Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] The splitting of the Red Sea. We are going to be today splitting hairs about the topic of splitting of Red Sea. How about that?
[00:00:08] So when Jews left Egypt, first Pharaoh let them go. He said, go. I got sick of you here with your plagues. We are suffering from you guys. Just get out of here. And then he realizes that they're not coming back. You remember that when Moishe, when Moses first asked Pharaoh to let them go, it was for three days. They were supposed to come back. Three days passed, they're not back. Pharaoh is like, oh, I think they're not coming back so soon. And he starts chasing after them. But Jews are already three days ahead of him. But he has an army which is on horses. And Jews are schlepping with their little kid and their matzos. That's right. By day number seven, he catches up to them. And the Jews are in front of the Red Sea and they don't know what to do. They're stuck. So guess what happens when Jews are in front of a challenge? When Jews have a problem. Each Jew has his own opinion, what should be done. The state of Israel was created by non observant Jews. And I have a scientific proof of that. Because every observant Jew has been to a synagogue and have sat at a board meeting of a synagogue. When you see that 10 Jews cannot figure out what to do between themselves, nobody would think of creating a country of Jews, okay? If somebody was even thinking about creating a country of Jews, he obviously has never seen how synagogues run. So Jews are in front of the Red Sea and they are stuck between a rock and a hard place, literally because there's water in front of them and Pharaoh's army behind them. And Jews have split up into four groups. One of them said, okay, it was a nice experiment. We tried our best. Now the Egyptians have caught up to us. Let's surrender and go back to our previous life. At least we tried. Then there was second group saying, no, no, no, we left Egypt. We are not going back. We would rather commit suicide than go back to slavery. We are too proud to submit ourselves back to to our enemy. And they said, let's jump into the water to die. They wanted to rather depart from this world than go back to slavery. Then there was a third group said, what do you mean we are not submitting back to slavery. We are not committing suicide. We are fighting. We are waging a war with Egyptians and God is on our side. I know that they have a professional army and we have our pots and pans and Bags with matzah. But I'm telling you, we're going to whack them with our bags with matzah. They will all die. This was the third group. God is the one who took us out of Egypt. God is the one who promised us to take us to the land of Israel. We have to pray to God to make sure he's going to save us. These were the four groups, or which one of these four groups was right? The answer is none. Moishe Rabbeinu. Moses was angry at all four of them. And in the verse of what he's telling to the Jews, we see his exact answer to these four groups. So here's a question. To return back to slavery is obviously contrary to everything that God was expecting of Jews. He took them out of slavery. To go back to Egypt. To return there and submit to slavery is definitely going against God's plan. Okay? That we figured out. Committing suicide is also not a very Jewish thing. You know, committing suicide is prohibited by the Torah. And the penalty for suicide is death penalty. No, but the Torah prohibits us to murder. Just like the Torah prohibits us to murder others. Torah prohibits us to murder ourselves. And it was only half joke that punishment for suicide is capital punishment. Because just like for any other murder, what is the punishment for a murder? Capital punishment. What is the punishment for suicide? Should be the same thing. So Jews were trying to commit suicide. Moshe Rabbeinu Moses said, hey, guys, don't even think so. These two groups, we understand, were not in line with what God is expecting of the Jews. But the other two groups seem to be saying very rational things. The first one of these two said, let's fight Egyptians. Well, we have many instances in the Torah, in five books of Moses and later, where Jews had to fight their enemies and their war. Their battle was approved by God. We had to fight Amalek. We had to fight many other nations. We had to fight the nations that were living in the land of Israel when we were conquering it. And later on, Jews had to fight in times of Hanukkah. Right? So there were many times when Jews were fighting and God was happy with the fact that Jews wanted to fight. And God said that he's going to make miracles and help Jews to win the war. So what is wrong with the Jews fighting now with the Egyptian army? Then the question is, what is wrong with praying? To pray is a mitzvah. If I need something from God, if I need something in my life, I'm in a challenging situation. I need something and I Don't turn to God with the request. I'm violating a biblical commandment. The Torah says I should pray when I'm in need. Why? Because this is how I recognize that God is the one who's running the world. So when I'm stuck, I have to pray. It's like imagine you are at home and your kids are off school. It's a snow day and you are doing things around the house. And suddenly your son comes over to you and he says, I'm hungry all day already. I'm sitting here and I'm thinking of lunch and I want lunch. And you, you never gave me food. What are you going to tell them? Why don't you open your mouth? Why don't you say something? I have food. My fridge is full. Just tell me you're hungry. I'll give it to you. You would be upset at him for not asking for food, right? So when we need something, God is upset at us for not asking. So it seemed like these Jews were doing the right thing by starting to pray, but Moishe was upset at them also. Why so number one, about waging war when Jews. Every time when Jews were waging battles against their enemies, this is when their enemies were in front of them. When these enemies were an obstacle in achieving the goal, not when the enemies are in the back chasing after them. In other words, God is telling me what to do. I need to simply do what God says. If there's an obstacle in front of me, I have to battle this obstacle. If there's an obstacle behind me or by my side, getting involved with this obstacle is a distraction. The Torah has a saying in Talmud, there is a saying about workers, about when can you make your laborers work? When not. What are fair employment practices, what's not? And Talmud says, unless specifically disclosed, unless specifically discussed in the contract, an average worker works only by day. In other words, you cannot hire a person without specifying that he has to work at night and then come to him and say that he actually has to work at night. That's a standard. And the way how Talmud says it is, we are day workers. We are people by their nature, day workers. That's how an average human works. You sleep at night and you work by day. I know it doesn't work with everybody, but majority of people. That's what they do. So unless it's specified, we are day workers.
[00:07:46] So in Hasidic tradition, this statement that we are day workers is actually used to explain how we should behave day workers. In other words, we work with Light conditions. We don't work with dark conditions. There is an important job fighting the bad that we have around us. It's a very important job. There's only one problem. When you deal with dirt, you become dirty yourself. So sometimes you need to work with fighting the negative. But our main task is not fighting the negative, but increasing the positive. And we need to try to avoid fighting the negative whenever we can. What does it mean? That if something negative is in front of us and is disturbing us to achieve our goal, we need to fight it. And this is why Jews fought Amalek. And this is why Jews fought all the nations that were living in the land of Israel when they had to conquer the land. Because, well, they're living there, they are in front of them, they are disturbing them to progress ahead. But this is any type of war, any type of dealing with removing the negative elements of this world is going to have a negative impact on me as well. This is why I have to do it only when I absolutely have to. And when do I have to? When the negative. When the evil is in front of me and disturbing me to do what God tells me to do. If this negative is behind me, it's not my business. When it's on the side, it's not my business. I need to focus strictly on what I need and not get sidetracked. And this is why Moshe got upset when the Jews said they want to fight Egyptians, Egyptians were behind them. You need to go ahead to receive the Torah and you do that. Don't get sidetracked with fighting wars which are not your battles. Pick your battles. This is with regards to people who are. Who wanted to fight a war. What about people who want to pray? Praying is a very religious activity. And Moishe Rabbeinu, the person who received the Torah and gave it to the Jews and the Torah says that we have to pray. The Torah obligates us to pray. He was upset now about Jews praying. Why is that? It is because we have to pray whenever we are in need. But prayer has its own place. If God gives you a directive, if you have to do something, you do it. When you finished what you had to do, what God told you to do. When you exhausted all of the opportunities to do things and the mission is still not accomplished, that's when you pray. In other words, if I am sitting at home hungry because I don't have food and I don't go to work but pray, that's not how God wants me to live this life. I need to do What I am supposed to do to provide for your family is a mitzvah. I need to go work. And then if after I did everything I can to find a job, I still don't have a job, or my job is not providing enough money for me, this is what I need to pray. A prayer cannot substitute action. So now we understand why Moshe got upset at all the Jews. What was the right thing for them to do? The right thing for them to do was exactly what they did. When Moshe told them to drop all of these four ideas. They went ahead into the Red Sea. And we know that when they were standing there by the water, none of them knew what to do. They were all lost. There was one person. His name was Nachshon Ben Aminadav. Nachshon Ben Aminadav. He was the first one who said, one second, guys. God told us to go towards Mount Sinai. It's right there. That's where we are going. That's where I'm going. But there's water in between me and Mount Sinai. I don't know. God tells me to go, I'll go. There's water in the middle. It's his business. He's going to take care of it. I'm just doing what God told me. And what happened? It says when he went into the water, the water did not split. He went till he was up to his neck in the water. He went up to the point where if he would have made next step, he would have drowned. And he made this next step, he was submerged under the water. And when he made this next step, that's when the sea split.
[00:12:03] So now we understand the general directive of how God wants us to act. God doesn't want us to give up. God doesn't want us to surrender. God doesn't want us to commit suicide. God doesn't want us to fight our enemies who are behind us. And God does not want us to pray when we were told by him what to do. We need to just do what God tells us. And if there is an obstacle in our way, then God is going to take care of this obstacle. The previous Rebbe came to the US at the time when not working on Shabbos was unheard of. People were working back then in America six days a week. The only day off was Sunday. It is interesting that today in America and probably in most of the Western world, we have five day work a week. And this five day work week was accomplished by who? By the unions who were primarily made by the Jews, you know, the labor unions that we have here in America. The first meetings of labor unions here in America were in Yiddish. They were all socialist communist Jews and they were all Jewish, that it was a Jewish movement. And they were all obviously as they were socialists and communists, anti religious to the core. So now just think about it, that the most anti religious movements in America were the ones who allowed the Jews to keep Shabbos. This is how God runs this world. But when the previous rev came to here to America, it was before these socialists and communist union movements were able to accomplish it. And everybody was expected to work six days a week, including Shabbos. And that's why Jews who observe Shabbos simply were starving. There were no jobs for them, there were no to feed a family. And it was a known thing that they would find some basic job, intense labor job on a Monday and they would have this job till Friday and they would not show up to work on Saturday and Monday. They didn't even need to bother coming back because we were fired. So they all had a very hard time. And the previous Rebbe was telling the Jews here in America exactly this metaphor with Nachshon benminadav with the splitting of Red Sea. Why he said that Jews were standing in front of the Red Sea, they didn't know what to do. You could try to do this, you could try to pray, you could try to fight, you could try to do whatever you want. If you have a directive from God, you just have to go ahead. But there's a war in between. God's going to take care of it. And he said we have a directive from God to keep Shabbos. But there's an obstacle in the middle. God is going to take care of it. Once we will go into the water like Nachshon Ben Amin adav g d is going to make the water split. And that's exactly what happened. Because the previous day we started this whole arousal, this whole movement of Jews who were refusing to work on Shabbos. And soon enough, literally within few years, this is when the unions were able to create a five day work week. This famous joke about a guy stranded on the island and he says, God save me. And he's refusing helicopter and boat and whatever it is. And then God says, I'll send you a helicopter, I send you a boat. And whatever this famous joke, I hear it from people all the time. But people who tell me this joke don't understand the meaning that I put on this joke. They are talking to me about the fact that you need to work, you need to earn money and not pray, not daven and shu. I hear this joke and in my mind it has the opposite meaning. Not the opposite, but it has the meaning that God tells us what to do. God tells us to do mitzvahs. We have a directive from God. God tells me to keep Shabbos. God tells me to keep kosher. God tells me to put on filling. People say, well, but I can't afford kosher. Well, but my business doesn't allow me to be closed on Shabbos. So they tell me I pray to God to have more money and when I'll have more money that's when I'll start keeping kosher. I pray to God to allow me to change my business that and when I'll change my business I'll be able to keep Shabbos. When I'll retire, I'll be able to keep Shabbos. But meantime I'm just praying that God should change something. So this is what I'm telling them. Stop praying, start doing. You have a directive from God, do it.
