During the last days of prophetic vision, some 25 hundred years ago, the sages divided the Torah into parshios – portions, and decreed that successive parshios should be read publicly as part of the Sabbath morning prayer service, so that the Jewish people would hear the reading of the entire Torah from year to year. The divisions of these parshios followed either historical, philosophical, or narrative patterns, so that each was, to some extent, self-contained with a particular thematic focus.

It is curious, therefore, that the sages saw fit to place the first seven of the of the Plagues upon Egypt into last week’s parsha, while leaving the final three for this week’s Torah portion. The commentaries discuss at length the arrangement of the plagues into three sets of three, with the final Plague upon the Firstborn in a class by itself. Consequently, if it were necessary to divide the plagues at all, it would better have been placed the point of division after the sixth plague – which completed the second set of three – than after the seventh.

Nevertheless, a careful reading of the narrative reveals that the seventh plague does stand out from all the rest by virtue of Pharaoh’s unprecedented reaction. After each of the previous plagues, Pharaoh had either stubbornly refused to yield or else promised to send the Jews out, only to revoke his permission once the plague had abated. But after the plague of fiery hail, Pharaoh makes an astonishing admission: This time I have sinned; God is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.

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Read more Parshas Bo — The Crossroads of Repentance ›

And [Yaakov] saw that there was a well in the field. Three flocks of sheep were there lying beside it, since it was from this well that the flocks were watered, and a great stone [blocked] the mouth of the well (Bereishis 29:2).

This is how the Torah describes Yaakov’s arrival at the house of Lavan, his uncle, after fleeing from his wicked brother, Eisav, and beginning his search for a wife. Curiously, when Eliezer, servant of Yaakov’s grandfather Avrohom, arrived at the same place a generation earlier, the Torah describes the location of the well not “in the field” but ”at the edge of the city” (Bereishis 24:11).

This seeming inconsistancy provides the basis for an enigmatic debate recorded in the Talmud (Bechoros 8b):

The Elders of Athens said to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah, “We have a well out in the fields; bring it into the city.”

He replied, “Then who can bring a well from the field into the city?”

Last week, we explained that the Torah employs the imagery of a well – the source of water, which is the basis of physical life – as a symbol for Torah itself, which is the source of spiritual life.

The Malbim explains that when peace and a sense of unity exist among the Jewish people, when they live in the Land of Israel with the Divine Word guiding their actions and their attitudes, then the “well” of Torah is “in the city,” providing the people with security and their settlements with prosperity.

However, when our spiritual negligence and complacency cause us to be exiled from our land and subjected to the uncertainty and unpredictability of life among the nations of the earth, when we have to struggle against all manner of obstacles to keep G-d’s word and His commandments central in our lives, then the well of Torah is “in the field.”

This was the assertion of the Elders of Athens, the scholars of the Roman Empire who based their wisdom on the teachings of the ancient Greeks: If you Jews are divided against one another, if you yourselves recognize sinas chinom, the senseless hatred among you, as the cause of your exile, then how can you ever expect to earn your redemption? How can you believe that the well “in the field” will ever become transformed into a well “in the city?”

Rabbi Yehoshua’ s answer finds its meaning in the continuation of the Torah narrative:

And all the flocks would gather there, and they would roll away the stone from the mouth of the well and allow the flocks to drink, and then they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well (Bereishis 29:2).

To bring the well from the “field” into the “city” requires a spiritual “rope” to bind the future with the past. The Malbim explains that the three flocks represent the three eras of Jewish exile, each imposing upon the people the challenges and crises. Only by working together to overcome these challenges will the people achieve a level of unity to become worthy of redemption and acquiring the merit to build HaShem’s Temple so that the Divine Presence can dwell in their midst.

In the course of the first two exiles, the collective merit of a unified Jewish nation ultimately ”rolled away the stone” of temptation and transgression, allowing the waters of spirituality to flow free and revive a spiritually thirsty people. And each time, prosperity encouraged the people to stray after the inclinations of the hearts, so that the stone of self-indulgence and self-interest rolled back to its place and drove the people back into the parched desert of exile.

The first era was galus Mitzrayim, the exile in Egypt, which forged the people into a nation and culminated in their entry into the land and their ultimate construction of the first Beis HaMikdash. Tragically, without the external pressure provided by enemies around them, their commitment to one another dissolved and, over time, led to the erosion of their collective merit and their exile to Babylon.

Thus began the second era, in which the Jews gradually earned back the privilege of living in their land, rebuilding the Temple, and regaining political autonomy in the aftermath of the miracle of Chanukah. But infighting among the descendants of the Hasmoneans eventually led to the disintegration of political stability, the conquest by the Roman Empire, and the destruction of the second Temple.

Out of the ruins of the Roman Empire grew Western Civilization, the final exile of Jewish history, in which the twin attractions of material prosperity and cultural assimilation have exceeded all the obstacles to spirituality that have confronted the Jews throughout all previous ages. And once again, the divisiveness that traces its roots back to the senseless hatred of 2000 years ago stands in the way of bringing the well of Torah and spiritual redemption from the “field” into the “city.”

Scattered like chaff, the Jewish people will remain in exile until, by bonding together in unity, they form the “rope” that connects them back to their origins as a cohesive people. When that happens, Rabbi Yehoshua told the Elders, when the “chaff” of disunity becomes a “rope” of redemption, then the Jewish people will find their way home.

But how is that possible? the Elders asked. Just as chaff cannot make a rope, disaffected and disparate individuals cannot form a people.

That may be true, answered Rabbi Yehoshua. But the image of chaff only describes the Jewish people in the most simplistic and superficial way. We may appear cut off from one another, but we share the collective soul of the Almighty’s chosen people. The more we become distant from one another, the more we yearn to return to our common roots. As the exile grows darker and deeper, we come closer to the time when the very depths of our spiritual darkness will compel us to pull together, thereby pulling ourselves forward into the light of the messianic era.

Rabbi Goldson writes at Torah Ideals

As a high school rebbe, I often find comfort in the following midrash:

On one occasion, Rabbi Akiva looked up from his lesson to discover his students dozing. (If even Rabbi Akiva couldn’t always keep his students engaged, who I am to think I can?)

Rabbi Akiva employed a curious solution. “In what merit did Queen Esther rule over 127 provinces?” he asked. “Because her ancestor Sara lived for 127 years.” This seems to have roused his talmidim from their stupor and returned them to their study (Bereishis Rabbah 58:3).

I’ve tried Rabbi Akiva’s solution a few times. I’m sure it will surprise no one that his method produced far less success for me than it did for him. And although it may be easy to attribute my failure to yeridas haDoros, the decline of the generations, perhaps a more relevant lesson can be found elsewhere in the parsha.

So much of the parsha is devoted to Eliezer’s repetition of his instructions from Avrohom, concerning which the sages offer their famous comment that HaShem finds the conversation of the patriarchs’ servants more pleasing than the teachings of their children. For his sincere service to his master, Eliezer earned the appellation eved Avrohom (servant of Abraham), only one step removed from the highest possible praise, eved HaShem.

It seems inconsistent, therefore, that the Torah alludes to an ulterior motive at the very outset of Eliezer’s recapitulation. When he recounts the history of his search to Rivka’s family, Eliezer explains how Avrohom assured him of HaShem’s guidance when Eliezer expressed his fear that, “Perhaps the woman will not follow me.” Rashi observes that the word perhaps, ulai, is written so that it may also be read, eilai — to me, suggesting that Eliezer had hoped to wed his own daughter to Yitzchok. If so, how can we understand the sages’ praise of Eliezer as a selfless eved?

To make matters more difficult, why does the Torah allude to Eliezer’s self-interest here, now that he is repeating the story, rather than earlier in the parsha, when he actually stated his question to Avrohom?

In fact, the second question answers the first. The Kotzker Rebbe explains that when Eliezer originally expressed his question to Avrohom, he genuinely believed that he was asking in the best interests of Yitzchok. Eliezer had convinced himself that he truly sought Avrohom’s guidance should he fail in his mission to find Yitzchok a suitable wife.

It was only when he recounted the episode to Rivka’s family that Eliezer realized his real motives. Only from a vantage point of objective distance could Eliezer finally see that his well-intentioned request had truly been prompted by personal bias.

And so we find no inconsistency in the sages’ portrayal of Eliezer. He was indeed a true eved. But even a true eved is not immune to the seductive influence of self-interest, and even a true eved may be unable to recognize personal bias at the moment when it afflicts him. The same Eliezer for whom the way was miraculously shortened, for whom the waters rose to identify Rivka as Yitzchok’s match, for whom the curse of Ham transformed into a blessing, this same Eliezer who so loyally served Avrohom could not identify in himself the self-deception that sought to undermine Avrohom’s plans to find Yitzchok’s bashert.

So too, perhaps, the students of Rabbi Akiva. Rav Mendel Weinbach explains that Rabbi Akiva intended to impress upon his talmidim a sense of responsibility not only to themselves but also to future generations. What would have happened had Sara not devoted every moment of her 127 years to her service of HaShem? Without her merit, Esther would not have become queen. And had Esther not become queen, she would not have been positioned in the house of King Achashverosh to save the Jewish people.

Rabbi Akiva admonished his students by impressing upon them that, even if each might be willing to forgo his own portion in the World to Come, future generations might need the merit of their learning just as Esther had needed Sara’s merit so that she could save the Jewish people. You may be prepared to sacrifice a measure of your own reward, Rabbi Akiva suggested, but are you prepared to sacrifice your children and grandchildren as well?

Indeed, Rabbi Akiva’s rebuke to his talmidim reminds us how easily we make excuses for our own lack of mesiras nefesh (self-sacrifice) and how cheaply we are prepared to sell the priceless benefits of our portion in the World to Come. The momentary attraction of slackening in our divine service, of taking the line of least resistance even at the expense of our own heavenly reward, seems so reasonable that we our own rationalization for what it is – the most subtle tactic of the yeitzer hara.

Like Eliezer, however, the students of Rabbi Akiva could be shaken out of their lethargy, both literally and figuratively. The words of their rebbe penetrated their momentary carelessness and roused them to return to their study of the Divine Word. How inspiring that those students allowed themselves to be so easily inspired!

But we are not merely careless. We are committed to our carelessness, determined to sink into the drowsiness of indifference and ignore our rebbes’ reproof, whether that reproof comes from the rabbi or the rosh yeshiva, or even from the Torah itself. We offer a whole litany of excuses why we don’t need reexamine our ways, indulging the routine of habit just like, the Mesillas Yesharim tells us, a blind man walking in darkness.

We all have moments, however, when a window of opportunity opens, when our resistance to self-awareness drops, if only for a moment, and we can look back and take stock of ourselves. And, as those fleeting moments become fewer and fewer, they become ever more precious.

If we are honest with ourselves then, in the light of objectivity, we all know what’s at stake. No matter how difficult it is to be consistent models of kindness, of character, of diligence, of kiddush HaShem before our children’s eyes, we appreciate the potential cost and risk. If we make excuses for our laxity, if we exempt ourselves from our service, then we will have failed not some distant generation, as Rabbi Akiva warned his talmidim. Rather, we will be failing the next generation, our own children whom we brought into the world and with whose spiritual development HaShem has entrusted us.

The 127 years of Sara’s life, years equal in beauty and righteousness, did not end with Sara’s death. The blessings of Sara’s tent continued in the next generation through the merit of Rivka, and Sara’s own merit transcended a thousand years to the generation of Esther. The benefits of her effort and her service are beyond measure, and they teach us that ours can be, too, if we strive to live as she did.

Visit Rabbi Goldson’s website at Torah Ideals – Seeking Direction in a Misdirected Worlds.

A proposed solution for New York traffic echoes the ancient wisdom of the Talmud

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to end traffic congestion in Manhattan. However, as sympathetic as New Yorkers may be to Mr. Bloomberg’s vision, his proposed method is most likely to produce madness.

To curb the number of vehicles entering downtown (which has grown annually by an average of 8000 per day since the 1920s, according to U. S. News and World Report), the proposed law would encourage (or coerce) commuters to rely on public transportation by imposing a daytime tax of $8 per car and $21 per truck traveling onto the island. City officials believe that this “congestion pricing” would reduce traffic by as much as 12 ½ percent.

Whether or not commuters can be persuaded to practice even occasional abstinence in their love affairs with their cars makes for interesting speculation. However, the concept itself is sound. In fact, it has been used for some time on a much larger scale, implemented throughout every borough of the world by the Mayor of the Universe.

EXPRESS LANES TO FREEDOM
The most the dramatic experiment in mass transit came 3320 years ago when the Almighty split the Sea of Reeds, allowing the Jews to pass through and escape their Egyptian pursuers. In contrast to Cecil B. DeMille’s famous recreation, the sages teach that the sea opened up into twelve distinct passageways, one for each of the Tribes of Israel. As they passed through, the water separating the passages turned clear like glass, so that each tribe could see its fellow tribesmen traveling alongside them.

The design of this miracle teaches three lessons. First, the division of the sea into separate passageways demonstrates that there is more than one way to have a relationship with G-d. The Almighty does not want us to be automatons or clones, sheepishly following whoever is in front of us. Each individual is unique, and his divine service should be tailored to the nature of his singular soul.

Second, the water turning clear like glass reveals the lengths to which we must go to master the human ego. Had the walls of each passageway remained opaque, each tribe would have thought that it alone had discovered the correct avenue to reach the other side, and that it alone was traveling in the right direction to serve G-d. When they saw the other tribes traveling along side them, the Jews of each tribe recognized that they were not the only ones who had discerned the proper path.

The final lesson can be learned from recognizing that there were a limited number of paths. Anyone who did not follow one of the twelve passageways was, literally and figuratively, under water. Every spiritual movement does not become legitimate simply because it declares itself so, no matter how sincere its leaders or followers may be. Every self-proclaimed “holy man” is not genuine simply because he hangs out his shingle or attracts parishioners. Natural laws govern the operation of the spiritual universe just as they govern the workings of the physical world. One cannot render those rules null and void simply by wishing them out of existence or declaring them defunct, any more than congress can annul the force of gravity.

THE PRICE OF PRIDE
There is yet one more insight to be gained from the illustration of the Jews’ passage through the sea, one that is echoed by the New York mayor’s effort to cure his city’s traffic woes.

Consider the car as an allegory for personal autonomy. In a very real sense, we are all control freaks. We want to control our destiny, to chart our own heading, to have our hands on the wheel. Often the greatest demonstration of inner strength comes through humbling ourselves, giving up control and placing our fate in the hands of another. Often this is a concession we are either unwilling or unable to make.

But do we consider the cost? For car owners, the cost is rolled up in the price of the vehicle itself, of gas, insurance, repairs, parking fees, tolls and, perhaps, congestion tax. Public transportation is far cheaper and often more efficient. But still we refuse to relinquish control.

In business, the most efficient workers are those who work as part of a team, who coordinate their efforts with the efforts of others and trust their coworkers to get their own jobs done. Those who try to do everything themselves, or to micromanage others at their work, create confusion, inefficiency, and frustration.

Our relationships, marriages, and families function best when the individuals within them tend to their own responsibilities and allow others to look after theirs. Hovering, ordering, or criticizing before a spouse or child has even had a chance to complete an assigned task breeds resentment and destroys trust.

Spirituality is much the same. We like to think that we are in control of defining our own relationship with the Almighty. We strike out in whatever direction seems right to us, often without any roadmap or compass to guide us in distinguishing good from bad, right from wrong, moral from immoral. We believe that intuition alone will get us to our goal, when we have only the faintest notion of where we are trying to get.

Worst of all, there is available transportation ready to take us to our final destination in the most efficient way. By keeping G-d’s laws and following in His ways, we guarantee ourselves the smoothest possible journey through this world until we arrive at the World to Come.

THE FAST TRACK
But still many of us won’t give up control. So the Almighty levies His “taxes,” creating obstacles that make the paths of personal autonomy increasingly difficult. We feel stifled in our jobs, unhappy with our families, and discontented with the direction of our lives. So we seek out “detours,” looking for fulfillment in the least likely places: alcohol, drugs, gambling, or extramarital affairs. We think change will make us feel better, but we usually find ourselves worse off than before.

Rabbi Elyahu Dessler explains that we find ourselves in emotional or spiritual darkness at those times when we have cut ourselves off from the source of spirituality in the world. But when we “look into the darkness,” when we recognize that we have created the darkness for ourselves by distancing ourselves from the ways of the Creator, then and only then will we begin to find our way back to the light. By giving up control over our destiny, we regain mastery over our soul.

Whether taxing drivers will solve New York’s traffic problems remains a mystery. But it is in our hands to solve the mysteries of the spirit by following the well-trodden path of the generations that have gone before us. By retracing their steps, we can have confidence that we are not solely dependent upon our own devices to chart our way out of the darkness of confusion, but that we have a clearly marked path to follow toward the light of true meaning.

This article first appeared in the Jewish World Review.