THE ART OF WAITING AND TRUSTING
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THE ART OF WAITING AND TRUSTING
Before he died, Yaakov told his sons the secret of bringing the Mashiach: וַיִּקְרָ֥א יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֶל־בָּנָ֑יו וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הֵאָֽסְפוּ֙ וְאַגִּ֣ידָה לָכֶ֔ם אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־יִקְרָ֥א אֶתְכֶ֖ם בְּאַחֲרִ֥ית הַיָּמִֽים: At the end of days, you will need to come together. האספו. If you stay separated, Mashiach won’t come. You need to see the good in each other, accept each other and help each other, to merit the End of Days. The Midrash tells us that the Jewish Nation coming together is a sign of the upcoming Final Redemption. (B Rabba 98)
When Moshe witnessed how Datan and Aviram were fighting, and how they were speaking Lashon Hara, he said, אָכֵ֖ן נוֹדַ֥ע הַדָּבָֽר. The reason why they can’t be freed from Egyptian slavery is because they can’t get along. (Shemot Rabba 1; 30)
In the days of Shmuel and Shaul, kids had a tremendous amount of Torah knowledge even before their Bar Mitzvah, and the warriors of Shaul would still fall in war. But in the days of King Ahab, they were all idol worshippers, but no one fell in war! Why was that so? Because in the days of Shmuel and Shaul, people would speak Lashon Hara. But in the days of Ahab, they would guard their tongue! Lashon Hara causes G-d to remove Himself from His people! (Midrash Tehillim 7)
It is so interesting. The Egyptian Jews were idol worshippers, and still, Moshe did not understand why they were in a most bitter exile of slavery. Only after Moshe saw that they spoke slanderously of one another and they were not united, only then Moshe could justify G-d’s not redeeming them and allowing His Nation to suffer! How does that make sense?
Serving idols is very bad; but G-d chooses the children of Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov to be His Nation, despite their religious level, or belief, or behavior. But once they start speaking slander among themselves, once we can’t get along, G-d doesn’t want us, because we are not a nation, but a fragmented people! G-d allows the nations of the world to remind us that we are one! That no matter what type of Yarmulke you wear, no matter if you don’t wear a Yarmulke, the gentiles will remind you that you are all part of the same Jewish Nation!
The Sifte Hachamim asks, on Rashi, why Moshe was wondering why the Jews were in Exile? Even if they were not speaking Lashon Hara, they needed to go through the 400 years that Avraham Avinu’s descendants were decreed to suffer!!! So why was Moshe not understanding the reason for the exile, and the delay of the redemption?
The Siftei Hachamim answers that although Avraham’s questioning G-d’s promise of the Holy Land to his descendants caused him to have his descendants suffer for 400 years, the descendants, themselves, did not do anything to deserve such a punishment! The rule of the Torah is לֹֽא־יוּמְת֤וּ אָבוֹת֙ עַל־בָּנִ֔ים וּבָנִ֖ים לֹא־יוּמְת֣וּ עַל־אָב֑וֹת : that children don’t die because of their parents’ sins; so, if the Jews in Egypt did not do anything that was in line with Avraham’s sin, they could not be deserving of his punishment! Only now that they are speaking Lashon Hara, do they deserve the punishment coming to his descendants!
A person can be punished for something his ancestors did, only if he if he sinned in a way similar to his ancestors. (Berachot 7a; Sanhedrin 27b) We all die because of the sin of Adam, who ate from the forbidden fruit, the one tree from which G-d told him not to eat. Although none of us ate from the forbidden fruit, we still die because we have all done something similar to Adam. G-d gives us so much, but there is just one thing here and there that G-d tells us is not good for you. You can’t have that. And we all want what G-d told us we can’t have! And we try taking what G-d tells us that we can’t have! The Vilna Gaon says that the whole Torah is summed up into the Ten Commandments, and the whole Ten Commandments is summed up in the last of the ten: Do not covet! Do not want what is not given to you!
Why is speaking Lashon Hara similar to Avraham Avinu asking how he could be sure, that his descendants would inherit the Land?
All Lashon Hara is a lack of patience and faith. If you would have a little more patience, if you would believe in the other person even when it makes no sense to believe in him, you would be able to hold your tongue. We tend to think people are worse than they are. So often, people we give up hope on prove that we underestimated how good they could really be, how connected to G-d they can really be.
When Yaakov wanted to tell his children when the End of Days would come and how it would be, G-d stopped him. (Tanhuma 8) Yaakov wanted it to be easier for his children to serve G-d in the Galut, in the exile, if things would make sense to them, if they would know how it would all turn out in the end. From his own life, Yaakov knew how hard it is to have patience and wait to see how after all the hardships in life, G-d will show you how much he loved you, all along, in the end. It would have been so much easier for Yaakov to serve G-d all along, if only he had known why G-d caused him so much suffering, and that it was all for the good!
G-d wants us to serve Him without knowing how it all makes sense!!! Only in the merit of waiting, endlessly, believing when it seems that there is nothing left to believe in – only in that merit will G-d redeem us from this long Exile! G-d wants us to serve Him with Emunah, with patience!
If the brothers would have had patience with Yosef, if they would have believed that he had only the best intentions, they would never have devised a plan to get rid of him! When G-d sent Moshe to tell the Jews that He was redeeming them, G-d told Moshe, tell them that My Name אהי-ה is sending you to redeem them from the Galut. The Name of G-d יהו-ה has the numerical value of 26. The Jews thought that they needed to be in Exile for what they did to Yosef for 260 years, 26 times the ten brothers who sold him. But G-d said, No! My Name through which I will save you is אהי-ה I will be, with the numerical value of 21, and when it is multiplied by 10, it is 210 years! We are at 210 years, and you can be redeemed!
The name of G-d אהי-ה , that G-d will be, means trust in G-d! He knows the future, and you don’t! Trust the process!
