21 Oct NOACH: GALUS

The Tiferes Shlomo
(Rosh Hashanah)
writes that in the
future, we will
discover the goodness
that was concealed
in the galus, and
the hint is (Tehillim
96:11) Yism’chu
Hashamayim V’tagel
Ha’aretz, “The
heavens will rejoice
and the earth will exult.” The word v’tagel
spells galus.
Reb Elchanan Wasserman zt’l hy’d was
asked in the Kovna Ghetto a few days
before his petirah, “Why did Hashem
do this? What is the purpose of all this
suffering?”
Reb Elchanan replied with a mashal:
A man from the city approached a farmer
and asked him to teach him the ways of
farmers. The city person had no idea what
farmers do and was interested in learning.
The farmer said, “I will teach you, but you
must be a patient student. The lessons and

teachings of farmers will take lots of time.
It isn’t something that I can teach you in
just one day.”
“I will be patient,” the student replied.
“Then come out with me to the field,” the
farmer said.
They went outside, and the farmer asked
his new student, “What do you see?” The
student replied that he saw a field covered
with high grass.
The farmer took a plow and plowed and
ripped out the grass and beautiful flowers
growing wildly in the field. Now, the
field was empty, with many holes from
the plowing. The shocked student asked,
“Why are you ruining the field with your
own hands? It looked better before! You
call yourself a farmer? You only ruin
fields.”
The farmer replied, “Patience. I told you
that you need patience to understand
farmers’ ways. You won’t understand in
one day.”
The next day, he called his new student,
and they went out to the field again. The
farmer took a bag filled with wheat kernels
and asked the student, “What do you see
today?”
He said what he saw. “I see a bag of wheat
kernels.”
The farmer planted the kernels in the field,
in the holes he prepared yesterday, and
then covered them with earth.
The student was shocked. “Isn’t it enough
that you ruined the field yesterday and got
rid of all the grass that was growing in it?
Now you are being even more foolish.
You are taking good wheat kernels, which
could be cooked or baked and eaten, and
you are burying them in the ground! Why
do you waste your money?”
The farmer replied, “Remember what I
told you. You need patience.”
A few months later, the farmer called his
student and told him it was time to return
to the field again. Together, they went out
to the field, and the student saw orderly
rows of growing wheat. “What do you
see now?” the farmer asked. The student
replied, “I realize I was wrong for doubting
you earlier. Now, the field is much more
beautiful than it was before.”
The farmer replied, “The process isn’t over
yet. You will still need a lot of patience.
There will be more questions and
surprises before you learn the ways of
farmers.”
After some more time passed, the
farmer called for his student and they
went out to the field again. The wheat
had grown very high, and the wheat
stalks were filled with seeds. The
farmer began cutting the grain with a
sickle.
The student shouted, “Why are you
ruining your field?! I don’t believe
what I see! You finally have a good
field, and you ruin it again!
The farmer replied, “Savlanus.
Patience. You will understand, but you
need to practice your patience.”
The farmer placed all the cut stalks into
a pile and began hitting them with a
hammer. (This is called dash, threshing.
It separates the kernels from the stalks).
The student watched in surprise. He
held himself back from asking all the
burning questions inside him
Afterward, using a shovel, the farmer
threw stalks of wheat into the air,
and the wind blew the stalks away
to the distance while the kernels fell
to the ground. (This is called zoreh,
winnowing.)
The student was quite upset with
what the farmer was doing to his field
but forced himself to remain silent.

However, when he saw the farmer grinding
the wheat kernels into “white dust,” he
couldn’t contain himself any longer. He
didn’t realize that this “white dust” was
flour. He shouted, “Why did you turn your
wheat into dust? What purpose is there to
grinding your beautiful wheat?”
As he expected, the farmer replied,
“Savlanus. Patience. Be patient, and you
will see
The student was in for some more
surprises. The farmer mixed the “white
dust” with water and made dough from
it. In the student’s eyes, this was a useless
“mud” mixture. But when the farmer
formed the dough into bread, the student
began to understand. There was purpose
and meaning to what the farmer was doing.
He was creating bread.
But then the farmer took the form of bread
and placed it on the fire. The student
couldn’t control himself any longer. He
shouted, “For months, you worked and
finally began to make something. You
finally created a loaf of bread! But then you
throw it into the fire? Don’t you care about
your time? Don’t you care to accomplish
something in your life? Why do you throw
your hard work into the fire?”
The response was once again, “Savlanus,
patience.”
Soon, the bread was taken out of the oven,
and the smell was heavenly. He invited the
student to a meal and gave him a slice of
bread. The farmer said, “Nu, now do you
understand?”
The nimshal is that we don’t understand
Hashem’s ways. We wonder and shout,
“Why is Hakadosh Baruch Hu throwing
everything into the fire? Have rachmanus
on your creations.” But when Moshiach
comes, we will understand why all of this
had to occur. And until then, we must wait
patiently. The time will come when we
discover all the good we gained from the
galus. (Kobetz Maamaim v’Igos, vol.2
p.224).