The Ten Plagues begin in our
Parasha, Parashat Va’Era. Each Plague (besides the last one, Makat Bechorot)
lasted 7 days. The Plague of Blood meant that everything liquid in the entire
country of Mitzrayim (Egypt) would turn into blood. This even meant the
people’s own urine turned into blood! Imagine the entire Nile River, which was considered one of
the Avodah Zarah (Idols) of Mitzrayim turn completely blood red. The people of
Egypt were literally dying of thirst. Imagine old people, babies, women, sick
people; they all had to suffer through the Plague of Blood. This sounds all
horrible for the Mitzrim, but we still cannot have mercy on them. We need to
always remember Hashem is the one in control and whatever He decides goes.
The plague got so bad that the
ENTIRE COUNTRY, as it says in the Torah (Shemot 7:24) started digging around
the Nile River to find even a single drop of water, “VaYachperu KOL Mitzrayim
Sevivot Ha’Yeor….” Imagine all of America getting hit with such a plague.
Obama on his hands and knees
digging around the Bays and Sea Shores of American Beaches trying to find any
source of water. Everything covered with blood! You have millions of people searching
for water. Picture the chaos like from those movies where the world ends in x
amount of days! No water whatsoever! Now multiply that by 9 other Plagues.
Hashem Yaazor, we do not even know the beginning of Hashem’s powers, and we
still tell ourselves we have strength.
Anyway, what can we take from
this to further improve our connection with Hashem? Since we are in the Galut
and the Bet HaMikdash hasn’t been built yet, we can still say we are like the
Jews in Mitzrayim, with what seems like no Redemption in sight. How much Hitbolelut (intermarriage) is there? ‘Only’
80% of Jews around the world intermarry. We can definitely say there is no
difference between Mitzrayim and today. Forget the naked women on the front
cover of magazines plastered on every corner in Manhattan, forget the endless garbage
on the internet, forget the advertisements, forget the movies and TV and even
Radio Ads, etc. Let’s just think about the attitude the average liberal Jew has
towards mixing with the non-Jews. We are definitely in Mitzrayim. So what do we
need to do?
We need to run to our figurative
Nile River, filled with blood (with the misconception that we need to drop our
3,300 year old tradition and mix with the non_jews) and we need to dig around,
search anywhere to find water, to find Torah! On the other hand, how much good
is there in the Galut. America is filling up with Judaica stores, with
Yeshivas, with Batei Knesset (Shuls), with parents sending off their kids to
Israel for the year to study Torah! Today its even a trend to become more
religious! There is no excuse why we are not getting closer to Hashem.
We
always need to push and strive to reach our spiritual potentials.
We
want it bad anyway, so why not go all out?
Tonight
begins Shabbat Va’Era 5772. We will never get it back. Let’s take advantage of
it.
Shabbat
Shalom!
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