Reacting to Events Around Us

וינגע יהוה את פרעה נגעים גדלים ואת ביתו על דבר שרי אשת אברם. ויקרא פרעה לאברם ויאמר מה זאת עשית לי למה לא הגדת לי כי אשתך הוא.

The Torah doesn't spell out for us how Pharaoh recognized the cause and effect, how Pharaoh knew what caused the negaim gedolim. We know from our vantage point of the Chumash that it was על דבר שרי אשת אברם. But how did Pharaoh know it?

יתכן רצה לומר כי בבוא הנגע פתאם עליו ועל ביתו בעת אשר לוקחה שרה אל ביתו הרהר בדעתו לאמר מה זאת עשה אלהים לנו ושאל אותה והגידה לו כי היא אשתו ולכן קרא לאברם והאשים אותו. או כאשר אמרו רבותינו שלקה ברתן שהמשגל קשה לו וחשש כי שמא אשתו היא.

Pharaoh had a measure of sensitivity to recognize the negaim for what they were and to correctly associate them with what he had just done. There is a remarkable, something that should be juxtaposed to this. The Rambam in Perek Aleph of Hilchos Avodah Zarah when he gives the history of how Avodah Zarah emerged and developed and deteriorated. So the Rambam describes how initially the ovdei Avodah Zarah were monotheists in a sense, that they recognized that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the Ba'al Hakochos Kulam, but they thought it was retzon Hashem, beda'atam hara'ah, they thought it was retzon Hashem to revere and to worship His שמשים העומדים לפניו במרום. Then the Rambam describes how things deteriorated.

אחר שארכו הימים עמדו בפני האדם נביאי שקר ואמרו שהאל צוה להם ואמר להם עבדו כוכב פלוני.

So now the nevi'ei sheker gave it the imprimatur kaveyachol of Hakadosh Baruch Hu through their fake nevuah. Then hitchilu kozvim acherim, other charlatans began and they attributed their nevuah kaveyachol to the koach of a malach or the galgal. Uvikhevan she'archu hayamim, says the Rambam, and again as time passed, נשתכח השם הנכבד והנורא מכל היקום ומדעתם ולא הכירוהו. Rachmana litzlan, Hakadosh Baruch Hu was forgotten.

ונמצאו כל עם הארץ והנשים והקטנים אינם יודעים אלא הצורה של עץ ואבן וההיכל של בנין.

Most people, their association of elokus, if it can be called that, were the psalim or the idols.

והחכמים שהיו בהם מדמין שאין שם אלוה אלא הכוכבים והגלגלים. אבל צור העולמים לא היה שם מכירה ולא יודע אלא יחידים בעולם כגון חנוך ומתושלח ונח ושם ועבר.

But there were just a handful. From the entire world population, just a handful of yechidim who knew, who recognized Hakadosh Baruch Hu. ועל דרך זו היה העולם מתגלגל והולך. And the world was going downhill in this direction, in this fashion, עד שנולד עמודו של עולם שהוא אברהם אבינו. So what's so extraordinary about this sketch that the Rambam gives us of history is that you wouldn't know that there was a mabul. The Rambam describes that there's an uninterrupted, unbroken downward, religiously, spiritually, downward trajectory, and at no point is there any—the reset button is never pressed. You wouldn't know. The Rambam says in one breath, there was Chanoch and Meshuchelach before the mabul, there was Noach and Shem and Ever. No, you wouldn't know there was a mabul. So how could it be that Yafes and Cham and their children are not in the list? And the emes is that when the Ramban gives his history of avodah zarah, he also has his three stages here in Parshas Yisro. The first here he doesn't say explicitly, but elsewhere he does, the first stage is in dor she-Enosh. The second stage the Ramban says is the dor ha-flagah. And again, there's no indication that there's anything other than a direct continuum, other than smooth continuous descent. So how is that possible? How is that possible? The Ribbono shel Olam destroys the world, destroys the world, and Cham and Yafes are unaffected. They're unchanged. They come out of the teivah a year later the same people they went in. So when you think about the question in the abstract, it's virtually impossible to answer. It's absolutely mind-boggling. But when we think about the question not in the abstract, but it's always easier to think about others than to think about ourselves. Lemaise, the capacity that we have to be so—and I mean this descriptively, not anything other than descriptively—but to be so self-centered that what's happening around us, if it doesn't literally, physically touch us, it doesn't register. It doesn't register. And it's possible for that to go to such an extreme as I'm safe and sound in the teivah and the mabul doesn't register. The mabul doesn't change the person. There's no hisorerus, there's no awakening. The natural disasters, to give one example over the summer, were those incredibly, incredibly powerful hurricanes. The death and destruction that literally rained down. So the question is, those of us who... Don't and were not living at that time in the affected areas, so was there any, how much of a hissorerus was there? So logically it's it's impossible to to fathom how how the Mabbul didn't press a reset button in terms of this history of avodah zarah, but psychologically it's unfortunately not so difficult to to relate to. Unlike the the example the Ramban gives where, again, albeit in a very limited fashion, and we don't find that, not aware that we find that that Paroh was nisorer to become a baal teshiva and and become one of the chasidei umos ha-olam, not to overstate the sensitivity, albeit in a limited fashion. But ha de-ita chots. So unlike in that example where he successfully identified the cause, what we're talking about in terms of that there should be a hissoreus, and again, the natural disasters just just an example, other sort of global events, certainly the the turmoil in the world, Chazal say in Yevamos that אין פורענות בא לעולם אלא בשביל ישראל, and there's just so much. There's so many ongoing wars in the world that not even reported anymore. It's not even, it's not even in the headline of the news. The headlines of the news is who's winning in the World Series, how many people getting killed over there, how many people, that was yesterday's news, it was last week's news, it's last month's news, so no, it's boring already. It's boring already. So one has to be very wary of of presuming to pinpoint with specifics a message, again, whether it's in global events or events in one's own personal life. It's much safer and and almost always much more emesdik that the hissoreus that that we're talking about is is a general one. There should be a hissoreus, again, whether it's things that, some examples, obviously there are many more examples that could be given, a hissoreus that I I should be trying to daven a little bit better, a little bit more kavannah, I should be trying to improve in my bein adam le-chaveiro, my savlanus, my vatronus, my chesed, I should be trying to learn a little bit more. There should be some kind of hirhurim which are which are triggered and then translated into some concrete measures of improvement. And and that that's the key, whenever, whenever we talk about about something which should serve as a wake-up, something which should should be me-orer. There is a very very yesodik comment of of the Shem Mi-Shmuel, comments on the Gemara that Rashi quotes of

למה נסמכה פרשת נזיר לפרשת סוטה שכל הרואה סוטה בקלקולה יזיר עצמו מן היין,

assuming as a typology that what what lured the sotah into cheit was that she was, she became intoxicated, so haro'eh. sotah b'kalkalah, one sees the degradation suffered by the sotah so he should accept upon himself a neder neziros to stay away from intoxicants. The Shem Mishmuel asks very beautifully and says aderaba ha-ro'eh sotah b'kalkalah so he he has that experience he'll have that memory to keep him away from the dangers of alcohol. He's the one person who doesn't need the neder neziros. So why is it davka הרואה סוטה בקלקולה יזיר עצמו מן היין? And he answers with something so so fundamental. He says the most powerful experience when a person sees things with such vividness and such clarity the Torah here is teaching us Chazal are teaching us that no matter how powerful that experience is at the moment it gradually weakens and wanes and unless while the person feels the full effect of that experience unless he consolidates it by translating it into some again concrete kabbalah into some concrete measure so eventually again it's going to weaken it's going to wane until until there's nothing left. So when we talk about being meharher b'da'atenu not to be so and again as extreme as the description is and sounds but it's on another level it's very normal and natural. Again self-centeredness is something which is very natural to a person. To allow what's happening in the world again even if be-chasdei Hashem we weren't directly affected and in all of these places there certainly were Acheinu B'nei Yisrael in those examples of the natural disasters who were very much affected. But to allow it to to register to allow it to to serve as as a source of hitorerus and something should emerge from it something an extra few minutes a day of learning an extra project in tikkun hamiddos something something needs to result from from what happens around us which serves as as a source of hitorerus.