If God Promised Israel to the Jews, Why'd they Become Slaves Instead? Bible Secrets (PodCast)

when learning Kish with Rashi it helps to understand what was rashi's intention what was he trying to accomplish with his commentary now for example there are commentaries out there that really just collect all kinds of different statements from the rabbis midrashic statements like mam Loz or the midash says and with those type of books there is no decision making in what specific midash will be included or will be excluded it's just a collection of of of statements from the sages Rashi however is is is really writing a perou of the Torah he's really explaining the Torah and he himself says that he came to explain theat the simple meaning of the storyline of the Torah and where when help is needed so he adds comments and when help is not needed he doesn't comment but we have to also address another part of Rashi in that many times he brings statements from the rabbis from midra and those M that he's bringing are not necessarily looked at as a they're looked at as a different or deeper way of looking at the P so the question comes up why is Rashi bringing ideas that are not necessarily in his comments so one way to look at it is this uh Rashi wants you to properly understand the Kish now obviously a person cannot only study the written Torah without the oral Torah because the two together make up the full body of Torah so Rashi comes to include the statements from the oral Torah which the sages write when it's necessary in order to understand theat or even a deeper Pat and sometimes he also feels that the statements of the sages are so crucial to understanding ideas that he includes them in his comments now let us try to appreciate in this week's par an example of Rashi bringing a midash how we can appreciate what his intentions are and what to do with the midash and with hashem's help we'll also offer up a deeper explanation of the midash itself while we're at it so the verse starts off settled in the land of his father's sojourning in the land of canob yov requested wanted to settle in Tranquility with peace and and a comfortable situation in in the land of Canan and what happened instead the whole ordeal with yose that he was pulled away from him and and taken down to Egypt and Yakov mourned for many many years and suffered tremendous uh heartache from this this is what happened instead so essentially what what comes out from the reading of the verse the verse implies zov settled in the land but in fact instead the opposite happened he had hardships and he was pulled away from the land of Israel and had to go down to Egypt so it's not true he didn't settled so for that reason the rabbis explained to us and the maim you know add to this idea that really what it means is jakov only wanted to settle but he never actually got to settle and what was the the idea what resulted of his of his desires to settle in the land of Canan instead he was you know suffered was dragged down to Egypt now of course we have to appreciate why was the outcome not as he wished you know Ro Jakob was a very righteous holy person if anyone in the world deserved good it was him so why did he get the opposite of what he wanted so the truth is the midash continues to shed light on this issue and actually um on a simple level is a source of criticism for jakob's entire reason of wanting to settle the mid continues in so of answering for Hashem so to speak responding it says uh that in general want to be able to settle and be tranquil and have a tranquil living and and conducive situations to learning Torah and and doing mitv so Hashem responds to these sadim and says it's not enough what you have prepared for you in the world to come you also want to relax and have a good life in this world and uh of course the simple Reon reading of this midash seems to be critical of the sikim that want to settle and have it easy and the MIM addressed this on yakob meaning that yakob had a hard life he dealt with Lavan he dealt with asov he dealt with Shem he had the whole deal with Dena he was tricked so many times he worked hard many many years now he finally gets through all of that and wants to finally relax a little bit and have some peace in mind now we should be confused yakob did not want to go to to Hawaii for vacation yakob wanted to serve Hashem learn Tora and do but he wanted to do it without all of the external things that come to detract and bother a person from his focus on r on spirituality and on on Torah so but we have to ask ourselves if that's what jakov really wanted was was was ultimately a good thing to just serve Hashem in the best conditions and to serve him as best as possible so why did Yakov get the opposite why did he get uh thrown down to Egypt instead so the idea could be understood like this really yob himself was on the highest spiritual level one can imagine and really according to just him on a personal level it was fitting for him to relax and have an easier life in a sense where he could just devote himself to ascending higher and higher spirit spiritually you know learning this the deepest secrets of cabala and doing the mitv on the highest of levels like we see the Great sikim have sometimes in the past you see they had wealth and they had an easy life and they just excelled in in in spirituality however the issue is that really the Jewish people at the time were still beginning to become a nation and that in a spiritual sense it also they were beginning to develop as as the nation of Israel and unfortunately because we're still coming off of the sins of the prior Generations so the Jewish people themselves the the the tribes of of Israel the 12 sons and their children and their future children that were going to be born were not ready yet to take on the role of of CLA is what I mean is to receive the Torah and fulfill the Divine mission of transforming this world into a holy world they still were blemished from the original sin so what essentially had to happen was in order for the Jewish people to be ready to receive the Torah and to take on this great mission that we were created for they first had to go through the galut of MIT now it's interesting there's a Zohar that asks why did the Jewish people have to suffer so much in in MIT RAB elzar asks RAB shim Bay himself why did they suffer such a harsh Exile and why did they further have to suffer in such a harsh Kingdom Under a harsh King like par and the essential answer is according to cabala that there was a spiritual rectification a spiritual tikun needed to accomplish before the Jewish people would be on a high enough level fixed enough to represent Torah and to do their Divine Mission so they had to suffer so hard in MIT but the suffering in MIT prepared them to become nation of Israel at Hari what comes out from this explanation is that really Yakov was not wrong to ask for shalva he wasn't wrong to ask for the absolute best spiritual conditions to serve Hashem on the highest level but for the Jewish people it wasn't time yet that to go through MIT and after after MIT they would be ready so what is a beautiful way to appreciate this really discussion between Hashem in response to jakob's request you know the simple way to look at it is that that Hashem was disagreeing with Yakov but we could really look at it also a little bit deeper because there's an idea that God fulfills the requests of the righteous people and we know God only wants what's best for us so what we could actually look at it like this when Hashem says it's not enough for the sikim to have the world to come but they also want to relax and have the good life in this world that Hashem actually agrees with that idea so if he agrees then why is ysf being Stripped Away from yob and why is all this stuff uffing happening because in order to have the good life in this world as well we have to first go through the the obstacles and the challenges in order to reach the good life so Hashem is essentially saying to yob you want the good life in this world you want the world to be fixed and you want you know Messiah to come you have to go through the troubles first ysf is going to be taken from you it's going to be very harsh you'll be dragged down to Egypt you'll suffer tremendously in Egypt but this will happen all as quick as possible so that in instead of in 400 years you'll come out of Egypt you'll come out of Egypt in only 210 years and then you'll receive the Torah and this whole story will run its course and essentially the Jewish people could have merited after Hari to go straight to Yim and live happily ever after it's only the that caused a further delay and it's also after some time traveling the desert it's the of the morum that caused a even further delay so the truth is yakov's like a of reaching the ultimate goal of messiah in the perfect world Wasn't So Far Away had we lived up to our 100% potential because really the Jews could have made it within a short time after leaving MIT and so through this we could appreciate you know the depth of kazal really shedding deep light in each of the different ideas that are hinted to in the Torah and we can also preciate why Rashi has to bring not only the explanations the simple simple meaning but he also needs to fuse together the Torah with the Tor they written in oral Torah to appreciate and understand the deep deep messages that are really latent within the surface level of the text