This week’s parsha is dedicated in loving memory of Rafael ben Esther and Yosef, z”l. May his Neshamah have aliyah after aliyah, and being a meilitz yoshar for his family and all of Klal Yisroel.
SLAVERY AGAIN, and only a whole year later. The good news is that redemption is two parshios away. Everything happens much faster in the Torah than it does in real life, which makes it easier to focus on the essence of ideas so we can implement them into everyday life.
When you think of exile, you probably imagine a nation being carted off to a foreign land, often in chains. That’s how the Jewish People were taken from Eretz Yisroel after Nebuchadnetzar exiled them to Babylonia. Or, it can be as simple as a person leaving home for a short while, even willingly. Great rabbis of the past periodically exiled themselves to keep them humble before G–D.
But there is a form of exile that happens without actually going anywhere, and in truth, it is the real exile that tends to lead to all of the others. It is the exile of the mind, Golus HaDa’as, which can be momentary or, G–D forbid, permanent. When the Gemora says that a person only sins when a spirit of insanity enters them (Sotah 3a), it is not being melodramatic. You have to be crazy to sin, at least in the moment.
But what about people who don’t even know they are sinning, especially if they’re not sure about G–D and Torah? You have to be out of your mind not to check it out because, if G–D does exist and Torah is from Him, the implications about life and the World to Come are staggering.
It’s like a person taking all of their savings and randomly investing in something they know nothing about. While there is a chance they could make money, the odds are against it and favor losing a lot of money instead. It’s one thing to shoot blindfolded at a target, but very different to do so without knowing where the target is before blindfolding. You’ll hit a target alright, just not the one you intended and probably wished you hadn’t.
That’s why the exile wasn’t only in Egypt, but in Mitzrayim. Egypt is just a geographical location, but “Mitzrayim” is a spiritual one. The word is comprised of “meitzer,” which means “border,” and Yud-Mem has the gematria of fifty, the number of Binah—understanding—and source of Da’as, what the Torah means by “wisdom.” Mitzrayim is any place that constricts the Nun Sha’arei Binah, that is, the Da’as.
Therefore, though Egypt always remains in northern Africa, Mitzrayim can be anywhere in the world, and at any time in history. Secular society is just another name for Mitzrayim, wherever it is, and though a Jew can feel right at home there, they are in mental exile according to the extent that they have been impacted by the secular world around them.
Therefore, before a person can change their location, they need to change their mind. They need to know the Torah’s view on where and how they are living to measure the accuracy of their approach to life and to current events. That’s why G–D increased the slavery at the end of the parsha, to change the mentality of the Jewish People so they could take advantage of the redemption.
Because, at the end of the day, redemption doesn’t occur because the host nation in exile tells us to leave, and it won’t be because of some military strategy governments have worked out. Redemption occurs because G–D wants it to and makes it possible, and that is only after He sees that we have the Da’as for it.
This is why the Zohar, Ramchal, and GR”A have said that someone who learns Kabbalah at the end of days will be spared Chevlei Moshiach and the War of Gog and Magog. They only come to restore Da’as in the world, and so does the Zohar. Therefore, learning the latter eliminates the need to go through the former.
We’ll talk about this more in the next few weeks, b”H. In the meantime, have a great Shabbos. Latest book: What Now: Navigating the End of Days.
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Shabbat Shalom
Pinchas Winston
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