Dvar Torah on Parshas Vaeira | Soft Like Spelt

Here we go again.[inaudible] said to Mo, stretch out your hand toward heaven, and there will be hail in the entire land of Egypt on man and beast in an all the grass of the field, in the land of Egypt. The seventh plague. Hail. So Mosha does as instructed[inaudible] continue. Mosha stretched out his staff toward heaven. There was hail and fire flaming amid the hail. Strong hail that has never been seen in the entire land of Egypt from the time it became a nation and then were treated to a depiction of the destruction. Everything that was in the field. The pasek says from man to beast. In all the grass of the field, the hails struck, and every tree of the field, it's smashed except for the land of Goshen where the children of Israel were. There was no hail there. Amazing. So we have this destructive plague and the Egyptians are really getting it so power can't take it. He summons Mohan iron and says, please come. I can't take it. I'm a sinner. God's righteous. Me and my people are the wicked ones. Go dive. I can't stand the godly thunder in the godly hail. Get out. I don't wanna see you again. I surrender. Mosha says, okay, when I leave the city, I'm gonna dive into Hashem. I'm gonna spread my hands out to him and it will cease. The hail will no longer be, and then something very odd happens. You'll find this all in the seventh Aaliyah of Apar. It's Paik Lak. Verse 30. And as for you and your servants, I know that you are not yet afraid of hash God. LA shooting off into seemingly a random direction. The flax and the barley were struck for. The barley was ripe and the flax was in its stalk and the wheat and the spelt. Those plants, those crops were not struck. They were not destroyed. Lone nuku, he. Now let's begin with the obvious question. This description of these products, these crops are completely outta place. It was four or five. So before that, the tire was describing all of the different products that were smashed. This is already after Parro has some in Mosha. He said, y'all leave. I don't know if he said it like that, but he said, get outta here. Mosha says, okay. And only then does the tell you revert back to describing which crops were struck, and let's make things even worse. We already got a general description. Are these details really necessary?[inaudible] as[inaudible] all that was in the field, all smashed, borrowed. It was all wrecked. We have to go back here and put these details in. Is it really necessary? It seems completely

Extraneous. And here's the knockout punch. In most[inaudible] you'll find that there's a word given at the end of the par show that has the same numerical value as the amount of sk, the amount of verses in that par show, and it kind of summarizes a theme that's going on in the par show. There are 121 PSK in Adro sidra, and that is numerically corresponding to the mnemonic. Give O the word give O is the one selected as the word at the end of our parsha. If you search the entire par, you'll find this word and none other. Then our topic. You'll find this word as the description for why the[inaudible], the flax and the barley were hit and destroyed. Give is the description of why the flax was destroyed, and that's the word that's picked. To summarize, our parsha explains rib David Feinstein an idea that can save lives and increase your peace of mind. The word give all means rigid. It means firm, it means unwilling to bend. And the par is summarized by this idea because that's what the Egyptians were most notably. That's what Paros mentality was. He was unwilling to change his mind. No matter what miraculous events occurred, we're up to the seventh Mak and he still won't give in give O. He was rigid. That's why this word is picked. And he proves this idea from our pus. The flax was destroyed because it was give O. The nature is that when something is very rigid, very hard, and something smashes into it, it just snaps bones of a younger person give a little bit. There's a softness to them. So if there's an impact with a football or a basketball, a lot of times it will just bend. But God forbid it's a tragedy. Or it can be very dangerous if an elderly person falls over, the bones are less soft, let's pliable and they can snap. And God forbid, contrary to what we might think, the ability to bend is actually stronger than being unwilling to bend, being workable, being pliable. That's AK.[inaudible][inaudible] But when it comes to the we into the spelt, why were they not destroyed? They blew in the wind. They were able to absorb the impact to bend like a reed and then to pop right back up. Being rigid makes you susceptible. The gamar tells us the oil heavy[inaudible] A person should, should always be soft like a read. You need to bend a little bit. Now it doesn't mean to be a pushover, to let whatever that's coming your way just to let it all be, to sit there quietly accepting anything that comes your way. It doesn't mean that at all. To be flexible

Means to be within the guidelines of Torah law, but to be open to the right way to do things. Maybe I'm not entirely right. Maybe the other person's correct. Maybe there's another way to do things. Maybe I can look at it from a different angle. That's what it means to be flexible.[inaudible] soft like a read. It was something that poro lacked, and it's for that exact reason that the flax did not withstand the hailstorm. Now, there's an interesting occurrence that happens in the tallest buildings in the world and some of the largest skyscrapers. The engineers are faced with the problem. These buildings must withstand extreme weather. They need to find a way to somehow alleviate the wind pressure. But if they build these buildings, rock solid cement blocks and metal iron, well then they'll just crack under the pressure. So skyscrapers are actually designed to sway in the wind. And in some of the research that I did, I found that the Sears Tower of Chicago actually sways about six inches daily. It's unsettling to hear these facts, but this is the way they're designed. It's safer for a building to sway the Empire State Building 1.45 inches per day for a tall structure. To remain solid, it needs to sway a little bit. It needs to be flexible. So back to our questions. This isn't the place for the target to describe what was destroyed that was already done before it missed the opportunity. We also asked, are these details really necessary? And here's where things really take off. So when Mosha is summoned by Paro and he comes in and tells Pao, okay, I will dive in so that the hail will no longer be here. And then the Tara jumps to the flax and the barley were struck, and all these unnecessary details. That's Mosha Rnu talking. Mosha is telling Paro, look at the destruction. Take a lesson from the flax, take a lesson from the spellt. If you were give a little bit, if you would see things from a different light, you might be saved. Learn to blow in the wind. Be[inaudible]. Be soft like a reed. It's unbelievable. These are not out of place unnecessary descriptions. This is Mohas soliloquy parro. You would've been saved if you would've been willing to change, if you wouldn't have been so rigid like flax, and instead you would've been more soft like spelt. In times in life, we say it's my way or the highway. We are so determined that our way is the proper path. We can't see things from other people's point of views. I want chicken. My wife wants salmon for dinner. Be flexible. Learn to blow in the wind. If we can internalize this lesson, then we can absorb even the most brutal of impacts like icy and fiery hail and simply absorb the impacts. Get knocked down, but then pop right back up. A good chavis.