Daily Bitachon

A Great Wealth


Listen Later

Welcome to our daily Bitachon series. We are now on the last lesson of Chol Hamoed. The pasuk in Bereshit 15,14 tells us וְאַחֲרֵי כֵן יֵצְאוּ בִּרְכֻשׁ גָּדוֹל / After that (referring to the 10 plagues ), we will leave with a great wealth which Rashi explains - בממון גדול with a lot of money, as it says in Shemot 12 וינצלו את מצרים/They emptied out Mitzrayim Of course, Rashi is giving the simple explanation. Rechush Gadol means a lot of money . But the Chida in his sefer Nachal Kedumim on Bereshit 15,14 quotes the Arizal that says it means they sifted out and took out the sparks of holiness that were in Mitzrayim. What does that mean exactly? So the Sefer Pri Etz Chaim Shaar Keriat Shema perek asks, why is it that every day, we have to remember Yetziat Mitzrayim more than any other of the Geulot . He says that whenever the Jewish people go to a certain place, their job is to take out the Kedusha from that place. I once heard from Rav Wolbe, that every nation has in it good qualities. When Adam HaRishon sinned, he caused the good and bad to be mixed. So there are good qualities in every nation. The Germans are very meticulous and exacting. That's nice when it comes to being perfect with Mitzvot and having the right shiurim and sizes, but it could go a little haywire when it comes to creating extermination camps and gas chambers and use it that way. The French are very romantic. That might be good for developing Ahavat Hashem but it could go in the wrong way if you misuse it, and so on. So there are sparks of holiness in every nation, and throughout our years of exile, our job is integrate the holiness of each of the nations into our ways and lift it up and take out that Kedushah. In general, it doesn't happen that we take everything out. Only when Mashiach comes will we be able to fully integrate all of those qualities into the Jewish people. But the spot of Kedusha of Mitzrayim , he says, was totally taken out. That's what it means Vayinatzlu Et Mitzrayim , the same pasuk that Rashi says they emptied out Egypt monetarily also means they spiritually emptied it out and took everything out with it. With the other Geulot , we did not have that full cleansing. And he says with that, we can understand a unbelievable concept. Why is it that it specifically says we're never allowed to go back to Egypt again? Why are we stricter about going back to Egypt than other any place? Because there's no need to go back to Egypt. We took everything out of it. So why go back? The sefer HaKatav V'HaKabbalah was written by Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi from Kallenberg, who lived from 1785 to 1865. One of the great rabbis of Germany, he was very famous for his sefer, and was one of the original fighters against the Reform. movement. He quotes his Yedidi, Marash Chen Tov in Bereshit 15,14 and concurs that when talking about leaving Egypt and taking everything out, it means taking out the spiritual wealth. He points out that when we use the word Rechush for general wealth, it says Rechush Rav, like in perek 13 of Bereshit , which means they had a lot of wealth. The term Rav usually indicates a quantitative concept and it's used for money, generally speaking. Here however, we see a strange terminology. It says Rechush Gadol , not a lot, but great . The word great is usually qualitative. Li Gadol Hashem, Ish Moshe Gadol… Adam Gadol doesn't mean he's large in weight , it means he's qualitatively great. So the great wealth , is not a lot of wealth, but qualitatively great, which is a spiritual wealth. So continuing with this theme of going from place to place and sucking out the Kedusha, the sefer Shem Gedolim also from the Chida, in the section on Sefarim in an appendix on the topic of Talmud , says, an unbelievable concept. He says in the city where there were many great Amoraim who set up the Talmud, there was a pillar of fire there twice a year. They were great Geonim. But in his times (the Chida lived about 300 years ago), the Torah had dwindled so much in that place that they didn't even know how to pray-not by heart and not from a siddur. Most of them only know how to say Ashrei Yoshveh Betecha and Shema Yisrael. They go to the Mikveh before they pray. They're quiet throughout the prayers. And when they get up to Ashrei, they all say Ashrei together. They say Keriat Shema until V'Ahavtah and that's it. He says, What's going on over here? He says, this is not a coincidence, because there was such a strong, powerful force of Torah in that place through the Limud HaTorah (which is one of the main ways we suck out Kedusha) that the Kedusha was taken out and therefore there's not that much left. Then he says, they went to Spain, and Torah moved to Spain, and then again the Torah was developing until they were sent out to a new spot. Because we didn't need it anymore. So as we leave a city, it rarely comes back to its greatness. The great Spanish golden era is no longer. Then they went to Turkey, then it went to France, Germany and it went to different places.. Every time we go from place to place, it's for one goal for us to be there and integrate into ourselves, into our ways, the qualities of that nation. Certain Jews might be very hospitable. They were more hospitable towns, and they took that Kedusha out. And he says דכל עניני ישראל הם בכלל ופרט וגם כשהאדם הולך מעיר לעיר הכל היא סיבה לברר ניצוצי הקדושה , . Every concept of the Jewish people, whether it's in general or specific, when a person goes from city to city, it's all because there's some holiness there. There's something you have to integrate into yourself. Jews are traveling all over the world and there's a reason for it. He says this is all from the wonders of the God Who's perfect in His ways. We don't know why we move from place to place but it's not a coincidence. Suddenly all the Sephardic Jews left the Muslim countries, the Ashkenazi Jews leave Europe. And we go basically to America and Eretz Yisrael. No Jew lived in America. It was new country and it introduced a new concept. There's a some Kedusha that's here and we have to take out. What is that Kedusha? I suggest ( it's my own humble opinion, I have no backing for this) that America is a melting pot. America is all about tolerance and being open-minded and so on. There are people from China with people from Argentina, Mexico and New Zealand all living together; possibly we have to integrate that (what I'll call) tolerance because when Mashiach comes, we're going to have all different kinds of Jews together. We never had Sephardim, Ashkenazim, Hasidim, all praying in the same shtiebl or Bet Knesset. We have get to know each other and reconcile with each other. That American trait might be what's necessary for us to integrate into our ways. The Or HaChaim HaKadosh, in Shemot 19,5 says the same concept. He says that if we would have been learning Torah more intensely in Eretz Yisrael, we'd have no need to search the globe to bring back the kedusha.Rather, it would be like a magnetic force that would suck everything out without even going there. Additionally, the Chida says in sefer Chomat Anach in Melachim 1, chapter 11, Pasuk 1, that that's why Shlomo Hamelech married all of those wives- they were princesses from countries all over the world, because he thought that way he would be able to avoid the Galut by taking out the Kedusha from each nation. The Bitachon lesson for us is that sometimes we get stuck in situations and we don't know why. Why did the plane divert to a certain place and land on a certain runway and sit there for an hour? Because there's some Kedusha on the runway in Virginia, and you had to say Birkat HaMazon there at that spot. Everything is planned. Everything has a reason. Everything is an opportunity for us to gain and grow from. The Ramchal in his commentary to Nevi'im on Micha on the pasuk אל תשמחי אויבתי לי כי נפלתי קמתי כי אשב בחושך ה ' אור לי / Enemy don't be happy that I fell, because I got up, I'm in the darkness. Hashem is my light, he says, we go down to Galut in order to take out the Kedusha . And he says, when the negative forces see that the Jewish people are going to Galut , they say, Wow, we're controlling the Jewish people. That's it. They think we're going to sink down further. But the evil forces don't know that we're coming down here for a Tikkun and that's why it says Don't be happy, my enemies, when I fell in Galut, I'll get up and come out stronger and get even more. . And that's an important rule. Sometimes we see people fall and drop, but they bounce back. Sheva yipol Sadik v'kam A Sadik falls seven times and gets up.
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Daily BitachonBy Rabbi David Sutton