going home ... to yerushalayim: Reb Neuberger – “SEE THE SALVATION OF HASHEM"

03 February 2023

Reb Neuberger – “SEE THE SALVATION OF HASHEM"

“STAND FAST AND SEE

THE SALVATION OF HASHEM”

There is a frightening possuk in Sefer Bamidbar.

“If you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, those whom you leave shall be pins in your eyes and thorns in your sides.” (Bamidbar 33:55)

This week we read how Bnai Yisroel were caught between the Mitzri’im and the Sea. They were petrified. And we should be petrified right now, because we are in exactly the same place! Our enemies in Lebanon have now set up lasers with which they literally blind our brothers and sisters on the street and in their homes in border towns at night!

“Pins in our eyes!”

This is exactly what the Torah warned us about!

Last Shabbos our brothers and sisters were murdered in Neve Yaakov.

Where are there enough tears to cry for our people?

When is this Golus going to end?

I will tell you: it won’t be long.

We have to cry and scream to Hashem, but it won’t be long before the entire house of our enemies falls upon their heads. “For behold, the wicked bend their bow, ready their arrow on the bowstring, to shoot in the dark at the upright of heart…. Hashem in the abode of His holiness … His eyelids scrutinize mankind … He will rain down coals upon the wicked. Fire and brimstone and a burning blast is their allotted portion.” (Tehillim 11)

In this week’s Parsha we see the cosmic moment of liberation. We sing the song that will be heard once again at the Geulah Shelemah! Our people were liberated from Mitzraim, but at the Geulah Shelemah every Yid will be liberated worldwide, and it will be forever!

Rabbi Elchonen Wasserman zt”l said, “Several times I heard from the holy Chofetz Chaim that we can learn about the end of our exile from what happened at the end of our exile in Egypt, as it says, ‘As in the days of your leaving Egypt, I will show wonders [in the Final Redemption].’” The story of Yetzias Mitzraim is our guarantee that we will be able to escape from this Golus. Hashem is going to send us a Redeemer just the way He sent a Redeemer to our ancestors in Egypt.

Our rabbis famously learn from the wording of the Shir sung at the Sea that there will be another such song in the future when the final liberation from our enemies occurs during the Geulah Shelemah. Our ancestors were petrified before the sea split. They thought it was all over, but Moshe Rabbeinu told them: “Do not fear. Stand fast and see the salvation of Hashem …. Hashem shall do battle for you and you shall remain silent.” (Shemos 14:13)

What does “remain silent” mean?

Maybe it means we should stop screaming at each other!

Why are we fighting among ourselves when our enemies surround us on every side?

Enough!

Our ancestors had the Egyptians on one side and the sea on the other. We have Bnai Yishmoel on one side and Bnai Esav on the other. We are surrounded, but Moshe Rabbeinu’s words ring out across the millennia: “Stand fast and see the salvation of Hashem.” A day will come when we sing shira again, a day when our enemies disappear forever, when Eretz Yisroel will be cleansed, when “the House of Yaakov will be a fire and House of Yosef a flame and House of Esav like straw ….” (Ovadiah 1:18)

Hashem will fight for us if we stop fighting each other!

At Har Sinai, we said “na’ase v’nishma … we will do and then we will understand,” but we received the Torah only because we were "k’ish echad b’lev echad … like one man with one heart.” (Rashi on Shemos 19:2) Priority number one is achdus! Our ancestors descended to Mitzraim only because the brothers fought each other! When will we learn?

We have to put ego and political agendas behind us. We have to be one family, brothers and sisters who know that survival depends on family unity, hearts bound together.

Just as our ancestors saw Mitzraim destroyed, so will Edom be destroyed. But we have to get rid of our internal golus: their entertainment, their technology, their obsessive gashmius and their moral depravity, and what’s more… their internal hatred and eternal conflicts! It all has to go! We are imitating them to our own destruction!

Achdus and Torah!

Soon, with G-d’s help, we will see a perfect world and Hashem will dry all our tears.