Reply To: YWN Coffee Room Nightly D’Var Torah

So we don’t miss a day, and I do not have time to write a D’Var Torah… so here is a D’Var Torah from Rabbi Yisroel Miller (from his sefer “A Gift For Yom Tov”

Haste Makes … Pesach

Note that matzah does not commemorate only liberation — liberation is not even mentioned here — but it is to recall the haste, the rush in which we left.

In the Friday night Kiddush, we proclaim that Shabbos is zecher liyetzias Mitzraim, Shabbos is a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt. How is Shabbos connected with the Exodus?

But that attitude is selling Hashem short. Pesach teaches us that Hashem actively controls. Once we know that He controls, then Shabbos tells us: If the necessary raw materials are absent, He creates. Hashem not only directs the flow, but He makes the flow; and if all solutions to your problem are unworkable, He can make a new solution out of nothing.

Matzah symbolizes chipazon, haste, such haste that we had no time to bake a loaf of bread. Chipazon shel mi, Whose haste? Shel Mitzraim, That of the Egyptians, the ones who swore they would not let us go; it was they who hastened to comply with the word of Hashem. Hashem, the Creator and the Controller, not only freed us, but He transformed the Egyptian will.

And the Torah commands us to remember this all the days of our lives; to know that Hashem, Who can create a whole new attitude in Pharaoh to make him ask us for a blessing, He can surely change the attitudes of our employers and neighbors and relatives, and whatever other situation we think is beyond repair.

In Eretz Yisrael, for many years there have been Gedolei Torah, outstanding Torah leaders, who have taken public positions on important religious and political issues of the day. But surprisingly, some of the most outspoken rabbis, who never hesitated to speak their minds, never articulated (at least not publicly) a position on what Israel should do concerning its problems with its Arab neighbors.

I once heard a suggestion that perhaps these Sages themselves do not know what to do, because there is no alternative that makes good sense. Some problems simply have no solutions. But at the same time, the Sages know that where no solution exists, Hashem can always create a new one; and if we seek to do His Will, He will show us that He is not bound by the restrictions of realpolitik.

We must surely do everything we can to deal with problems, as best we know how. But we must always keep in mind that Hashem has His own methods, and He can transform enemies into friends; swords into plowshares; and Jews into holy people, people who live with the memory of the miracles of the liberation from Egypt, kol yemei chayecha, each day, all the days, of your lives.