Pasrhat B'Shalah
The sea has been split. The Jews go through while the Egyptians are washed away. The passuk tells us in 14:31, "וירא ישראל את היד הגדולה...וייראו העם את ה' ויאמינו בה' ובמשה עבדו" - Israel saw the great hand that which Hashem had done to Egypt and the nation feared Hashem and they believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant.
Did they not believe in Hashem prior to this? After all they saw HAshem do to get them out of Egypt, only now do they believe in Him?What is different now that we say they believed in Hashem rather than the blief they had before?
I suspect my rebbe Rav Gamliel Rabinovitch would say that why they did not have emuna before this is not what matters. Rather, he would say, if the Torah says they have emuna now and not before, after everything they have seen and experienced, how much more so would we be considered people without emuna and how much more do we need to work on improving our emuna.
To answer the question though, it must be a different level of emuna based on what they just saw in how Hashem took out His wrath and vengeance on the Egyptians, relative to what they saw before which was much less. This level of emuna is based on their fear of Hashem, as it immediately attributes it to that by saying "They feared Hashem and they believed...".
Prior to this they might have believed based on what they saw, but it seems like they did not have the yirah that they have now.
Any suggestions?
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Rule book and history book
Parshat B'Reishit - 5767
The first Rashi in the parsha is relatively famous, as far as Rashis go. The parsha begins in 1:1 by saying "In the beginning Hashem created the heavens and the earth."
Rashi comes along and tells us that the reason the Torah begins with all this history of the world and of the Jewish nation rather than simply beginning with the first mitzva (החודש הזה לכם...), is to let it be known that Hashem created the world and can give the land to whomever He desires. So if/when other nations come to claim the land of Israel from the Jews as having been unfairly captured, the Jews can say God created it and gave it to us, as has clearly been delineated in the Torah that He has the right to do so.
This is a wonderful explanation and should be read in Rashi by everyone. It was clearly written for Jews to internalize the lesson rather than non-Jews, as they likely will not accept such an argument. Rather, we Jews need to internalize the idea that we have the right to the Land of Israel.
However, I would like to offer another suggestion to explain why we begin the Torah reading how Hashem created the world and the history of the world, our forefathers, the Jewish nation, etc.
If the Torah was simply a book compiling all the mitzvos, it is unlikely it would be read by many. Nobody would feel obligated to adhere to the mitzvos and nobody would feel connected to them. Hashem had to begin the book by showing how He created the world, how the forefathers came to recognize Him and commit their lives to His way and how the Jewish nation began and was sustained by Him.
Only after reading all this history and explanation, only after all the raging debates about science and Torah, only after delving into the actual history and stories that made us into the nation we are, only after all that can Hashem delineate the Mitzvos for us. Once we are committed to Hashem and His way, then we can read and study the actual mitzvos and follow and perform them.
Without the history, it is just a bunch of rules nobody would be interested in keeping. The point of the Torah is not just tio give us these rules, but to allow us to dedicate our lives to Hashem. For that we need to mitzvos, but we also need the history.
The first Rashi in the parsha is relatively famous, as far as Rashis go. The parsha begins in 1:1 by saying "In the beginning Hashem created the heavens and the earth."
Rashi comes along and tells us that the reason the Torah begins with all this history of the world and of the Jewish nation rather than simply beginning with the first mitzva (החודש הזה לכם...), is to let it be known that Hashem created the world and can give the land to whomever He desires. So if/when other nations come to claim the land of Israel from the Jews as having been unfairly captured, the Jews can say God created it and gave it to us, as has clearly been delineated in the Torah that He has the right to do so.
This is a wonderful explanation and should be read in Rashi by everyone. It was clearly written for Jews to internalize the lesson rather than non-Jews, as they likely will not accept such an argument. Rather, we Jews need to internalize the idea that we have the right to the Land of Israel.
However, I would like to offer another suggestion to explain why we begin the Torah reading how Hashem created the world and the history of the world, our forefathers, the Jewish nation, etc.
If the Torah was simply a book compiling all the mitzvos, it is unlikely it would be read by many. Nobody would feel obligated to adhere to the mitzvos and nobody would feel connected to them. Hashem had to begin the book by showing how He created the world, how the forefathers came to recognize Him and commit their lives to His way and how the Jewish nation began and was sustained by Him.
Only after reading all this history and explanation, only after all the raging debates about science and Torah, only after delving into the actual history and stories that made us into the nation we are, only after all that can Hashem delineate the Mitzvos for us. Once we are committed to Hashem and His way, then we can read and study the actual mitzvos and follow and perform them.
Without the history, it is just a bunch of rules nobody would be interested in keeping. The point of the Torah is not just tio give us these rules, but to allow us to dedicate our lives to Hashem. For that we need to mitzvos, but we also need the history.
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