04 Jan BO- KNOWING IT AND FEELING IT

The letters of
of one, אל-הים
the Names of
Hashem, can
be rearranged
– מי אלה spell to
“who are these?”
These two arrangements of the
letters represent two different
ways we can look at the world and
at things that happen in life. One
way is to wonder, אלה מי” – What
is all this?! What’s going on?!”
This is the reaction of feeling
overwhelmed and anxious by everything we see going on around
us.
The other reaction is to see אל
הים ,-to recognize that everything
is just a piece in a perfectlydesigned puzzle put together by
Hashem. We might not be able
to see how everything fits. It
might not make any sense to us.
But even so, we must try to feel
truly to, מי אלה of instead אל-הים
believe that Hashem is behind
everything that takes place, and
everything is exactly the way it’s
supposed to be.
When Moshe confronted Pharaoh the first time, and relayed to
him Hashem’s command that He
let Beneh Yisrael out of Egypt,
Pharaoh responded, ’ה מי” – Who
is Hashem?” He felt confident
and invincible. He thought he
controlled everything. The process of the plagues was meant to
break this feeling of invincibility and make Pharaoh realize that
only Hashem is in charge.
At the end of last week’s parashah, Parashat Vaera, it seemed
for a brief moment that this was
successful. After seven plagues,
Pharaoh finally admitted, חטאתי
I… – “ה‘ הצדיק- ואני ועמי- הרשעים
have sinned; Hashem is the righteous one, and I and my nation are
wicked.” The message finally got
through to his mind.
But this didn’t last. As soon as
the seventh plague – the plague of
hail – ended, Pharaoh continued
defying Hashem.
In the beginning of Parashat
Bo, Hashem tells Moshe that He
would be bringing more plagues,
that so – למען שתי אותותי- אלה בקרבו
these miracles would be placed
within Pharaoh. The message of
אלה ,that all the different things
that happen in the world are all
part of Hashem’s plan, needed to
enter קרבו ,the fiber of Pharaoh’s
being. He understood it in his
mind, but now it had to reach his
heart.
The Titanic was built to be the
greatest, most invincible ship ever
built, but it is now synonymous
with human error and tragedy.
Lou Gehrig was called the “Iron
Horse” for his durability, but now
the cruel, deadly disease that took
his life is named after him. Kobe
Bryant was one of the most successful and well-respected professional athletes in the world, and
he was killed in a crash. These
are all terrible tragedies, and it
goes without saying that we can
never claim to know why Hashem
caused them to happen. But when
things like this occur, they remind
us that אלה מי is really הים-אל ,that
only Hashem runs the world.
The current pandemic, hopefully, will have the effect of bringing
this message בקרבנו ,within our
hearts and souls. If before this
crisis we knew in our minds that
Hashem controls the world, the
extraordinary events of the past
year should instill this belief deep
within our beings. And when we
feel deep within our beings that
Hashem controls everything, and
nothing happens by chance, we
can live with greater confidence
and calm, fully trusting that no
matter what is going on around us
or going on in our lives, we are
being cared for by Hashem. May
this emunah serve to inspire us,
uplift us, encourage us, and reassure us that we are under Hashem’s loving care at all times.