimately becomes the king of Ninve. And not only does Paro himself do tshuva, what does he do? He convinces everybody in Ninve to do tshuva. He convinces everybody in Ninve to change their ways. That's an unbelievable thing. But the Perkeid of Rav Elazar goes a little bit further. Not only does Paro become the king of Ninve, not only does he become an agent of Tshuva Paro is wild becomes a Ger. Paro himself converts. Could you imagine Hitler converting? Could you imagine Hitler converting? Paro was much worse than Hitler. Hitler did seven years, Paro did two hundred and ten. And yet, this is what Perket HaRav Lazar says that he became a Ger. Remember, I told you that pasuk before. Listen to how the Perket HaRav Lazar interprets that pasuk. Lotus ayv. This is obviously it's meant to be understood, right? That he keilu lived for that many years. I'm not saying literally. I'm taking a medrash seriously. You understand the difference? Listen to how the pasuk should be understood. Lotus ayv mitzri. Don't agitate a mitzri. Which mitzri is it referring to?
Paro. Don't agitate Paro. Why? Kiger ha'isa. Because eventually, what does he become? He becomes a Jew. He becomes a convert. Ba'artzo, when he lives in your land. So we have three pshatim in Paro. The first one is the obvious pshat. Everyone died, including Paro. Everyone was killed at the sea. Then we have the second pshat of the Medrash. Paro survived, but it was a punishment. He survived, but it was a punishment. And if Paro survives and it's a punishment, it's a terrible thing. He has to watch everything he does be destroyed. And the Medrash goes so far as to say that he was held under the water for 50 days. You questioned God, and you said, 'Mi Hashem B'Kol.' For 50 days, you're going to watch all the devastation and the destruction. But the final pshat is a radical pshat. Seems to be very different than the first two. Paro survives not as a punishment.
Paro survives because he's done tshuva. Paro survives and he's done tshuva. And what happens Girls? What happens? He does tshuva and he becomes an agent of tshuva. Not only does he do tshuva himself, he causes others to do tshuva. Not only does he cause others to do tshuva, he himself becomes a Jew. So this is the most radical transformation in the history of the world. I'll tell you a true story. When my brother was in mivaseret They were sitting in the chadar ochal one day And they were all talking about where they come from. You went to this school. What's your background? One of the guys says my grandfather is a convicted Nazi war criminal. The guys were like, "Shut up! What are you talking about? Your grandfather is not a convicted Nazi war criminal. What was the story? This convicted Nazi war criminal had a son" And the son was an off the derech Nazi.
If your father is a Nazi who's a convicted Nazi war criminal, and you're the son who says, "I don't want to be anything like my father," how do you go off the derech? You marry a Jew. So this convicted Nazi war criminal, his son married a Jew. The product of their marriage was Jewish, because the mother was Jewish. And the kid discovered that he was Jewish, and he went to NCSY and he became a b'altzuvah, and he went to Mivaseret, and now he's sitting in the Chadarocha with these lunatic Mivaseret guys, and he says, "Yeah, my grandfather was a convicted Nazi war criminal." So for the rest of the year, anytime this guy like asked, "Could you pass the ketchup?" The guy's like, "Okay, take all the ketchup. Just don't, just don't murder all of us." You know, like that was their insane joke for the year. But obviously, it was all in good fun, and they were very good friends. Could you imagine Paro becoming a Ger?
Imagine the concept is wild. We don't understand how the convicted Nazi war criminal has a grandson who's Jewish. Imagine Hitler was walking around Eretz Yisrael today as a b'altshuva, and everybody loved and accepted Hitler. Lo Tesaiv Hitler. Don't agitate Hitler. He's a Jew now. What in the world are we talking about? This is what the Prick of the Rebbe Leizer says. So we need to understand these three things very deeply to really mine the nugget and understand what's being taught to us because it is an invaluable lesson. Everyone needs to tune into this. It's an invaluable lesson. There are three ways of relating to the Paro inside of us. Every one of us carries within us a little bit of Paro. You girls know paro is the orif. Paro is the back of the neck. It's the part of us that's stubborn. It's the part of us that's unfeeling. It's the part of us that's not turning towards the right thing. It's called the orif of a person. Every one of us has a paro.
The initial reaction of every single person is I want to destroy my paro. If I could snap my fingers right now and automatically you would love davening, you would say snap your fingers. If I could snap my fingers and give you a gift, you'd love davening. Everyone here would go, yeah, snap your fingers. I'm sick of this part of me that doesn't love davening. I want to destroy it. I want to eviscerate it. And by the way, that's mostly what we're taught, right? You got to kill your paro. You got to kill your yitzharo. You got to kill your nefesh abahamis. That is a very We'll call it. I don't want to call it a low level. We'll call it a first step. The first step that a person has to something that's getting in the way is our first reaction is I want to destroy this. If you ever go to therapy and you want to work on something, you're like I just want to get rid of this part. What is the first thing they teach you in therapy? You can't get rid of your parts.
Our first reaction is I want to kill this. It can't be in my life anymore. It's destroying my life. A guy comes to me. He says I have terrible anger management issues. It's destroying my marriage. I need to kill my anger. It's our first reaction. And it's important because are you allowed to rage all over another person? You're not allowed to rage all over another person. You're not allowed to do it. It's not nice. It's destructive. It's abusive. So we all have an initial first stage. This is what the pasuk simply means: Lo nisha b'hem ad echor. There's a time in our life where we say it's all destroyed, nothing is left. I need to leave Mitzrayim, and there's nothing left in my life. We're not going to spend a lot of time talking about that because that's the easy one. Let's talk about the harder one. The Medrash that says Lo Nisha B'hem Ad Echad means everything else dies, but only Paro survives.
There's a devastating secret that exists And it's this: if you want to discover the kernel of self. If you want to discover the truest spark of who you are Everything else needs to fall apart, and you need to watch. If you really want to discover who you are, if you want to get down to the basic kernel of the truth of you Everything else needs to fall apart. And then what's left is that spark of you. Okay, let me try to rephrase this. Only then can you really see the inner goodness of even your worst parts. I'll play it out practically because I want you girls to really try to get it. It's my fault. I want to try to bring it down to reality. It's very simple. Take an addict, take an alcoholic. The alcoholic inside that alcoholic there's a good person. Inside that alcoholic, there's a good person, but the alcoholic is destroying everyone around him.
What's he doing to his wife? What's he doing to his kids? He's dishonest in his job. He gets fired. Everything in the alcoholic's life is just devastation and destruction. What starts to happen? The more devastation and destruction the alcoholic causes, the more life starts to fall apart. And the alcoholic really only changes when what? When you hit rock bottom. Rock bottom means that you've caused so much devastation and destruction in your life. Everything else just sort of fades away, and the only thing that's left is you. The alcoholic whose wife divorced him Whose kids no longer want to speak to him Who doesn't have a job, who's been evicted from his home, who can't afford to pay the rent, who's living in a box under a bridge. That guy once upon a time was a successful guy on Wall Street. He has to sit in the sea of his own destruction and watch everything fall away.
And only then does he begin to change. It's an amazing thing if you've ever had the opportunity to see it or even to hear about it. It's an amazing thing to watch someone who has destroyed their life show up to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for the first time. It's the most incredible thing. They walk in and you see they're totally devastated. There's nothing left. You see them walk into a meeting. And who's there? They and it's hard. They walk in and they get up to that podium. They get up in that circle, whatever it is, and they say, "My name is X, and I'm an alcoholic. And I want you to know, it's the wildest thing." Everything in their life had to fall away in order for them to discover themselves. That paro standing on that rock That Paro that's sitting in the sea for 50 days of his own destruction. Mi Hashem Shama B'Kol O, the fifty days that he has to spend in the devastation, watching everything he built. Imagine you're Paro, and you're seeing the horses and the chariots and your army, and they're swirling around you in the vortex of the Yam Suf.
And for fifty days, the Malach Gabriel keeps you alive, and all you see is the devastation of I destroyed my life. It changes you. You come out a different person when a person gets honest with themselves and they say, "I did this. My wife divorced me because I was an alcoholic. My kids don't want to talk to me because I'm not around enough." I'm going to share with you something. It's not nice, but it's a true story. There's a shul in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, this shul, in my opinion, has an irresponsible policy around alcohol. I know that this is something in our community we need to work on. They have an irresponsible policy around alcohol, and there's a certain guy in the shul. He drinks too much. By a kiddush you can make a lechaim. Lechaim is a little bit. This guy makes lechaims on cups. I've watched him do it.
He can sit there in a kiddush. A kiddush is half an hour. I can see him down three cups of scotch, three cups of bourbon. His daughter confided in my daughter years ago. She said, "I hate the shul that my father daven's in. She said, "Why do you hate the shul? You don't even go to the shul. Why do you hate the shul?" She said, "My father comes home reeking of alcohol every other week when there's a kiddush." It's not safe. She was a little girl when she said that. She was ten. It's not safe for a ten-year-old girl to have to wonder. I hope there wasn't a kiddush and shul because then my father comes home. And it's not like her father was raging all over the place, but it's not safe for a child. I think it's safe for a child when a father walks in and he's just a little bit too loud, just a little bit too jumbly, just a little bit. You know what I'm talking about? Like it's not a comfortable feeling for a child. But unfortunately for this guy, he never hit rock bottom because he never had to pay the consequences. He never had to pay the piper because it didn't get that bad. So if it doesn't get that bad, you never actually have to change.
The greatness of the story of Mitzrayim is that Paro had to change. At the end of all the devastation, you know the Medrash is telling you, Paro was left. It was a punishment in a certain sense. He had to watch all the destruction, but it's even more than that. If you want to discover the essence, because all things are created from God, even Paro is created from God. If Paro is going to discover his true essence, he needs to see the devastation and destruction that he caused. People ask, "How do you change?" You want to know how you change? I'll tell you a very simple equation. Just ask yourself the following question: Is this working for me? That's not an easy thing to ask yourself. A lot of people wake up in the morning and they go, "I'm going to do the same thing I did yesterday. I'm not going to wake up. I'm not going to take things seriously. Whatever it is" Is it working for you?
And if you have the courage to ask yourself this question, you might realize it's not working for you anymore. I don't want to be this way, but it's uncomfortable because you have to sit in the vulnerability of recognizing that life is not going well, and it's not obvious for a person to say that. We become comfortable in the slavery of our lives. People become comfortable in the slavery of a terrible marriage. They become comfortable in the slavery of a terrible job, of a terrible addiction. They don't know how to say, 'This is not working. I need to figure out how to change this.' Sometimes everything needs to fall apart in order for you to get better. That's a deep Torah. It's not a simple thing. People say, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' The opposite of that is, you don't know how broke it is until you fix it.
Sometimes you're just gliding along, and you go, "Yeah, it's kind of good." You're kind of satisfied with your product. It's not great; it's fine. Life is not meant to be fine. Life is meant to work. If you're satisfied with fine, you'll never change. I was talking to a very dear friend of mine, who's a tremendous, tremendous growing person, a very, very special person. He's working in the world of kiruv and spreading Torah in England. But he's originally from Farakway. So he said, "I'm trying to teach Breslev Chasidus in England" And he said it's he's having a hard time. And I said, Why? You were so successful in America. You were so successful in Eretz Yisrael. Why having a hard time in England? What he said is an unbelievable tirade. He said America has a revolutionary spirit. He said in America people are willing to say, "I'm dissatisfied. We need to have a revolution." It's baked into the product of America.
We constantly, as Americans, say it's not good enough. We could do better. He said in England, it's exactly the opposite. In England, they're very... Anyone here from England? Who am I offending? I just want to make sure. I'm not going to stop. I just want to know who I'm offending. In England, they're very traditional. This is the way it is. This is the way it's always been. But it's not working. This is the way it is. But it's and it's always going to be that way. He's coming and he's trying to teach Rabbi Nachman Chassidus. You know what Rabbi Nachman Chassidus is about? It's about dissatisfaction, recognizing that you have a hole, and filling that hole up with the authentic stuff, as opposed to filling it up with Netflix, as opposed to filling it up with drugs, with drinking, with whatever. And he's coming to people, and they're going, "Look, it's kind of just fine" And it's not working. This approach that people have of like, 'Yeah, it's just fine. You'll never change if your life is fine. You won't change until you're ready.'
There's not one year that anybody has given you this year that's changed you. There are things you've been taught, things that maybe you saw the world in a new way. Anybody who's made any changes this year, it's only for one reason, because it wasn't working, and I need to do something different. That takes courage to be able to say it's not working. It's not a simple thing. You have to be able to sit in the devastation and go, look what I did. When you see this very often in yeshiva when a guy is now making the decision after yeshiva what he's going to do next. And he says, 'This is they say it all the time.' Ready for this? This what it sounds like. I'm sure some of you have this also. I say to a guy, 'Where you going to go?' He goes, 'I'm going to go to college in yeshiva.' Which college? Maybe I'm going to go to YU. Excited to go to YU? I'm terribly nervous. Why are you so nervous?
Honestly, I didn't study at all in high school. I cheated my way through all of high school, and now I'm like for the first time in my life, I don't want to cheat anymore because now I'm in Beit Yira. But I don't know if I could do this. Do you know what that is? That means you never worked hard. You cheated your way through life, and you know what you didn't learn? That you were a capable person. Could you imagine being nineteen, twenty years old, about to start college, and not have a clue if you're capable of doing it? That's the craziest thing. It's momish crazy. But you cheated yourself out of it. In terms of the example of Parviz to say that we should watch everything fall before we fix it, or if we notice something, we could notice the falling. Rock bottom. They say in Alcoholics Anonymous, rock bottom is wherever you choose it to be. Everyone has something in their life that's not working.
You're in the dorms. Something is not working. You have whatever. Everyone has something in their life that's not working. Somebody says, I need to. I don't feel good. I need to exercise more. I need to eat well. Everyone has a thing that they're doing in life that's not working. But it's uncomfortable to pay attention to the fact that it's not working because quite frankly It's kind of working. It's kind of fine. Ask a girl, "Are you satisfied with your Judaism?" She goes, "No." What are you doing to change it? She goes, "Nothing." Why? I don't know. I'm never really going to change. It's kind of fine. Who really cares, right? If you're deeply dissatisfied, if you look around and go, "I don't have a relationship with Hashem" Yes, then you're not going to change until you say, 'This has to change.' Then you'll change. Everything sometimes has to fall apart in order for you to change. Does that make sense? That's stage two, but that's not even the exciting part to me.
Stage three is the exciting part. This is unbelievable. This Torah, I learned. I learned this Torah today for the first time. It's the most unbelievable Torah. It's very deep. I'm going to try to say it clearly. If I don't say it clearly, I want you to know it's my fault. If you don't understand it, I know it's my fault. It's hard to say this. You ready for it? The secret of Paro The secret of your worst part. Is that your worst part, the thing that you hate the most, the thing that you want to kill, the thing that you want to get rid of, the thing that's caused all the devastation Is your most godly part? That was exactly the reaction I was looking for. Thank you so much. That was a tremendous gift. I said before the shiur, you can give the rabbis a gift by giving them a gift of your eyes. I very much appreciate the look of this. It was an amazing thing. You want to see what it looked like? It was perfect.
Perfect. I couldn't have done it any better. By the way, when I learned it, I also had that reaction. Good. You should be confused. That's the only way to learn. I'll say it again. The part of you that you hate The part of you that you need to kill, the part of you that's devastating and creating destruction in your life—that may even be the portal to self-discovery. It's your most godly part. How? So it goes like this. The world says, with great arrogance. When I say the world, I mean the physical world. If the physical world could talk, it would say, with great arrogance, "I exist independently from God." I exist." Period. Everything in this world does not proclaim God's existence. This stender, you look at a stender. What's a stender? A stender is a stender. When you look at the stender, do you see God? You don't see God. God is hidden within this world. How does God hide Himself within the world? The world says, "I exist." Forget God. Clear? So far, so good.
Why does the world do that? This is a game changer of an idea. See if you can lock in for this. The world does that because it's a godly creation. I'll explain. If I'm a great artist, I am not, by the way, a great artist. But if I was a great artist and I made a painting. You would see me in that painting. Does that make sense? For example, do you know that there are people whose job it is to tell you if a painting was made by a certain painter? There are people that could look at a painting and authenticate it. They could look at it and say, 'That's a Da Vinci,' or they could look at it and say, 'It's not Da Vinci himself, but it's from his students.' How do they do that? Because they know Da Vinci's brushstrokes so well. That they could tell you if this artist was influenced by Da Vinci or if it was Da Vinci himself, because when you paint something, you put your essence into that painting. Is anyone here a real artist? You could raise your hand. Be honest. You're a real artist, so then you know what I'm talking about. When you paint, what's on the canvas at the end?
It's you. You put yourself into it. When God creates the world, you know what the world is. It bears His mark; it bears the mark of its maker. Do you know how the world bears the mark of its maker? By saying, "I exist." Because what's the only true existence? What's the only true existence, girls? The only true existence is God. So if God creates something, what is that thing naturally going to say? "I exist," just like God, independent. I'm gonna say it again. I want to make sure everyone gets it. Did you get the point yet? I'm not saying it 100% clearly. I'm gonna say it again because it's a deep point. I'm saying if I am God, and the primary feature of God is that God exists. And God creates something else, what's that thing? Just like Da Vinci puts his soul into the painting, if God creates something, the thing is going to be exactly like God. God says I exist. So what does the world say?
I exist. That's what it does because that's who made it. So here's the irony: when the world says I exist independent from God, who's the one that made the world say that? Hashem, because Hashem said I exist, and God made something. The thing He makes says I exist. Just like if Da Vinci puts his soul into a painting and you could see the Da Vinci in the painting, so too when God creates the world says just like God, I exist. But when the world says I exist, it says I exist independently from God. But the part of the world that says I exist independently from God is really what? Why is it saying that? It's only because God made it. It's only because God made it. The arrogance of the world is really a function of its godliness. Which is a crazy thing. It means that the part of you that's most distant from God is really what?
The part of you that's most godly. All of a sudden! All of a sudden! Again. So your weakest area, you struggle with the most, is your most godly part. For example, arrogance. Because that's what we're talking about. Paro says, "Li o riva ani asisani." The river is mine, and I made the river. Paro considers himself a god. So Paro is very arrogant. Paro says, "I exist, independent from God. I am a god." Why does Paro say that I am a god? Because who made Paro? And what does Hashem say? I'm God. So Hashem says I'm God. So you know what Paro says? I'm God. Because who made him? Hashem. So why don't we think the words? We do. We think we're God all the time. Think about how many things we try to control that are beyond our control. We act almost always with a sense of disconnect from God because we, in a certain sense, believe we are God. We try to control things that are beyond control. COVID was the ultimate example of this in our lifetimes. When COVID hit, every adult had the same reaction. I missed the illusion of control.
Everyone was in control. If you get strep throat, you take a macrolide or penicillin, right? You have an ear infection, you take the drops. If Chas v'Shalom something happens that's more difficult, you call Chai Lifeline. We had our systems, and then COVID said you have no systems. You can't leave your house. And it was wild. And you saw people losing their minds because they missed feeling like a god. Because almost all the time we walk around feeling like a god. I'm safe. What do you mean? We have a big giant wall. Nothing could come through the wall. And then some chas Torah happened. We act as if we're in control when the truth is we're in control of nothing. Why do we act as if we're in control? Because we believe, in a certain sense, we are gods. And who taught us to believe that? Hashem Himself. Because Hashem says I'm a god, so we are His creation, so we feel that way. But here's the key. This is a wild thing. You ready for it?
That part of you, because it's the most godly, all you need to do is turn it a little bit. And then all of a sudden, that energy becomes something completely different. Isn't that wild? I'll give you an example of this. Let's talk about this particular of Elazar. Not at all. Some of our worst parts are actually have the opportunity to be some of our best parts. I'll give you an example of this. I know we're almost out of time, and I don't want to I don't want to exacerbate the point, but there's a lot here to talk about. A classic example of this is We'll just use the perketir velazzer. It's the easiest thing to do. Paro survives. And now Paro's watched all the devastation of his life. What has he learnt? He's realizing I'm not a god. And the only reason I ever thought I was a god was because God made me.
So now he has a very different role in life. All of a sudden he's an agent of change. All of a sudden he's an agent of tshuva. He can't be melech of Mitzrayim anymore. Mitzrayim was wiped out. So where does he go? Ninveh. And now the same exact thing happens. Nineveh is about to be destroyed by God. And Jonah comes and he says, 'Nineveh is about to be destroyed by God.' But this time, because Paro has been humbled, because Paro recognizes his godly essence, he behaves very differently. What does he do? He goes, 'Everybody start fasting.' He tears his own clothes. He puts on sackcloth. He says, 'If you don't do tshuva, I'm going to burn you.' And everybody does tshuva, and Nineveh is saved. Do you see the transformation? When the least godly part recognizes its inner godliness, it becomes an agent of change.
Anywhere that this person goes, it's like we got to do tshuva. This is serious business. And not only that It becomes godly. Kiger ha'isa ba'aretz. What happens to Paro? Paro becomes a Jew. How could it be that Paro became a Jew? Listen to the inner voice here. It's not speaking that Paro becomes a Jew. I don't know if Hitler becomes a Jew, but the part of us that's Paro. Has the capacity to become our most Jewish part. We have a lotus ayv. Don't agitate that part. Don't fight with your lowest parts. Your lowest parts are your most godly parts. If you're fighting with them and you're trying to destroy them, you're losing an unbelievable opportunity. What's the opportunity? To discover the inner godliness of that part and to transform it into your Jew. So everyone's walking around in today's society, which is lunacy. Everyone's trying to kill off their lowest parts.
We have to appreciate our lowest parts because our lowest parts, our most arrogant parts, the part of us that wants to control things that are beyond control, only wants to control things that are beyond control because those are our godly parts. So stop yelling at yourself. Stop criticizing yourself. It's not helping anyone. Lo tasayivimo. Don't argue with your paro. What do you want to do to your paro? You want to appreciate the godliness of that part and transform it, make it an agent of change, not only for yourself but for others. Get it from being the thing that's in Mitzrayim, not only to the Melchav Ninvei, but even to become a Jew. So if you watch these two midrashim, it's unbelievable. The simple pshat of the pasuk is: you have to wipe out your paro. You're not allowed to rage all over people. Second. Watch the devastation.
Watch the devastation. The kernel of truth comes when you watch the negative impact of things in your life. Step three: the part of you that you hate that caused all that devastation is your most godly part. What's your job? Discover how it's a distorted godliness and then turn it back So that it becomes an agent of change and eventually expresses itself as your most godly part. Girls, have a wonderful Shabbos.
Is this shiur filed in the wrong place? Let us know.