Our Soul Thirsts for Hashem - How We Can Feel This Every Day | Parshas Vaeira

00:00 The Exodus from Egypt is a very, very central theme in our lives, in the life of a Jew. We see that almost every mitzvah, every holiday, everything we do, is connected to the Exodus from Egypt. When a Jew makes Kiddush on Shabbos or Yom Tov, he says, “in remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt.” We mention the Exodus from Egypt on all the holidays. We mention it in our prayers and when we put on tefillin each day. In the morning prayers, in the Shema we say in the morning and the Shema we say at night—every time we say Shema, we conclude: “I am Hashem your G-d, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” What is it about the Exodus from Egypt that makes it so central, so fundamental, to our everyday lives? What is its message for us? Today we’ll explore the deeper meaning of the Exodus from Egypt: what it means in my life, in the life of each one of us, and why it really is so central to our lives. We’ll see that the Exodus from Egypt is not only a historical event, though that is its straightforward meaning. It was an event of enormous historical significance. We became a people. The Exodus from Egypt represents the passage from slavery to freedom. The Jewish people had been enslaved in Egypt, subject to another nation, and then we became free—a liberated people. That was when our existence as a people began, along with everything that followed. That’s true, but there is something much deeper. Chassidus teaches us that the Exodus from Egypt is something present and vividly real in our everyday lives, and that is what we’ll discuss today. We’ll explore who this “Egypt” is that we’re talking about. There is a place, a country, the land of Egypt, but there is also an inner Egypt within each

02:29 and every one of us. What is this spiritual Egypt we’re talking about? What does it mean to leave Egypt, and how is this something we actually experience and live through every day—something that gives us strength and power in our everyday lives? One of the wonderful things the Alter Rebbe teaches us in Tanya reflects what Chassidus, the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, does throughout: it takes the Torah and gives it meaning for life, meaning for the present. We don’t study the Torah only as something that happened in the past. Rather, we take every detail, every verse, every story, every halachah, everything in the Torah, and learn what it means for us in our everyday lives. This is certainly true of something as central to Jewish life as the Exodus from Egypt. The Alter Rebbe devotes a very interesting chapter to it in Tanya—not a long chapter, a short one, perhaps the shortest in the book. But in that chapter, he gives us a wonderful understanding of what the Exodus from Egypt means in everyday life. It is chapter 47 of Tanya. The Alter Rebbe opens with a teaching from the Mishnah, a very famous Mishnah in the tenth chapter of Tractate Pesachim: “In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as though he had left Egypt.” This Mishnah appears in the context of the laws of Pesach. Tractate Pesachim discusses laws connected with the holiday of Pesach and the Pesach Haggadah, and these words are part of the Haggadah. We all know them from the Pesach Haggadah: “In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as though he had left Egypt.” In other words, when Pesach arrives, the halachah tells us that on the night of Pesach, at the Seder, it isn’t enough to eat matzah and thereby fulfill the mitzvah of Pesach. A person must truly live it, experience the Exodus from Egypt anew, as though

04:58 he himself had left Egypt. And we do see this in halachah: when Seder night arrives, there are detailed laws about reclining and sitting like free people, and about setting the table as though for a king. We know that Jewish custom and many laws govern the way we celebrate Pesach, the season of our freedom. But here the Alter Rebbe says something different and very interesting. He changes the text slightly, writing it a little differently. These are his words: “Now, in every generation and on each and every day, a person is obligated to see himself as though he left Egypt today.” Notice that the Alter Rebbe uses the wording of the Mishnah but adds a few words—words that give it an entirely new perspective and meaning. “In every generation,” says the Alter Rebbe, “and on each and every day.” That isn’t written in the Mishnah. As we explained, the Mishnah is speaking about Pesach. The straightforward meaning of “in every generation” is that each year, when Pesach arrives, a Jew needs to live through it. But the Alter Rebbe says no, there is something deeper here: “in every generation” means, in fact, on each and every day. Then he adds something else, as though that still weren’t enough: “A person is obligated to see himself as though he left Egypt today.” That isn’t written in the Haggadah or in the Mishnah. The Mishnah says, “as though he had left Egypt”; he adds, “as though he left Egypt today.” So he is giving us two wonderful new insights. First, experiencing and living the Exodus from Egypt is something a person must do each and every day. Second, how should we live the Exodus from Egypt? As though it happened today. Let’s explain what these two wonderful insights mean.

07:10 First, “in every generation and on each and every day.” Where did the Alter Rebbe get that from? After all, that isn’t what the Mishnah says. Where did he get these words that give the whole Mishnah a new meaning? In fact, he is bringing together two Mishnayos. There is a Mishnah in Tractate Berachos, chapter 1, Mishnah 5, which says: “The Exodus from Egypt is mentioned at night.” That Mishnah discusses the obligation to mention the Exodus from Egypt. There is a mitzvah to recall the Exodus from Egypt every day. The Torah says: “So that you will remember the day you left the land of Egypt all the days of your life.” In other words, a Jew has a mitzvah to remember the Exodus from Egypt “all the days of your life.” Halachah tells us that this mitzvah obligates a Jew to mention the Exodus from Egypt every day. Once again, this shows so clearly how important the Exodus from Egypt is in everyday life. From there, the Mishnah begins a discussion of when we mention it. We mention the Exodus from Egypt every day when we recite the Shema in our prayers. The Shema we say each day has three passages: the first begins “Hear, O Israel” and includes “You shall love Hashem your G-d.” The second is the passage beginning “And it will be, if you listen.” Then there is the third passage of the Shema, the passage about tzitzis. We take hold of our tzitzis and recite that passage, joining all three passages together; all of this is called the recitation of Shema. At the end of the third passage are the verses about the Exodus from Egypt, as we mentioned: “I am Hashem your G-d, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your G-d; I am Hashem your G-d.” In prayer, we conclude with the word “true.” That word is not part of the verse, but this is the verse that speaks about the Exodus from Egypt, and through it we fulfill the mitzvah of remembering the Exodus from Egypt every

09:30 Day. So here the Mishnah begins discussing when we do this. According to Torah law, tzitzis applies only during the day; at night there is no obligation of tzitzis. Does that mean we do not mention the Exodus from Egypt at night? Is it only during the day? We know that, in practice, we recite all three passages not only in the morning but also at night, in the evening prayers and in the Shema before bed. That is because the obligation, as the halachah rules, is to mention the Exodus from Egypt both by day and by night. So the Mishnah in Berachos discusses the daily obligation to mention the Exodus from Egypt. Now look at the wonderful thing the Alter Rebbe teaches us as we study this mitzvah, the obligation to mention the Exodus from Egypt every day. The wording seems to call only for remembering. Remembering is like saying, “I recall something that happened in the past.” A Jew is obligated to recall every day the great miracles Hashem did for us when He took us out of Egypt. And I fulfill that by saying these words, “I am Hashem your G-d.” I have said the text, the verse, and thereby fulfilled the obligation to mention the Exodus from Egypt by day and by night. The Alter Rebbe says: No. Here he connects the two Mishnayos. The Mishnah that tells us a Jew must remember the Exodus from Egypt every day, both morning and evening, has the same meaning as the Mishnah in Pesachim. In fact, they connect and complete one another. “In every generation” applies on Pesach, but also every single day, during prayer, when reciting Shema and its passages. Every day, when I mention the Exodus from Egypt morning and evening, “a person must see himself.” A person needs to live it, to feel it—not just recite the text and recall something that happened in the past. He needs to see

11:40 himself as though he had gone out, as something happening to him today. And here the Alter Rebbe adds something else, as we said: “as though he had gone out of Egypt today.” Why this addition? The Mishnah does not say “today”; it says, “as though he had gone out of Egypt.” Here too, the Alter Rebbe adds a word by way of explanation: “as though he had gone out of Egypt today.” What does that mean? When we study the Haggadah, recite the Haggadah, or study the Mishnah in Pesachim, the explanation is the one given in the Pesach Haggadah itself: Why, on Pesach, must a Jew feel freedom as though he had gone out of Egypt? What does it mean to say that a person must celebrate Pesach as though he had gone out of Egypt? The explanation, as the Pesach Haggadah says, is: “Had Hakadosh Boruch Hu not taken our ancestors out of Egypt, we and our children and our children’s children would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.” In other words, if the Exodus from Egypt had not happened at precisely the right moment, at the exact time it was meant to happen, we would have remained trapped in Egypt forever. As is known, the Exodus from Egypt happened at exactly the right moment. Had Hakadosh Boruch Hu not taken us out of Egypt then, we would have remained there to this day. Since that is so, I too, in a sense, am going out of Egypt. That is the simple meaning. But the Alter Rebbe comes and adds the deeper meaning of the inner dimension of Torah. There is something else here: “as though he had gone out of Egypt today.” It is not just a continuation of what happened to our ancestors—not just that, had we remained there then, we would still be there today. Rather, an Exodus from Egypt is actually taking place today. How do we understand this? Here the Alter Rebbe gives us a wonderful explanation of the Exodus from Egypt and how it finds expression in a Jew’s daily spiritual life. Mitzrayim

13:54 is related to the word meitzar, a narrow strait. Mitzrayim means boundaries. A meitzar is something very confined, very limited. The Alter Rebbe says: The narrow strait we are talking about is the limitation every person has by virtue of being in a physical body together with an animal soul. The soul Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us is a pure soul. As the Alter Rebbe explains in depth throughout the Tanya, the Jewish soul is literally a part of G-d above. The soul itself is free of every kind of boundary, measure, constriction, or limitation—everything that restricts us. Because we are part of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, part of the Infinite, the soul has infinite power. It has boundless energy for an infinite connection with the true Infinite, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But the soul descended below. It came down into this physical world, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu placed it in a material body, dust from the earth—a physical body with an animal soul, the yetzer hara within us. The G-dly soul is meant to live within this limitation, within this prison of the body and animal soul, for 120 years. What am I doing in this prison? That is Mitzrayim. What is Mitzrayim? As the Torah says, Egypt was “the nakedness of the land.” Egypt was a place where the Jewish people, the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, who were meant to be in the Land of Israel, the holiest place, found themselves in a land called “the nakedness of the land”—a place of impurity and the sitra achra, a place of darkness, a place of everything opposite to the holiness of the Land of Israel. And the Jewish people remained there for 210 years. That is the land of Egypt, “the nakedness of the land.” In fact, this is happening to us right now, today. When I get up in the morning, open my eyes, and look at myself, I ask: Who am I, and where am I? A pure soul that is literally a part of G-d above. We say Modeh

16:35 Ani: “I thank You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully returned my soul within me; great is Your faithfulness.” The pure soul, literally a part of G-d above, connected to the Infinite, is here. Where do I find myself? Inside a physical, material body full of wants, desires, and pleasures—things completely at odds with serving Hashem. In a world surrounded by so much darkness, so much evil, so much materialism. What am I doing here? And then comes the good news: “I am Hashem your G-d, Who took you out of the land of Egypt.” Now, at this very moment, right where you are, you have the ability to free yourself completely and absolutely from the narrow straits and limitations of the body and the animal soul. How do you do it? The moment you pick up the siddur, the moment you get up, place your hand over your eyes, and say, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One,” a Jew proclaims with this verse, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” I am saying that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is our G-d. He is not somewhere up in the seventh heaven, far away in some lofty, abstract place. On the contrary, He is our G-d. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is my G-d. As the Shulchan Aruch explains, “our G-d” means “our strength and our life.” He is my strength, my energy, my life. He is here with me. “Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” What does “Hashem is One” mean? As explained in the Shulchan Aruch, the Hebrew word for “one” has three letters: alef, ches, and dalet. Alef stands for the Master of the world. Ches, whose numerical value is eight, represents the seven heavens and the earth. Dalet, whose numerical value is four, represents the four directions of the world. I proclaim Hakadosh Boruch Hu King over the entire world, the entire universe, all of existence. The moment I say Shema Yisroel with the basic, straightforward meaning of its words in mind, and focus on what Shema Yisroel says, at that moment there is a wondrous, complete, and absolute release from

19:10 The G-dly soul is, so to speak, now coming out, breaking free from the prison of the body and the animal soul. And at that moment, a real bond and connection with the Infinite is formed. It begins with Shema Yisroel. That is why this is the first thing a Jew does when he gets up in the morning and goes to pray, and afterward it finds expression in every mitzvah we perform throughout the day. Because what, in essence, is a mitzvah? Any mitzvah at all—what does the word mitzvah mean? Mitzvah means togetherness, connection: to connect, to bond, to unite. The moment I perform a mitzvah—I put on tefillin, I wrap myself in tzitzis, I give tzedakah, I wash my hands—we say, “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us.” At that moment, through this simple act, I have the wonderful opportunity to become sanctified—“He has sanctified us”—to rise to the holiness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There is only one who is holy, and that is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But He has sanctified us; He has lifted us up, raised us higher. He has given you the opportunity, in everyday life, through performing this mitzvah, to rise above the prison of the physical body and the animal soul, and to bond completely and absolutely with Him, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, with the Infinite. The Alter Rebbe adds another layer of depth and says: Let’s think about what is really happening when we pray, study Torah, or perform a mitzvah in our daily lives. The Alter Rebbe says this: When Hakadosh Boruch Hu took us out of Egypt, “the depravity of the land,” the Jewish people were immersed in the deepest impurity. It was not only physical enslavement; there was spiritual enslavement here too. The Jewish people were immersed in the deepest impurity, the forty-nine gates of impurity, as is well known. And amid all that impurity was the Jewish people, with the pure soul we had inherited from Avraham Avinu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu came and said, “I will descend to save them.” I Myself, not someone else. We say it in the Pesach Haggadah: not through an angel, not through a

21:41 seraph, not through a messenger—“I, and no other.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not send anyone. He Himself—“I will descend to save them”—came to take the Jewish people out of the pit of Egypt. That exodus from Egypt led to the giving of the Torah, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “I am Hashem your G-d.” Not in the plural, but in the singular. In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu addresses you personally and says: Know this—“I am Hashem your G-d.” What does “Anokhi,” “I,” mean? Anokhi means I Myself. Anokhi refers, so to speak, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu in His very essence and being, to His deepest, innermost self. And as the Gemara says in tractate Shabbos, the word Anokhi is an acronym for “Ana nafshi kesavis yehavis.” In Aramaic: “Ana nafshi kesavis yehavis.” That is, I, Hakadosh Boruch Hu—My very self, so to speak—I have written. I have, so to speak, written Myself into the Torah. And “yehavis,” in Aramaic, means “I have given.” I have, so to speak, given Myself over within the Torah. You want to unite with Me? You want, so to speak, to grasp Me, to connect with Me? I am present in every word of Torah, in every mitzvah you perform. That is where I am. “Ana nafshi kesavis yehavis.” So the moment a Jew says a word of Torah or a word of prayer—especially when you say Shema Yisroel, because then you are declaring, “Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One”—at that very moment, with nothing else and no other conditions, the moment you ask for it, you receive it. You ask to be united, and you are united, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu has already given Himself; He has handed Himself over. “For by the light of Your countenance You have given us, Hashem our G-d, a Torah of life and a love of kindness.” “For by the light of Your countenance You have given us, Hashem our G-d”—the Alter Rebbe offers a remarkable explanation, a wonderful explanation. Because of the great love

24:00 with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves His people, the Jewish people, “You have given us Hashem our G-d.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu has, so to speak, given to us. What has He given us? He has given us “Hashem our G-d”—Himself—through “a Torah of life and a love of kindness.” Within that Torah of life and that love of kindness, within the mitzvos and within the Torah, who is there? Hashem our G-d. Here you have this wonderful connection, and this is, in essence, the exodus from Egypt that takes place each and every day, whenever a Jew prays and serves Hashem by fulfilling the mitzvos. So this is what it means. “In every generation”—Pesach is the special time of year when it is the time of freedom. Pesach is a particular period, but this happens every single day, not only on Pesach. You don’t have to wait for Pesach to arrive. Rather, it happens every day. As we said, you wake up in the morning on an ordinary, plain, gray day, as people say. You say Modeh Ani, as you do every day, and you come to recite Shema Yisroel. That is when we fulfill the mitzvah of remembering the exodus from Egypt. Look how wonderful this is. What did we say earlier? When do we fulfill it? Seemingly, these are two mitzvos. There is the mitzvah of reciting Shema, an obligation: a Jew must say Shema in the morning and in the evening. And there is another mitzvah, the mitzvah of remembering the exodus from Egypt. These are two different mitzvos. When do we fulfill this mitzvah? At the same time. That is the halachah. When does a Jew fulfill the mitzvah of remembering the exodus from Egypt? When he recites the passage of Shema and finishes the final verse. What is the connection between the two mitzvos? They are two mitzvos that seem to have no connection at all. Why were they put together? Now we understand: in essence, they are one mitzvah. They come down to the same point. Shema Yisroel is crowning Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King, accepting the yoke of the kingship

26:07 of Heaven, as the Gemara says in tractate Berachos. When a Jew says Shema Yisroel, he is, in essence, giving himself over to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He says: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is our G-d; He is mine and I am His. At that point, the release takes place. That is where freedom happens. That is where the exodus from the constraints and limitations of a Jew takes place: he leaves the prison of the body and the animal soul, and has the most wonderful opportunity to unite with the infinity and boundlessness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu through fulfilling the mitzvos. Now we can understand what it means to regard himself as though he left Egypt today. It is actually happening to us today, on this very day. A moment before reciting Shema Yisroel, I was in my own personal bondage. I was in the deepest prison, surrounded by all the darkness. The moment I say Shema Yisroel, I am free. I am entirely, completely in a state of Geulah. I am together with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I have left Egypt. Today I am leaving Egypt. This is the wonderful message of the Alter Rebbe in Tanya, and it teaches us the extraordinary power of every mitzvah, the extraordinary power of Torah study, the extraordinary power of reciting Shema Yisroel: how we have the wonderful possibility and opportunity to break free of our own constraints in daily life. Very often—and this happens to each and every one of us—we feel we have fallen into gray days. A person feels that he is in some kind of prison, a spiritual prison. In fact, it happens to us all the time, at different moments: every day is the same. I get up in the morning; I go to sleep. We have fallen into a certain kind of everyday life, the same way, the same routine. We lack the feeling of something new, something refreshing. Sometimes that is what ordinary days are like—gray days. And in a Jew’s life, this can happen many times even when a Jew does observe mitzvos, even when a Jew

28:17 Yes, he learns Torah and does what he needs to do. But sometimes we’ve become so used to doing the same thing every day that we don’t even think about what we’re doing. That, too, is a kind of Mitzrayim—a kind of confinement. The Alter Rebbe says, not in Tanya but in his maamarim, elsewhere: You should know that Mitzrayim isn’t only the confinement of desires, improper thoughts, negative things, the impurity that pursues us, and the yetzer hara that wants to bring jealousy, hatred, competition, and all kinds of evil into our lives. That’s one kind of Mitzrayim. There’s also the Mitzrayim of our everyday lives as Jews: when we’ve forgotten what’s really happening here, when we’ve become accustomed to every day being the same. We’ve gotten into a cycle, into a box, into a certain daily routine. I get up in the morning, I do the same things, and I no longer even think about why or what I’m doing. That’s where the idea of the Exodus from Egypt comes in: freeing ourselves from our constraints and limitations—not only those of the yetzer hara, but also those of the yetzer tov. Not staying in the same place and the same state, with every day just like the last. A Jew needs to know that the soul gives him unlimited, infinite strength, and that every day he has the wonderful opportunity to break free of his limitations and connect with the Infinite. If, before you begin Shema Yisroel, you think about the meaning of the words you’re about to say, you’ll feel yourself leaving all limitations behind. Saying Shema Yisroel will lift you up. And so what do we say in the continuation of that passage? “And you shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” Not just love, but love that takes hold of my entire heart, my entire soul—all the soul’s faculties—my entire body, and also “with all your might”—me’odecha, me’od,

30:35 me’od means “very.” Very. Beyond all the limitations I’m used to. Going beyond my limitations, giving myself over completely, leaving my limitations behind. That is the daily Exodus from Egypt that every Jew has the opportunity to experience each day. Now we can understand why we mention the Exodus from Egypt so often, why it accompanies us every day—in the recitation of Shema Yisroel, in our prayers, on the festivals, on Shabbos, and in Kiddush. Because we are, in fact, in a daily process of leaving our constraints behind. This is the most wonderful gift Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us, and continues to give us at every moment: the ability to free ourselves from our Mitzrayim, the ability to connect with the Unlimited, with the Infinite. It can happen at any moment, in every action, every word, and every thought. And so it is written, “As in the days of your exodus from the land of Egypt, I will show him wonders.” The verse says, “As in the days of your exodus from the land of Egypt”—so, too, when Moshiach comes, we will see wonders. And the Alter Rebbe asks: Why does it say “days,” in the plural? The Exodus from Egypt took place on one day. On that day they left Egypt, and afterward they were already in the desert. The Exodus from Egypt happened only once. But now we understand that, in fact, the Exodus from Egypt isn’t over yet. We are continually going through stages of leaving Egypt. It happens every day. It happens both by day and by night. “Day” means beautiful days, days of light, days when things are bright. “Night” means moments of darkness, difficult moments in the periods of our history and in a Jew’s daily life. By day you have the ability to free yourself from your constraints; even in the night, in the darkness of exile, you have the ability to free yourself from your constraints and limitations. “I will show him wonders”—when we truly begin to live the Exodus from Egypt in this way, then

32:49 that is what will free us from this dark exile. “I will show him wonders”—may we soon merit to see the wonders of the complete Geulah. So what does this mean for us in our daily lives, from today onward? When we get up in the morning, let’s begin to look at our lives, at the wonderful thing, the wonderful gift, the great love with which Hashem gives us this opportunity, extends His hand to us. He Himself gives us “I am Hashem your G-d.” I have the opportunity to free myself from Mitzrayim. Think about that before you say Shema Yisroel. Think about it before you perform a mitzvah. Think about it before you begin a lesson in Gemara, in halachah, a Torah lesson. Remember the Exodus from Egypt. Lift yourself up, go beyond your limitations, leave your constraints behind. See how Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in His great love, gives you the opportunity to emerge from all the darkness and unite with the Infinite, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. This is the greatest preparation for our personal Geulah and for the Geulah of the Jewish people as a whole. May we already merit to see the fulfillment of the promise, “As in the days of your exodus from the land of Egypt, I will show him wonders,” in the complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu, today.