The sacred writings explain that golus Edom, our present exile, is like golus Mitzrayim. Let us examine this in depth.
Let us find references to this present exile in order to find the formula to deal with it and know what we are facing.
In the beginning of Parshas Vayechi, the Ramban writes that Yaakov Ovinu's descent to Egypt is a reflection of this golus Edom. Rabbenu Bechaye (who always parallels the Ramban) writes: Everything that overtook Yaakov is a hint to this third exile. He adds that the reason that Yaakov wanted to reveal the end of days was because the last exile would reflect the Egyptian one. The prophets have a tradition that indeed, the last Redemption at the end of days would resemble the former in many ways, aside from the fact that it will result in our hearts being greater in knowledge of Hashem.
We find corroboration to this by what the Beis Halevi proves from the midroshim, that one of the ways to reconcile the difference between the four hundred year exile which was foretold to Avrohom Avinu in the Bris bein Habesorim and the reality of the `redu' gematria of 210 years, can be seen from the Midrash whereby Hashem made an allowance for completing the missing term at the end of days. This, then, is what we are doing at the present time: completing the exile of Mitzrayim.
Let us take note of a simple fact that the most difficult phase of this present golus was the dreadful Holocaust and our enslavement to the accursed Germans.
Several forms of oppression were similar: the Egyptians understood that if they wanted to crush our spirit, they had to impose slave labor to the point where one loses his human image, for enslaving the body would lead to the exile of the soul. When a person is reduced to a bestial form and struggles for his very survival which hangs on a thin thread, and when the fight involves every single breath, one cannot hold on to the spirit within him. The Egyptians understood this and the Germans replicated the approach.
The Egyptians assigned the fate of the Jews to their own brethren, the taskmasters who supervised them, and the Germans did likewise, understanding that psychologically, this would break their spirit and augment the bestial nature of those taskmasters-kapos. The difference was that whereas in Egypt those taskmaster withstood the test and retained their humanity, the kapos in the slave camps forfeited their human form altogether and became predatory beasts surpassing their masters in brutality.
This is only from a superficial view but if we look deeper we will find that whereas the Egyptians believed that the exile of the body would lead to the exile of the spirit and that the Jews would forget Hashem and would serve their gods, the truth was the opposite: the exile of the spirit led to the exile of the body, and we ourselves brought on the golus.
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Rashi brings the Midrash Tanchuma in Vayechi: "Why is this parsha sealed? Because with the death of Yaakov Avinu, the eyes and hearts of Israel were sealed because of the bondage and suffering."
The commentators wonder if the bondage began with the death of Yaakov? Did it not begin only fifty-six years later with the death of Yosef?
They answer that the actual physical bondage began with the death of Yosef but leading to the enslavement of the body was the exile of the spirit and soul, which began with the death of Yaakov. Sealing the eyes and hearts of Yisroel indicates their spiritual powers.
The Admor of Strikov once said a wonderful vort: Chazal say that the hearts and eyes of the Jews became sealed, and this is the reason for the closure of this parsha. What is the connection?
The reason, he said, for spaces between one parsha and another in the written Torah, is explained in Sifro Vayikra: "What is the purpose of these breaks? To give a break, as it were, to Moshe to contemplate on the parshiyos and the matters discussed therein."
A closure of the space between parshas indicates a lessening of introspection, a decrease of reflection and of understanding, and this resulted from the death of Yaakov, whose chief attribute is Truth. Yaakov is synonymous to Torah, says the Zohar. A drop in understanding Torah is what caused the sealing of the eyes and hearts, which, in turn, led to the golus of body and spirit and consequently, in subjugation to Egypt.
The Beis Halevi takes this further, as is familiar to all Torah scholars. Jews thought that they would survive Pharaoh if they drew closer to his people, if they tried to enter their heads and follow their ways. "Wisdom is to be found by the goyim, so what's wrong if we learn something of their wisdom? We can mingle among them and learn their ways."
But when this happens, it leads only to evil because Jews forget that their advantage and supremacy comes from their uniqueness and living apart. And so Hashem forces the separation upon them from the side of the goyim. "And I separated you from the nations," forcibly, "and with outpoured wrath shall I rule over you."
One needn't be a genius to find the equivalence between the [intellectual] bondage under the Germans, the cradle of knowledge, intelligence and culture because the Jews believed they had what to offer and it would be advantageous to mingle among them, and the call that resounded throughout the Jewish world: "Be a `mensch' when you go forth in public and a Jew [only] in your own tents." But Hashem showed us exactly what kind of menschen the Germans were and He ruled over us with outpoured wrath so that whoever sought to flee and had already forgotten his spiritual roots, received a bitter reminder thereof.
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If we examine it, we will see the wheel revolving before our eyes. The Egyptian exile in a modern version.
Did we not attempt to merge with them? Did we not try, to enlist in the army, learn, progress and try to become accepted citizens?
And then, suddenly, we learned the bitter truth: they don't want us, they hate us, they vomit us out.
Let us proceed another step. How did this all come upon us, during days of productivity on the one hand, of Torah proliferation, in days of mesirus nefesh on the part of thousands of Bnei Torah, of ultimate immersion in Torah, yet on the other hand, evil also proliferates in the form of secularism, superficiality. I remember how HaRav Yechiel Michel Feinstein used to remind us at every occasion and lament the sin of the generation — of shallowness. At the time, I didn't really know what he was referring to!
First of all, we must realize that the success of a Ben Torah is in his total application to Torah, complete severance from worldly foolishness. Before his death, Rebbi spread his ten fingers upward and declared: Ribono shel Olam, it is revealed and known before You that I toiled in Torah with these ten fingers and did not indulge in as much as my little finger (Kesuvos 104a). Tosafos ask: One studies Torah with his fingers? Yes! Tosafos responds: As it says in the Midrash: Before a person prays that Torah enter his body, he should pray that delicacies not enter his body.
Maran HaRav Y.M. Feinstein used to often review the Rambam at the end of Mikvo'os which compares the waters of wisdom to the waters of a mikveh. "Since he decided to remove himself from that counsel and brought his soul to the waters of pure wisdom..." And HaRav Feinstein used to develop the metaphor further: And just like a mikveh does not purify if even one hair is not immersed, so too with the waters of wisdom, that even a slight show of interest in something external is tantamount to not having been immersed in the waters of wisdom altogether.
And all the more so to one who is entrapped in the net(work) of the chareidi news services of various kinds. One who is addicted to the news will never succeed in Torah. Period.
But that is not all, because there is the aspect of destruction and devastation.
To put it plainly: Whoever follows the history of the chareidi public in these past decades and asks himself: What happened that we suddenly have a dropout phenomenon and problems of modernization in yeshivos?
Let us then put a finger on the problem. Yes, the various weekly publications. Does the younger generation realize that in the chareidi newspaper of yore, columns of parliamentary gossip, ugly hype, cheap journalism had no place? Then the came the yellower journals which offered fistfuls of the stuff and the public demanded more and more. The masses don't understand why we insist on being old fashioned. The gedolim fought but people who do not answer to anything, only to their own selves, pandered to the thirsty flocks.
And since then, to our dismay, they seek to lead, set the tone, and by them everything is kosher. Anything called chareidi and even religious or only half-religious and sometimes even totally chiloni is interviewed with honeyed, sympathetic, sycophantic questions. It goes on but the wise reader knows how to fill it all in...
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Dear friends, there is hope for the future.
In his comparison between the two exiles, the Ramban stressed: that the end to this one is not revealed, as was in the past. What does this entail?
The gemara says (Yoma 9b): The sins of the early generations were revealed to them, but of the latter generations, these were not revealed and the end of their exile was also not revealed.
What is the comparison? What measure-for-measure do we find here?
HaRav Yosef Schreiber says that in the Bayis Rishon, the destruction was a punishment for the sins which were revealed to that generation. In the Bayis Sheini they studied Torah and kept the mitzvos but there was sinas chinom. That destruction did not come as a punishment but as a result of their cutting themselves off from Hashem. One who trusts in Hashem has no reason to hate. When we hated, Hashem removed Himself from us but when we return to Him, he will return to us as well.
Let us then dissociate ourselves from this olam hazeh, return to our gemoras abandon our shallowness, and everything will return to its proper place. Amen.
