Welcome to our daily Bitachon series. We continue with lessons from the Haggadah shel Pesach , even though we are in middle of Sefirat HaOmer- because as we said, we are going from Pesach until Shavuot . Shavuot is when we start our bikurim with our basket in our hands. We're coming to be full of hakarat hatov and thanks to Hashem. Today's pasuk starts with the wordsוירעו אותנ / Vayareu Otanu haMitzrim / The Egyptians did bad and evil to us. The obvious question is, We're coming to say thank you, so why is this part of the thank you? Why does the fact that the Egyptians started enslaving us deserve a thank you? This is a very important point in our hakarat hatov - We don't just thank Hashem for saving us. If that were the case, says the Bet HaLevi in Shemot 15:1, then who needs the salvation? Without the problem, I don't need the salvation. I'm back to status quo, which was that I didn't need the problem. It's like walking into a dentist and he says, "Ooh, you have a cavity-I'll fill it. You walk out of the dentist's office, back where you started from- with the regular tooth.Therefore, says the Bet HaLevi , when the Jewish people said Shira , hashirah ne'emra gam al hashibud hakadum / This song was also for the subjugation that happened beforehand, kemo hageulah, just like it was for the redemption . W ithout the subjugation, there would not have been a place for the geulah , and the geulah brought them something. That's what David HaMelech says in Tehillim Otcha ki anitani. I thank You that You pained me (some interpret that You answered me ) The Bet HaLevi says, initani is lashon inui . " I thank You that You pained me, vatehi li lishuah , and You saved me." It's like giving a thank You for the pain beforehand , because through that came the yeshua and a kiddush Shem Shamayim . But there's a slightly different explanation, which is not just that the the difficulty enabled God to save me and therefore, a kiddush Hashem came, There's another aspect- that we actually appreciate the suffering because we know that we benefited and gained from the suffering. There was a purpose to the fact that the Egyptians subjugated us. There's a story told, whether it's true or not is not important, the lesson is a powerful one:In the days of old, there was a feudal system where there were the basic landowners called feudal lords , and everyone under them was a required to pay a tax. The Jews could not own land, so they were always under these feudal lords , called a poretz in Yiddish. If you were lucky, you got a nice poretz , and if you were unlucky, you had a vicious one. One Jew had a nice friendly poretz whom he paid his rent to. The poretz once left to go overseas and had his friend take over. This friend was very ruthless. If the Jew was ever late or didn't pay the exact amount, he would whip him. Over the course of time, he got what about 40 whippings. After some time passed the original feudal lord came back. The Jew reunited with this friendly feudal lord, shared his experience and showed him his back with all the whip marks. " I can't believe it." He exclaimed. "That's what he did to you!?I'm going to take care of it." And since he was the ultimate boss of the town, he made this substitute feudal lord pay a certain amount ( let's say a silver talent) for every time he whipped him. The Jew came home with 40 silver talents and showed his wife. She said "Unbelievable, look what we have. Look at look what you got!" But the man was not happy. " I wish he would have hit me 60 times !" He said. Of course, that's a joke, true or not. The point is, in retrospect, he realized that every whipping gave him something. He appreciated the whippings and he actually was very happy for those 40 whips. So he didn't just say thank you that he got out of the problem. He actually appreciated the problem because that brought him whatever benefits he got out of it. There's another story, which is reportedly true. It's brought down in sefarim that it happened with the Chida. A man was having a lot of difficulties, a lot of tzarot , a lot of problems, so he traveled to the Chida to get a bracha . As he was sitting outside the Chida's office waiting after a long trip, he fell asleep. In his dream, he saw that they were judging him in Bet Din shel Maalah /the heavenly court. There was a huge scale. They were bringing all of his mitzvot on one side, and they put all the Averot on the other side. In his case, the Averot /sins outweighed the mitzvot . It looked like he was in trouble. He asked them to look around for some more Mitzvot, but that was it. They were all emptied out. It didn't look good, but then one of his defending angels said, "What about the yissurim/suffering ?" They said, " You're right. We forgot about the yissurim. Let's throw the yissurim on." All his suffering was then thrown onto the positive side. And slowly it tilted, until it was just about equal. They were running out of yissurim . The scale was exactly equal. The man didn't know what to do. In his dream, he screamed, " More yissurim, more suffering, more suffering!" He woke up from his dream and was back to reality. He realized, " Why am I coming here? To complain about my suffering? This suffering is exactly what I need." That's our message here. Easier said than done. In the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim , this is a lesson for us in retrospect, when we're all able to look back somehow, and appreciate and actually have hakarat hatov for vayareu otanu haMitzrim .