Va’eira: Nosei B’Ol Im Chaveiro—Moshe Rabbeinu, Galus Mitzrayim, and True Empathy

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. The parshiyos of Shemos, Vaeira, Bo, Beshalach, we read about the Galus Mitzrayim and the miracles of the Yetzias Mitzrayim. There is so much that we read and we learn in the Midrashim and in the mefarshim, the purpose of Galus Mitzrayim. What was the point? Why did we need to be in Mitzrayim? What was the lesson that was supposed to be taken? The growth that was needed for Klal Yisrael and that they had to go through Mitzrayim was called kur habarzel. Kur habarzel means it was to clean, to sanctify, to purify, to purify Klal Yisrael. That's what the mefarshim tell us, based on Midrashim and Zohar. Mitzrayim was an experience, kur habarzel, to prepare us, to perfect us, that we should become Klal Yisrael, that we should be able to be the am hanivchar and to be mekabel the Torah and to come into Eretz Yisrael. And a lot we read about the kur habarzel, what it was that we perfected ourselves in Mitzrayim. What were the lessons that we were taught by harsh labor in Mitzrayim? The lessons, what were they? I would like today to introduce another point and lesson, another limud, another thing that we gained in Mitzrayim that maybe is overlooked somewhat, that needs to be addressed, something that we took away from the shibud Mitzrayim. We've spoken last week and previous years about the inyan of nosei b'ol im chaveiro, for one to have empathy, empathy with others and their plight and their struggles and their problems. Nosei b'ol, to carry in the load, im chaveiro, with the other person. A person's going through a difficult situation, you need to be side by side with him, to carry with him, to help him, to be there, to show heart and feeling, nosei b'ol im chaveiro. The mefarshim address the nosei b'ol im chaveiro as we read about Moshe Rabbeinu, that when he was in the palace of Paro, Vayetze, he goes out, el echav, to his brothers, Vayar b'sivlosam, and he sees in their struggles. So Chazal tell us, what was Vayar b'sivlosam? Nasan einav v'libo lihyos meitzar aleihem. And he gave his eye, einav, his eyes, v'libo, and his heart, lihyos meitzar, to feel in the pain of his brothers, Klal Yisrael, and their shibud, and the hard work that they labored in Mitzrayim. And as we've mentioned in the past, very little do we read about Moshe Rabbeinu other than this story that he went out and he was pained by their pain, and the next day he goes out and he sees that the Mitzri is hitting the Yid, and he kills the Mitzri, and then he runs to the house of Yisro, and the daughters are also being nirdaf by the ro'im, and he protects them and he saves them. I mean, who was Moshe Rabbeinu? Why was Moshe Rabbeinu chosen? Why was he the one that was nivchar, that was chosen to be the leader, to be the one to take Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim? We don't see much in the Torah about who Moshe Rabbeinu was. Do we read about Moshe Rabbeinu that he was the best bachur in yeshiva?

We should have read in the Torah, Moshe Rabbeinu comes with a resume that he's mamish the best bachur in yeshiva. We don't read about only about what? That he went out and he was noisei b'olam chaveiro. It's interesting. Rashi actually tells us that Moshe Rabbeinu had tremendous ma'alos. When he was born, there was light. Basya, Rashi quotes it, notices that Moshe Rabbeinu is a Jew. She sees the baby in the water and she recognizes, and she says, It must be a Jewish child. How did she know it's a Jewish child? Says Rashi, because she saw the Shechinah. So he radiated Shechinah. The Medrash says that when he was born, nismaleh kol habayis orah. Yet in the Torah, we don't read about this, that Moshe Rabbeinu was born and he had Shechinah, he had light around him. The gentile world, they talk about their, so to speak, god, their messiah was born with lights. There was lights, and because of that they make a holiday, the Christmas with the lights, the lights. Moshe Rabbeinu had the same lights. We don't find that we have a ganze zach about Moshe Rabbeinu's lights that we should have. It's mentioned, Agav Urcha in Rashi, that Rashi says that she noticed that this was a Jewish child because— The Shechina, the Medrash, there's a small Medrash that there was light in the house when he was born. We should have read about Moshe Rabbeinu that the Shechina, there was light. That's exactly the point. The point is we're trying to bring out that you see that that wasn't the main thing that we see Moshe Rabbeinu's greatness in. It wasn't the spiritual; it was the fact that he was able to have empathy to his fellow brother. And this is the Baal HaMussar speak, is who Moshe Rabbeinu was and why he was chosen. If the Torah chose only these two, three stories that shows Moshe Rabbeinu's empathy to others, to tell us who Moshe Rabbeinu was, obviously we need to learn and understand that that's what made Moshe Rabbeinu Moshe Rabbeinu, and that's why he was chosen. The Alter from Kelm points out that actually there's twofold parts to the story. The first day he went out and he showed empathy to Klal Yisrael, the nation as a whole. He saw that they were working and they were enslaved, so he goes out and he's carrying the stones. The Medrash says he carried the stones with them. And he says, I wish I could die instead of you. I wish I could take your place. The second day, he went out and he saw that the mitzri was hitting the individual, the yachid. The Alter from Kelm says, because we have to see both sides. One is that he had empathy for the klal, and then he had what? Even empathy for the yachid, for the individual. His love, his care, his devotion, his concern was not only for the rabim, but the next day we learned that it was even for the yachid. So speaks the Alter from Kelm. A lot of people, in their minds, they have big visions of projects to help Klal Yisrael. But then when the individual, a single person, comes over to them for help, they're busy. They're busy with big things. They can't be busy with the yachid that comes to them. They're very busy with big things. How many times a person will come across a simple guy who's asking for help? I need, I this, I need a ride, I need—I'm sorry, I'm very busy. I'm busy with Klal Yisrael. I'm busy with doing big— What is Klal Yisrael?

Klal Yisrael is yechidim, individuals, many of them that make up a rabim. The empathy, the love, the concern, the caring is not only for the rabim, but it has to be for the yachid. And that's what we see by Moshe Rabbeinu. I want to tell you a beautiful story. In my home hangs a picture of my great-grandfather, the Beis Aaron, zecher tzaddik livracha. It's a historic picture. It's a picture from the Knessiah Gedolah in Vienna. To his left walks R' Meir Shapiro. To his right, Hamburger Rav, Rabbi Spitzer. It's a beautiful picture. It was a professional picture. It was taken by the newspaper of Vienna. It was taken by a newspaper photographer in Vienna, by the Knessiah Gedolah as they walked out. I got this picture from the Holocaust Museum. It hangs in the Holocaust Museum, and they made me a copy. They found that someone told them that I'm a grandchild, and I had to sign a release form that I won't reproduce the picture, and I got it. I may say for fifty dollars, they sent me the picture. Beautiful, big picture, okay? The picture has something unique when you study it, and that is that my grandfather's hat is crushed front and back. The brim is crushed down, and it's like lopsided. And when I saw the picture for the first time, I thought it was strange. You come to a Knessiah Gedolah... You should be wearing your best clothing. You should be dressed with your Shabbos hat. Looked like a very crushed. The hat was not in place. There was something wrong with the hat. I thought it was a little, you know. You should be dressed with your best clothes, at your best. After a while, I came across a book. It's called, I think, The Wellsprings of Europe or something. I don't remember the exact title. It was written by a tremendous writer. And he brings historic literature, facts that happened during the Knessiah Gedolah. And he brings the following story, which will explain pshat in a hat. Could you imagine someone's going to say, What did you learn today in Rabbi Wolkin's shiur? I learned the pshat in a hat. Okay, we're going to get pshat in a hat, in a crushed hat. My great-grandfather was speaking. The crowd was huge. Wanders in an individual, a broken soul. He needed parnassah. He was bitter, and he began to scream, I need parnassah. I need money. I have no money. Completely out of place. Couldn't find a better venue. This is—started to yell. He busted. He burst. The people who were in charge wanted to take him and carry him out. But he's screaming in the middle of a speech, in the middle of Knessiah Gedolah. So my great-grandfather... The Beis Aharon zich tzaddik livrachah stopped them and he said, What are you doing? Why are you carrying this person out? Because he's interrupting. He said, What do you mean he's interrupting? What are we here for? What is the point? What are we discussing? We're discussing the good of Klal Yisroel. We're trying to come together to do positive things to help Klal Yisroel. This is Klal Yisroel. This individual. What, do you focus on the big picture? Focus on the individuals. This is Klal. This is the yachid. There's Klal Yisroel and there's prat Yisroel. He's prat Yisroel. What makes Klal Yisroel? Many pratim together make Klal Yisroel. The Beis Aharon took off his hat. My grandfather took off his hat. He put money into the hat, and he made the hat go around the entire convention hall, that everyone should put money into the hat to give to this person. The hat was crushed front and back because that's how they were holding the hat as they put the money in. Beautiful story, a beautiful hat. The hat was beautiful. It's a beautiful hat.

Stucka pushka. Made a hat, a tzedakah pushka. The lesson: sometimes we look for the good of the people, and we're trying to produce and establish big things. How about the individual need, the individual's need? Moshe Rabbeinu, says the Alter from Kelm, showed nosei b'ol im chaveiroi, the klal. That was the first day. But the second day, he showed prat, that he cared about the individual. But why is it nosei b'ol im chaveiroi that is the midah, that is the measure of the greatness of a Moshe Rabbeinu? Why is it that it's nosei b'ol that we're testing our leader? The meforshim tell us, the baalei mussar are telling us, that what made a Moshe Rabbeinu, the Torah is teaching us, it was nosei b'ol, empathy for the Jewish people. What is it about empathy that that was the quality that made Moshe Rabbeinu the pick to be the leader? So I always understood that it's pretty simple: a leader has to have empathy to be a leader. It's about his manhigus. It's about his leadership. A leader needs to have empathy. If you don't care about the people, how could you be a— Let me tell you something, rabboisai. If you want to be a leader, not only a leader, but if you want to be a rebbi, you need to really care about your talmidim. If you don't care for them with all your heart, then you can't be a good rebbi. It doesn't work. You need to love. You need to love the people who you're leading, the people you're teaching. Is it about Moshe, the manhig? Is it about Moshe Rabbeinu, the teacher? Maybe it's both. Maybe for the manhig he needed to love, but there's also another part of Moshe Rabbeinu: Moshe Rabbeinu, the teacher. Maybe a rebbi also needs nosei b'ol. Maybe it's both. See, we're trying to understand why is nosei b'ol, the measure of a Moshe Rabbeinu, why he was chosen. Maybe the answer is not only because of the manhig, but there was a part of Moshe Rabbeinu, the Rabbeinu, the teacher. A teacher also needs to be nosei b'ol im chaveiro. A rebbi also needs to have empathy. He needs to care, and to use the words that Moshe Rabbeinu said, Halavai musi aleichem. I wish I could take your place and die for you. Reb Yerucham, mashgiach, Reb Yerucham zecher tzaddik livracha, says that actually it's a lot deeper. Nosei b'ol is not just because we need it technically to be a nosei b'ol, so he should lead, or he should even teach, like we're explaining. But actually, noisah b'ol is the measure of greatness in ruchniyus, spiritual greatness. The spiritual height can be measured in how much a person is noisah b'ol im chaveiro. Rabbi Yerucham quotes the Mishnah, that the Mishnah says one of the mem-ches kinyanei haTorah, the 48 ways to achieve greatness in Torah, one of them is noisei b'ol im chaveiro, which teaches us, which shows us, that it's not only about leadership, it's not only about the good rebbe, but it's actually to acquire Torah. To acquire Torah, a person needs to be noisah b'ol im chaveiro. What's the connection, rabboisai? Why does one need to be a noisah b'ol im chaveiro, to have empathy, to be able to...

Be involved and attached to someone else's problems. Why is that one of the kinyanim, one of the ways a person achieves Torah? Rabbi Yerucham says, you see from this that spiritual height, ruchniyus, the greatest measure of ruchniyus is from nosei b'ol im chaveiro. So it's not only Moshe Rabbeinu needed it as a leader, technically. It's not only that Moshe Rabbeinu needed it as the Rebbe, technically. But it was actually the measure of the greatness spiritually of Moshe Rabbeinu. I'd like to spend the shiur today explaining what is the quality of nosei b'ol in a spiritual sense. What is the spiritual—I mean, it's a very nice, beautiful thing to care about others. But what's that, the ruchniyus? What's the gadlus ruchniyus about it? Through the words and eyes of Rabbi Yerucham, let's talk about it, because everyone understand what we're addressing, b'ezras Hashem. Today's shiur is about what is a Jew, what is a ben Torah. Jewish people, their greatness—not only that they're physically, but spiritually, what's their greatness? That they're nosei b'ol im chaveiro. And this is the lesson, like we're speaking, that Moshe Rabbeinu— Was chosen to be the manhig and the rebbe through and because of his noisei b'ol is teaching us that nosei b'ol is the midah, the ultimate height of gadlus, is nosei b'ol in chaveirei. And why? What is it? Yes, a person as a leader needs to be a nosei b'ol, as a rebbe needs to be a nosei b'ol. But obviously it's more. It's more. Moshe Rabbeinu. We don't talk about Moshe Rabbeinu being born with shechinah on his face, and we don't talk about Moshe Rabbeinu being born with lights. We talk about Moshe Rabbeinu, the great Moshe Rabbeinu, because he was a nosei b'ol in chaveirei. What is nosei b'ol? What is it? It's one of the kinyanei haTorah. Without it, you can't achieve Torah. Why? If I don't put myself into the other person's problems, I can't learn Torah. I can't understand the Tosfos. Why? Rabosai, let's focus on the words: Nosan einoi v'libo lihyos meitzar aleihem. Vayar b'sivlosam. Moshe Rabbeinu goes out and he sees their affliction. Nosan einav v'libo. What's the double lashon? What's the two, einav v'libo? Rabbi Yerucham explains in his shmuzen for Elul, there's a sefer that came out with all Rabbi Yerucham shmuzen on preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The first volume, page lamed, he explains, einai is a physical thing. The eyes have to see. Libo is the spiritual, the spiritual part of the person. That's part of the nosei b'ol im chaveiro. Nosei b'ol encompasses the physical and also the spiritual neshama of a person. When you're nosei b'ol, show empathy. Nosei, it's beautiful. Pay attention. We think nosei b'ol is an act of being odom l'chaveiro. It's a lot deeper. There's worlds of lev and neshama, Yiddishe neshama, that you're tapping into, that grows as you are being nosei b'ol im chaveiro. Yeah, my boys, you hear the words? Einai v'libo.

It's not only just einoi, his eye. A person sees, but then what goes into overdrive is his libo, his lev, his inner, his neshama. It's also part of the equation of being nosei b'ol im chaveiro: einoi v'libo. I saw a book that brought out a tremendous point. It's a book about the heilige kloizenberger Rebbe, zecher tzaddik livracha. It documents his days in Auschwitz and in the DP camps after Auschwitz. And page after page, it points out how he spent all his energy to be mechazek, to have empathy for the people around him. And they point out something so unique. When a person is a nosei b'ol, how do we picture a nosei b'ol? That the other guy has a problem, you don't have that problem, yet you what? You concern yourself with that problem, which is a big thing, rabosai. A lot of times people, they don't identify with the other guy's problem because they don't understand it, right? They can't identify with it. They never experienced it. They don't get it. But how about the other way around, where the person who's being nosei b'ol actually is going through the problem, and even worse than the person who— is coming for the chizuk. How many times does a person say, What are you bothering me with your problems for? I have worse problems. You know people who say, You know what? I have much worse problems. But you know what? I'll leave my problem and I'll be busy with your problem. How many people do that? That's a tremendous level of nosei b'ol, right? Don't bother me with your problems. I got my own problems. The Klausenberger Rebbe zatzal lost eleven children, a wife and eleven children, and his entire family, mothers, his mother and his father, the whole family around him, where he himself needed chizuk, where he himself needed that someone should help him, support, to give him support. He didn't pay attention to his needs, and he was busy supporting others. And the book keeps on pointing out it's an unbelievable ultimate level of nosei b'ol im chaveiro. You know, Moshe Rabbeinu was nosei b'ol im chaveiro. He was in the king's palace. He didn't go through what they were going through, which we'll have to discuss in the Medrash. It's interesting, the Medrash says that when he went out, he didn't just, Vayar b'sivlosam, see and say, Oy vey, that he stand on the side and just say, Tell him. No, that's not what he did. What did he do? He took the stones and he put it on him, and he carried the stones, and he was crying. You know, nosei b'ol doesn't just mean that a person... Cares or pays attention, it's more than that. He puts himself involved, that he's also part of it. Noisei b'ol im chaveiroi is to be able to go through it yourself also. It's not just from the outside, as an outsider helping, which we're going to discuss on many levels why this is important in the process of being noisei b'ol im chaveiroi. But what do we see? A tremendous thing, that where sometimes a person is the main oil, he's the one that's suffering the most, and he's able to put that aside and help those that are suffering maybe even less than him. Great tzaddikim had this koach. This is what the Klausenberger Rebbe had in the concentration camps and in the DP camps after. How does one achieve that? How is one that he's able to ignore himself and his problem and just focus and pay attention to the other person's problem, where he may be suffering more than the other person? It all goes back to the Yid, the neshama.

Doesn't even make sense. There's a part of it that, on a basic understanding, it doesn't make sense. It's not, chavde problem, it's me. I'm the one that's suffering more than you. A Yid is able to overlook and overcome and stand greater than his problem and look at the other person's problem. Let me tell you over a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful pshat from Reb Yerucham. Reb Yerucham in Dvarim, he says, Moshe Rabbeinu awoke to his noisei b'ol im chaveirei. Did he work on it? You know, it's a tremendous level of noisei b'ol im chaveirei. You know, he even put himself in danger for it. The next day, he protected the Jew. He put himself in danger for it. Tell me, did he spend his life working on, you know, people? When they have good middos, it's a life, it's life's work. It doesn't happen overnight. Baal HaTanya speaks: How does one taka achieve? How does one reach a level of noisei b'ol im chaveirei? Where does one get this middah? So the Alter from Kelm starts off by saying, you have to have a lot of friends, and the more you have love for others, noisei b'ol follows. But he says something a lot deeper, which we'll get to in a few moments. He says it's not just a physical... Exercise through Torah, through Torah, one is able to be a noisei b'ol im chaveiro. Remember how we started the shiur, that nosei b'ol is one of the kinyanei haTorah? The reverse is also true. One of the kinyanim of nosei b'ol is Torah. Rabosai, listen carefully. We're going to say something beautiful. Listen. You ready? The ger, the Gemara tells us in Shabbos, comes to Hillel, and he wants to learn the entire Torah on one foot. What does Hillel tell the ger? V'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha. And all the mefarshim ask, why is that the entire Torah? And why was that the message that Hillel wanted the ger to learn? Reb Yerucham says, davar na'im. He says this is something beautiful that he thought of. In the past, we've given many, many different answers. Today, I'm going to introduce you to another answer that Reb Yerucham gives. The emphasis of the lesson was on the word kamocha. V'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha. Could it even be such a thing as kamocha? The Rambam learns that the mitzvah of v'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha is literally: you should love your friend like you love yourself. The Ramban says there's no such thing. A person cannot love someone like—it's impossible. A person in nature loves himself more than others. Sahakli bei kamoicha, and I think Rabbi Yerucham is trying to say that there's a new understanding in the word kamoicha, and that is kamoicha, as if it would be you. Put yourself in his shoes. V'ahavta l'reacha. Think of it. What would be if it was you? So love him kamoicha, like you. That, says Rabbi Yerucham, is the lesson that he wanted the ger to learn. You want to know Torah on one foot? This is Torah. Why is this Torah? And the answer is: to reach kamoicha, to be able to put yourself into someone else's shoes, to be nosei b'ol im chaveiro, to care for him on such a level that his pain is like your pain. It has to come through Torah. The Alter from Kelm explains why Torah teaches a person not to live for himself, to live for something bigger than himself, something above and beyond him and him and me. It's not all about me. Once you don't live me, you're able to live him, the other person, and you're able to take his situation and put yourself.

Often his shoes. So the lesson to the ger was, You want Torah? This is what Torah does. It takes the ability of a person to be able to be v'ahavta l'reacha kamocha. Now we begin to understand. We begin to understand. Moshe Rabbeinu was chosen because of nosei b'ol im chaveiroi. Because nosei b'ol im chaveiroi is the sod v'shoresh of the Torah on one foot. That's the basis. It's the base of Torah. Torah creates that you should be a nosei b'ol im chaveiroi. Torah creates that you should be a nosei b'ol im chaveiroi. If not, if you're not learning Torah, you can never reach fully. You can be a kind person, a caring person, but to be involved in the other person and his problem as if it be your problem, like I shall tell you from the Kloizenberger Rebbe, to even ignore your problem, to not even pay attention to your problem, to not to focus on your problem and to be busy with the other guy's problem, when that other guy and the other person, your friend, is actually going through what you're going through and maybe even less. No? You hear? I say it's beautiful. Nosei b'ol im chaveiroi is the measure of greatness. Yes, Moshe as a leader needed it. And yes, maybe Moshe Rabbeinu as a teacher needed it. But it's more, it's ruchniyus. It's Moshe Rabbeinu as a Jew and as a ben Torah, who's going to be moser the Torah, who's going to accept the Torah and give it over to the next generation, needed to have the quality and the ability to be a nosei b'ol im chaveiro. Because it's a fine line between being able to be nosei b'ol fully and not being able to be nosei b'ol, and that fine line is what? Torah, which to live beyond yourself, and that's Torah, and that was the lesson. It says רבי ירוחם that Hillel was teaching the ger. I want to tell you something beautiful. We have a parsha in the Torah, שילוח עבדים. Every seven years, lachofshi yeitzei lachofshi, he goes out free. In what parsha were we taught the halacha of שילוח עבדים? It's Parshas Mishpatim. בשביעית יצא לחופשי חינם. When was Parshas Mishpatim taught? It was taught when we left Har Sinai, when we left Mitzrayim. When did it take effect, Parshas שילוח עבדים? Only later, when we came to Eretz Yisrael. There was no avadim in the midbar. There was no שילוח עבדים till many years later. And why were we taught this now? We should have been taught this later. It's a great question. The lessons of shiluach avadim didn't pertain for the time; it pertained years later. Says Reb Chaim Shmulevitz, zicher tzaddik livracha, when we left Mitzrayim, we understood what an eved means. We were able to identify with an eved. We were able to have empathy because we experienced it ourselves, what it means to be an eved. So the Torah says, remember. The lessons of our avadim are still fresh in your memory, what it means to be an eved. And therefore, the Torah is mitzaveh us: identify with the eved. Almost, let's use the language of being nosei b'ol with the eved. Send out the avadim after seven years. Treat them properly. Huh? Beautiful. Has the feelings, the hargashim, are still fresh in their minds and hearts, what it means to be an eved. Now, I tell you, remember this. Remember this feeling that you have. Remember what it means to be an eved, and remember one day I'm going to tell you to send out avadim.

You'll send out your avadim. There's a very famous story with the Chofetz Chaim. The Chofetz Chaim went collecting door to door for an almana in town that needed heating. It was cold, and she needed money for wood for heating. The Chofetz Chaim knocks on the door of one of the ashirim, the menadvim that would give money. The person opens the door, and he sees the Chofetz Chaim. He says, Rebbe, kumt arayn, come in, come in. Sit down. Ich hab a glezel tei, I'll give you a cup of tea. The Chofetz Chaim says, No. I want to talk to you here, right here by the door. Rebbe, kumt arayn, come in. It's warm. It's cold outside. Come in. He says, You got, now you understand. I want to talk to you when it's cold, that you should feel the cold. You'll have empathy. You'll identify with it, and you'll give money for what? For the almana. Rabbi Yerucham speaks this clearly in a pasuk later on, in Parshas Ki Sisa. In Parshas Ki Sisa, Torah says, V'ger lo silchatz, ki atem yedatem. Es nefesh hager. Ki geirim heyisem b'eretz Mitzrayim. You shouldn't oppress, oppress the ger. Why? You know the pain of a ger. You were geirim in Egypt. Reb Yerucham asks—now, he doesn't speak out clearly the question, but this is what he means to ask. I don't understand. Just say it simply: don't oppress a ger because he's weak and soft and sensitive. That's not what the pasuk says. Come, rabosai, let's learn Chumash. Yeah, you like to learn Chumash? Let's learn some Chumash. Don't oppress the ger, for you know, v'atem—and you know, the word v'atem doesn't mean ki, because. It's not even because you know, and behold you know. Can we translate? I don't like to translate. Let's translate. Ger lo silchatz, v'atem yedatem es nefesh hager. For you know. It doesn't say because; for, alas, you know, nefesh hager, right? Ki geirim heyisem... It should say, v'ger lo silchatz because he's sensitive and he's going to be hurt and cry. It doesn't say that. Says Reb Yerucham, I don't have to tell you not to hurt a ger because he's sensitive. You should understand that yourself. You know, there's an expression in Yiddish: farshteyt, darf men em nit zogn. Un far der vos farshteyt nisht, vet kin zogn nisht helfen. Which means if you don't understand yourself, what's the... even if I told you, you wouldn't understand it anyway. And if you understand, I don't have to tell you. It's self-understood. V'geloy silchas. What, you don't know not to oppress a stranger, a person who's weak in society? He feels on the lower class of society. Of course. I don't have to tell you that. So what am I telling you? I'm telling you that besides the fact that you shouldn't do it because you're hurting him, from your end you shouldn't be doing it. Don't you understand what he's going through? The oinesh is bigger and stronger, not only for what you did. That's of course a given. Of course, you hurt a person, and the more he gets hurt and the more sensitivity is, the more oinesh, the more aveirah. But I'm talking about there's another thing. What about you? Where's your empathy for you? Understand. V'atem, not even because, but don't you understand? For not understanding that itself, you get punished for. Atem, I don't understand. Du bist a chaduch, du zelb izach. You know what it is. You understand it.

The guy doesn't understand it. All right, you got to understand on a basic level: don't hurt the other guy. And if he's going to get more hurt, the more the aveira. But, pashtei, why don't you understand? But you went through it. You should be the first one to understand. You're not a nosei b'ol im chaveiro, because you don't get what the other guy is going through. That itself is no good. That means, in yadus, as a Yid, you're missing something. It's such a tefa, Reb Yerucham, hear, hear. Tell me, why should I not hurt the other person? And the answer is, of course, because that person's getting hurt. It's an injustice. It's a social injustice. But then there's deeper than that. Where are you, Yid? I don't understand. You went through this. You went through the same thing. How do you not identify with what he went through? You're not a nosei b'ol. You don't get what he's going through, though you went through the same thing. For that itself, you deserve more. The chet is more and the onesh is bigger. This is what Reb Chaim Shmulevitz was saying about shiluach havadim, and this is the story of the Chofetz Chaim: empathy, empathy. I want to tell you something. Torah, yadus, the basis is about nosei b'ol im chaveiro. I want to tell you a beautiful pshat. Basya sees Moshe Rabbeinu in the basket in the water. He's crying. V'hinei nar bocheh, vatachmol alav. Vatomer, she says, Miyaldei ha'Ivrim zeh. This is a Jewish child. How did she know? How did she know it's a Jewish child? So Rashi says she saw the Shechinah. That's true. I'm gonna tell you another pshat. I'm gonna tell you another pshat. You know the word nar. Nar. What is a nar? Nar is actually not a baby. A nar is a little bit older. Meforshim say, look at Rashi, nar bocheh, kolo kenar. He obviously had a deeper voice, crying with a deeper cry. Do you know that that's a mum? That's one of the things that's a mum, in a person. Moshe Rabbeinu was a kohen, a Levi. It's a whole question if he was a kohen, Levi. Later on he was a kohen by the Shivas Yemei HaMiluim. He was definitely a Levi. So how could we make Moshe Rabbeinu into a baal mum? Famous question. So the truth is, it doesn't bother me that much, because maybe kolo kenar when he was a baby. Maybe later on it got better. Maybe the fact that his voice was deeper, and which the Gemara says is one of the mumim, was only when he was a child, but later it got healed. Later he got bigger and his voice became normal. It normalized. But let me tell you, rabboisai, a moiridike baal haTurim. V'hinei nar boiches, not going on Moshe, says the Baal HaTurim. V'hinei nar boiches, going on Aaron HaKohen. Aaron was standing behind the bushes, and he was watching, and he was protecting, and he was standing there, on watching his brother. And he's crying, V'hinei nar boiche, V'hinei nar boiches, going on Aaron. How old was Aaron? He was three years old. He was three years old. V'hinei nar boiche. A three-year-old to stand there and cry for his brother? Yaldei haIvrim zeh. That's what a Jew is. That's what a Jew is. V'hinei nar boiche. It's not going on Moshe. Basya said, V'hinei nar boiche. Wow. If this is what a Jew is, she went to what? To become a Jew. Vatachmol alav. She had chemlah. You know the difference?

Rachmanus and chemla. We could talk about this one day. There's rachmanus and there's chemla. Chemla rabba. What's chemla? Rachmanus is very basic. Chemla is what a Jew has. It's even more than just plain, simple, basic human mercy. It's chemla. Chemla. Rabbeinu Shlomo's midah of chemla. Jews have one to another chemla, and that's v'hinei nar bocheh. You know, nosei b'ol im chaveiro. Let's translate the word nosei b'ol: carrying a burden. Where does it come from? Where do the words come from? It comes from here, rabosai. It comes from Moshe. Nosei b'ol, because that's what he did. He was nosei, he carried b'ol together with his brothers. It's not anywhere else. We don't find Avram, Yitzchak, Yaakov. Nobody was nosei. The word nosei b'ol is a description of exactly what Moshe Rabbeinu did. He was nosei b'ol im chaveiro. So the word is coined, the phrase is coined from the actions of Moshe Rabbeinu. Tell me, what did Moshe Rabbeinu gain? What did Moshe Rabbeinu—tell me—what did he gain? What did he gain from it? Was he helped a little bit? He carried a little? No, but what did he gain by doing that? So he carried a few stones. Well, what do you think, really in the bigger scheme... You ready? It's not what you gain sometimes, rabosai. People think, Noisei b'ol im chaveiro, I can't help him anyway. I know you can't help him. You're not going to fix his problem. But at least you're together with him, identifying that you understand his problem. Noisei b'ol im chaveiro doesn't have to mean that I'm actually helping the other person. Noisei b'ol im chaveiro can be even if I show that I understand what the other person's going through. You know, there's a beautiful Gemara. The Gemara says, Iyov—we all know Iyov went through tremendous yisurim. Lo hayu v'lo nivra. Mar bar Rav Ashi said, according to one man d'amar, it never happened. Never happened. It never happened. Yeah? Rabbi Yerucham Gerelick, zecher tzaddik livracha, a big talmid chacham who lived in the past forty, fifty years, recently, he asked the question, why do Chazal believe lo hayu v'lo nivra? Why not? Maybe it did happen. Why should we say it never happened? So the pashut pshat, of course, is because Torah, with all the midrashim and all the aggados, are halachah l'Moshe miSinai. They're Torah miSinai, so it was given from Shamayim. So that's how Chazal knew it. But he said something very sharp. He said he had three very, very devoted friends. For a person to have one devoted friend, okay, it happens. Two devoted friends? Wow, it's unique. Three? ... such a thing can't happen. ... That's how he used to say. And then he would say something very sharp afterwards. He said, You know what the greatest yisurim of Iyov is? We know that the Gemara says Iyov was the ultimate of yisurim. You know what his yisurim was? That someone came later and said it never happened. I'm reading the ... Holocaust deniers. That's part of the Holocaust. It's another way of hurting. To come and tell the person that what you suffered never happened. Validation. That you went through something. I understand what you're going through. Validation. I understand what you're going through. Books have been written, studies have been done. Many, many Holocaust survivors never talked about their experiences. Why? Why? They believed that people wouldn't understand what they were saying. They would hear it.

But they wouldn't fully, fully comprehend and validate what they went through, and that's a tremendous pain. Nosei b'ol im chaveiro. You know what the other person wants? He wants you to be there with him in heart, in feeling. Nosan einav v'libo. Sometimes you have to just give your heart. That's also part of it, nosan, to give. I always wondered, what's the lashon of the Chazal, nosan, nosan, nosan? What do you mean he gave? So last week and weeks previous and years previous, I explained that you have to pay attention to. A lot of times we pass by situations and tragedies and pain, and we don't stop to pay attention. That's nosan einav v'libo. You got to pay attention, your eyes. You got to pay attention with your heart. Or maybe there's a new pshat, rabosai. Nosan, you got to give einav, give him that you see. Validation. Give it to him that you see his pain v'libo, that you feel his pain. Moshe Rabbeinu, that's what he gave. That's how you're nosei b'ol. How do I help the other guy? Sometimes I can't even give him the money that's necessary to fix the problem. But what I could give him is einav v'libo. Nosan. Here, rabosai, gevaldiga. Go back and teach this to people. Nosan, nosan. ... nosan einav v'libo. Got to give. What are you giving? Well, if you could give to fix the problem, that's great. As they say in Hebrew, kol hakavod, perfect. But if you can't do that, at least what could you give? Nosan einav v'libo lihyos meitzar aleihem. Now, rabosai, let's go back to Golus and shibud Mitzrayim. We started the shiur. It was Kur habarzel. It was to teach us. It was to make us elevated, to create us, to be Am Yisrael. And many different things the shibud Mitzrayim gave us, and taught us, and trained us, and perfected us in, and cleansed us in. After this shiur and after all the ma'ar makomos we spoke, I think this is one of the things that shibud Mitzrayim was to give us, and that is empathy. That we should be able to feel and understand someone else's problem. As a Yid, mi'aldei haIvrim, to be noisei b'ol im chaveiroi. And that's what we got in Mitzrayim, to understand what it is. Ki atem yedatem es nefesh hager, ki geirim... The pasuk is pretty clear. And maybe that's exactly one of the lessons and the points and the reasons for shibud Mitzrayim, among many others, that we should learn to understand someone else's pain and suffering. We should identify. We should understand that otherwise it doesn't speak to us. Doesn't tell us anything. Ein of liboi. You know, there's a beautiful Yaivetz. The Yaivetz speaks out that why did Paro throw all the babies into Mitzrayim? Because he was afraid of the Moshiach shel Yisrael, right? Notice that Shevet Levi was free. Shevet Levi, he didn't meshabed them. Why was he not meshabed Shevet Levi, when he was such a nice person? Tell me, was Paro such a, such a—to give a, what do they call that, a gesture of good will? So the simple pshat is Levi already didn't work since Yosef, and he didn't want to change the rules, and once he didn't get them, it was hard to round them up. You know, it's a gradual process to start getting people to be avadim. And Levi didn't start—Levi didn't, what do you call it, from the beginning, they weren't part of the whole system. They didn't get conned. They didn't get conned, right? L'choira that would be the pashut pshat. The Yaivetz says something much deeper. The Yaivetz says he knew that the Moshiach shel Yisrael would come from Shevet Levi.

And therefore he didn't want Shevet Levi to work like this. They won't be part of the shibud, and only one who is part of the shibud, who would be noisei b'ol im chaveiro, would be able to redeem Klal Yisroel. You see how far this noisei b'ol? Moshe was chosen because he was noisei b'ol. Pari understood that only one who can be noisei b'ol will be the leader to take them out. So he made that Levi shouldn't work, because if they don't work, they can't identify. Yeah? They couldn't identify with the tzarah, with the pain, so he couldn't be the leader. Where was he mistaken? Vayeitzei el echav. He didn't know the power of a Jew. He didn't know the power of a Jew. Even though he was not part of it, his empathy was strong as if he was part of it. He was noisei b'ol im chaveiro. You notice we break the middle matzah. The middle matzah represents Levi. Why do we break the middle matzah? All the kids come home from school and they say, because Levi was not part of the shibud, so we break it to teach Imi anochi b'tzarah, that he needed to be part of it, that he was and should have been noisei b'ol im chaveiro. All kids come home from school with this. I would like to amend this and fix it, and I always say this at every Pesach night: you misunderstood it. It's not because he needs to be noisei b'ol. The opposite. We're showing that he was actually what? Was noisei b'ol im chaveiro. You're missing the point. The point that regardless that he was not in the shibud, yet broken, he was part of the shibud because he was all part of. I'd like to tell you a pshat from my grandfather, zecher tzaddik livracha. If you notice, four-fifths of Klal Yisrael never made it out of Mitzrayim. Four-fifths of Klal Yisrael never left Mitzrayim. They didn't want to leave, so they died in Mitzrayim. Ask my grandfather, where is the chiyuv misa? Where was the transgression, the aveirah that brought misa, death, that they had to die for? The onesh has to fit the chet. What did they do? They wanted to... You know what it is to leave Mitzrayim? Zacharti lach chesed ne'urayich, ahavas kelulosayich. It wasn't easy to leave. So people didn't want to leave. What was their great sin that מגיע להם, that they deserved to have misa, they should die and not leave Mitzrayim? My grandfather says something so unique, so perceptive. He says there were upper-class Jews in Mitzrayim. The Netziv speaks. It says clearly that they went, they asked their maidservants to borrow the jewels before they left. They had to ask their maidservants, מגרת בית. How did they have maidservants? I thought they were slaves. How come they went, they had houses, and they asked their neighbors and their maidservants, and the Egyptian maidservants, goyishe cleaners? How did they get goyishe cleaners? Well, they were slaves. Says the Netziv, there were two classes in Mitzrayim. There was already the Jews who were starting to, right away, as soon as the shibud was slowing down because the makkas were working, there was a whole class of Jews that started rising on the scale of—they had homes, and they had slaves, maidservants. Says the Zohar, those people didn't want to leave. There was a lower class, an underclass of Jews that were still enslaved and impoverished, afflicted. So the four-fifths didn't want to leave either because they had already, or they already had stocks to have. They were already looking forward in the future that they were going to have, and they were saying, No, nishkefelach, let's stay in Mitzrayim. It's not so bad here. Aber, what about the rest of your brothers who are suffering in Mitzrayim? So for you it's good, but for them it's no good. You're not ready to give up.

What's good for you, to be noiseh b'ol with those that suffered in Mitzrayim, who needed to leave Mitzrayim immediately, that's not Klal Yisrael. That's not what Mitzrayim was supposed to bring out, the best of the Jew, of to be noiseh b'ol im chaveiro. And therefore they remained in Mitzrayim. And only those that learned the lesson, that turned into what, miyaldei haIvrim, they left Mitzrayim. They left Mitzrayim. I'd like to end with a story. I'd like to end with a story. What we learned today is that the maila of noiseh b'ol identifies the Jew, his qualities, not only a physical quality, a midah tovah, but a great spiritual quality of lev, of depth of heart. Like Rabbi Yerucham says, the ruchniyus, the inner person of a Jew has so much love and noiseh b'ol. And this was part of the shibud Mitzrayim, to teach us this empathy, because we needed to leave Mitzrayim as good Jews, to leave Mitzrayim as Yidden. We needed to learn this empathy, to understand, to identify, to be able to be misrageish, to have emotion, that the heart should feel not just shitchiyus. Shitchiyus means on an external... Surface the deep, to understand deep, the pain and the suffering, and to validate it, and to identify, and to feel it, and to show the other person that you understand it and that you feel with it. And this is the quality, the quality that Moshe Rabbeinu needed to portray, to be the motzi miMitzrayim. I'd like to tell you a story that I read in Rabbi Yitzchok Torah Mussar that moved me greatly last week. I picked up a sefer, Rabbi Yitzchok Torah Mussar, and he has about the Brisker Rav a story, a beautiful story. He says that there was a Yid, Reb Abba Zayens. He was born in Brisk, in the city in Europe, in Brisk, a toishev. He says that he would stay Sukkos to be with the Brisker Rav and not go home like others went home, to be around the Brisker Rav during Sukkos because there was so much to see and so much to take in. And one of the high points, he says, that he saw and that he took in was a song that the Brisker Rav would ask to be sung in front of him, a song. Rabbi Yitzchok says something so interesting, a historical note, very interesting. You ready? Very interesting. What was the song? He would turn to two Berelach. He had two people in Brisk. Their names was Berel. That was their name. One of them was Berel Rosenblum. And the other one was Berel Fishman. And both of them never made it out of Nazi Europe. They were killed by the Nazis. He would turn to them and say, Sing me the song called Tirza, Tirza, a song called Tirza. I went to look today. You're able to have a list of all the songs on the, what is that little tchotchke that they have the kids today? What do they have, that little iPod. Today you have the iPod, yeah? Toysnt, thousands of songs. I went to look for the song Tirza. I couldn't find it. Sadly, so, rabosai, we forget our history, and there's so much beauty in the culture, in the culture, and in the history. Important to learn history, rabosai, and take in the shal avicha v'yagedcha, zekenecha v'yomru lach, the culture of years past. There was a song called Tirza. What was Tirza? What was it? And he writes that when they sang the song Tirza, the Brisker Rav was crying, and he was lost in thought. And he would ask that he should sing it again because he wants to hear this part of the song and that part of the song and this line and this. What was the song Tirza?

Was it? The words were in Yiddish. It was a song made up by the Beis Halevi, the Brisker Rav's grandfather. There was a woman in Brisk. Her name was Tirtza. That was her name. She comes to the Brisk, to Reb Beis Halevi, and she opens up her heart, her pain, her suffering, her yisurim. She opens up to the Beis Halevi, and the Beis Halevi responds by giving her chizuk, by being nosei b'ol, giving her words of encouragement. And those words the Beis Halevi made into a song. Yeah, the Beis Halevi, the words of the chizuk that he gave, you hear? He made it into a song, which ends with the words, Haben yakir li Ephraim, im yeled sha'ashuim. And the Brisker Rav would listen to this song, and he would try to understand the depth of every passage. What was he learning? Like people learn today a Rav Chaim Brisker. They're me'ayin in every word of Rav Chaim Brisker. The Brisker Rav was being me'ayin in the Beis Halevi. What was he being me'ayin? And the answer is amkus of nosei b'ol im chaveiro, levels of depth of understanding someone else's pain. There's so much depth. And there's so much Jewish genius, so much rich ruchniyus in being nosei b'ol im chaveiro. The words mirrored all the Beis HaLevi's feelings, and all the Beis HaLevi's emotions, and all the Beis HaLevi's understanding of what it means to be nosei b'ol im chaveiro. Here, it's beautiful. Here, the words. He was learning it like today you learn about Rav Chaim. Could you imagine someone sitting at a table and he's learning up a song from the Beis HaLevi, that the Beis HaLevi phrased words and concepts of nosei b'ol im chaveiro, how to encourage and be mechazek, and the Briskerov, the genius—he was a genius, the Briskerov. He saw so much levels of depth in those words, because nosei b'ol is about the heart, and there's so much depth of the Jewish heart on how to be nosei b'ol im chaveiro, how to identify, how to be mechazek, especially when it comes from the heart of a giant in Torah like the Beis HaLevi. Nosei b'ol im chaveiro is yadus. It's Torah, and we need to learn on how to have proper empathy. It's not just something that comes, Oh, I feel bad for you. People think, Huh, feel poor guy, feel bad for you. Sorry, sorry to hear that. That's good, it's a start. It's a start. It's so much more. It's so much more feelings that you have to put into it. Nosan eineh v'liboi, levels of hergeshim, of emotion, of Jewish ruchniyusdike lev v'nefesh. That's noisa b'ohel im chaveiro. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.