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Why did Hashem (ה׳) demand only three days of freedom when He planned to take the Jews out permanently? The request wasn't about exodus—it was about control. Pharaoh's refusal to submit even to a reasonable three-day request revealed his fundamental challenge to Hashem's sovereignty, making the entire conflict about who truly governs the world.
Rabbi Zweig presents a fundamental reframing of the narrative of the Exodus. The central question is: why did Moshe ask Pharaoh for only three days when the ultimate goal was permanent freedom and entry into Eretz Yisrael? The answer reveals that the plagues were not primarily about taking the Jews out of Egypt—they were about establishing who controls the world. The shiur explores a Midrash from Yalkut Shimoni (paragraph 182) that explains this dynamic through a mashal. A lion, fox, and other animals are on a ship when a donkey toll collector demands payment. The fox protests that the king of animals is present, but the donkey insists he'll put the money in the king's coffers anyway. The lion kills the donkey, and when the fox eviscerates it, he eats the heart. When the lion asks where the heart is, the fox replies that the donkey never had a heart—if it did, it wouldn't have tried to collect from the king. The Midrash explains: the donkey is Pharaoh, the lion is Hashem (ה׳), and the fox is Moshe.
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Why does the Torah emphasize Rivka's Aramean ancestry when describing her marriage to Yitzchok? The shiur reveals that Arameans were master manipulators with extraordinary sensitivity to others' psychology. Rivka inherited this keen insight but channeled it into genuine chesed, which requires understanding what recipients actually need rather than what givers want to provide.
Why does the Midrash connect Pharaoh's expulsion of the Jews to the mitzvah of shiluach hakan? The shiur develops a chiddush that Pharaoh's sin wasn't only drowning the children, but the insensitivity of expelling the parents afterward. The deeper analysis reveals that Pharaoh may have valued the Jews greatly and wanted to control them—making his expulsion an act of tremendous cruelty, not liberation.
Why does Moshe respond to the splitting of the sea with shirah rather than praise or thanksgiving? Rashi's use of "al libo" reveals that shirah is an emotional expression—a response of love to love. When Hashem shows personal care, the only adequate response is "I love You too," not mere gratitude or praise, and this principle applies to all relationships.
Shemos 6:6-8, 7:3-5 (Parshas Vaeira)
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Why does the Torah separate Avrohom's eulogy for Sarah from his crying for her? The shiur shows that Sarah required a public eulogy focused on the communal loss of a leader, not Avrohom's private grief. This teaches that we must view Jewish tragedies through a national lens first, seeing attacks on Am Yisrael as collective losses that dwarf personal concerns.
