by Rabbi Avi Billet
One word for ‘redemption’ – פדת – is often translated as ‘distinction.’ Rabbi Sholom of Belz (as quoted by Rabbi Scheinbaum in his Peninim Al HaTorah vol 14 – all quotes below are from Rabbi Scheinbaum) noted that the word פדת appears three times in Tanakh. The first is in our parsha, 8:19, when a distinction is made between the Israelites and the Egyptians in a plague of Arov. The second is in Tehillim 111:9 – referencing a redemption that came upon His people. The third is in Tehillim 130 – Shir Hama'alos Mima'amakim – כי עם ה' החסד והרבה עמו פדת – with Him (God) is kindness, and abundant redemption.
He suggested that these three forms of redemption correspond with three different kinds of galus - three kinds of feelings of exile.
The first is the most obvious, when a Jew is exiled among non-Jews. Unfortunately, we often lose sight of the reality of this exile, because we become so comfortable in our own existence that we don’t think about the fact that we are in galus. Even though we have our shuls and our schools and our kosher stores and restaurants, and we can walk around in most places freely, openly Jewish, the fact is that our focus is not even close to 100% on Torah pursuits.
Torah pursuits would include living in the land of Israel, working the land to fulfill all mitzvos associated with the land. It would also include mindful and intentional living to focus on our relationship with God through Torah study and mitzvah fulfillment. We are all very distracted from what should be our pursuits in what should be our God-focused goals in life. This is an outgrowth of being in a non-Jewish culture, with all its bells and whistles and technology.
The second kind of exile is the one imposed by a Jew on another Jew. “When Jews disparage and hurt each other verbally, and even physically, we have a bitter galus that is far worse than when the persecution is directed at us by gentiles.” We need look no further at the division in Israel pre October 7 and how enemies of our people used that division to their advantage. But it is more important for us to consider if we ever engage in that kind of disparagement towards others – perhaps because of varying ways we disagree with one another in politics, in life choices, in how we diet, make medical decisions. It would be a beautiful utopia if everyone agreed about everything and every life-path chosen worked for everyone. But then we’d be robots, not human, and we would be missing so much of the beauty that comes with seeing others for who they are, and even learning from their perspectives and their ways – even if our own path works for us at this time.
This kind of exile is demonstrated through simply seeing another as “the other” and not seeing the soul of the person who is worthy of respect. [I have different words for actual criminals who hurt people and ruin their lives.] If our shared collective goal is to serve God and to be among people who share a commitment to the same Torah, and if there are many recognized paths for how to achieve those goals, then it doesn’t seem that this kind of exile – pinning ourselves against ourselves – needs to be an exile we ought to want to stay in.
The third kind of exile is the Jew who is in exile within himself. “The Jew who has no control over himself is in a deep exile. He can ascend from the depths of his self-inflicted exile only through his own efforts. It takes courage, strength, faith and incredible siyata dishmaya (assistance from heaven)…”
We pray for this daily in the blessing of ראה נא וענינו, which is largely viewed as a blessing asking God to heal us from our spiritual maladies and ailments. It’s more to give us a Refuas HaNefesh – a healing of the soul, before we even approach the healing of the body.
A body can usually heal relatively quickly. A tormented soul can take years to heal, if ever.
We find that when Moshe appears on the scene in our Parsha, long after the people believed he had been sent by God at the end of Chapter 4, that they aren’t listening to him. While it is clear that their work is getting in their way of being able to pay attention – ולא שמעו אל משה מקצר רוח ומעבודה קשה – the fact that they had believed Moshe was sent by God seems to have been forgotten.
This is the downside of being in a personal exile within oneself.
Viktor Frankl famously observed that those who had the best chance of survival in a concentration camp were those who had not only not given up on life but had things to look forward to. Some may have had a family member they believed was alive and whom they’d find after the war. Some had research to do, books to write, songs to compose. On the other side, he noted that when he was in Auschwitz at the end of 1944, the highest concentration of natural deaths were at the end of 1944, among people who had help out hope that they’d return home for Christman or New Years. (Obviously he’s not only talking about Jewish prisoners.)
And so we are reminded that there are many things that can drag us into a personal exile. Some people are distraught over the war in Israel. We get a shot in the heart every time we hear of the falling of another holy, precious, beautiful IDF soldier. Some people have family members who are ill or ailing. Some people have trouble with a child or grandchild, or with an elderly parent whose care has become a particular challenge.
The strength of community is found when we gather, and when we give ourselves the chance to share our difficulties and our challenges.
For Moshe, who went through his own struggles of acceptance in Pharaoh’s eyes and in the eyes of the people, as well as his own development in his relationship with God, life was clearly a journey that included much struggle and ended with the most incredible relationship with God. Even his relationship to the people evolved from being a stranger to their greatest advocate, defender and protector.
May we work our way through the self-imposed personal exile, through the exile of not getting along, and may God help us through the final exile of struggling with enemy nations who remain hell-bent on the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. May He do to them as He did to Egypt – deliver us from their evil plans so they may not bother us again for the remainder of time.
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