The mission – Compassion

At the end of Parashat Shmot Pharaoh makes Bnei Israel work harder than before. Now they had no rest and they had to find the materials for the bricks themselves. At this point Moshe turns to Hashem and tells him “Why are you making this nation suffer so much?.”

At first I didn’t get it, why does Moshe ask Hashem such a question?, Hashem spoke to Moshe directly, he told him the entire plan from beginning to end, he gave him all the details and after all that Moshe questioned him for something he was doing?! The truth is that behind Moshe’s question lays a fundamental teaching that we all must know.

There’s a Gemara in Bava Kama 60. That learns from psukim in the Torah that Tribulation visits the world when the wicked are in the world but it initiates upon the righteous first, and as a matter of fact we see this throughout history, the number of shomrei torah umitzvoth jews that died in the Holocaust was much bigger than non-religious, and so if we analyze the pogroms, inquisition, etc, we will see that the righteous ones are effected first.

So the Gemara continues and says that when Rav Yosef heard this he cried and asked “are the righteous also like nothingness that they are first in line for punishment?”, Abaye then told him that this is not a misfortune for the righteous ones rather it is a favor to them so that they won’t have to witness the tragedies that will befall their generation as the pasuk says “it is because of the impending evil that the righteous one was gathered in.”

At first it was very hard for me to understand this Gemara, the righteous knows that everything is from Hashem even the worst tragedies and they have such bitachon in Hashem that nothing can make them worry, yet at tribulation Hashem takes them first in their favor?!, those are the people that we need here at the hardest times. The truth is however, that there’s one thing that’s very hard for the righteous to see, and that’s our suffering. The tzadikim are part of each one of us and when we suffer they go through as much pain as we go, and imagine going through the pain of thousands or millions of people at ones? That’s what why it is in their favor that Hashem takes them first.

In contrast, our world’s “leaders”, when hard times come they try to run into their offices or houses and hide there, they will send their whole nation to total loss as long as they’re safe, and most unfortunately we are looking up to some of those people as if they will be there for us when we need them. However, a true leader lives with his people, with his nation, he does not see himself anything higher and in fact he will be the first to do what it takes to protect his nation, and that was Moshe Rabenu’s complaint to Hashem, although Moshe knew the whole plan, he could not take seeing his brothers and sisters suffering.

Those are the kind of people we should look up to and not movie stars, politicians, singers, and other public “leaders” that care about nothing but themselves. When others come to tell us their problems we must feel that their problems are our own problem.

There’s no doubt that when we get to this level of compassion towards each other we will be successful in our personal and public life and we will bring true salvation to the world.

Shavua Tov, Rosh Chodesh Tov!