RABBI BEN ZION SNEH
Pharaoh was starting to get nervous. Yaakov Avinu’s children were once honored guests, but times had changed. The fear of losing his kingdom was getting him more nervous with each passing day. What to do? After convening a meeting of his executive advisers- among them Yisro, Bilam and (some say) Iyov, the press release was published: הבה נתחכמה לו פן ירבה ועלה מן הארץ.
Pharaoh lost it all because he, as many others who have tried since, became obsessed with destroying our people (r”l), even at the expense of destroying their own kingdom.
But we can also learn from Pharaoh's behavior how not to act. Pharaoh's error as a leader teaches us many lessons. It teaches us to build and not destroy, improve ourselves rather than blame others, and, most importantly, look inside for correction rather than point to others to excuse our mistakes.
The story is told of a world-famous scientist who was working round the clock to develop a theory, when his curious 7-year-old son approached him – “I see you’re working so hard, Daddy, can I help you?”
Nervous from all the work he was doing, the scientist tried to placate his son with a treat, maybe a promise for the future - if the little boy would just find something to do. But the boy wasn’t biting. Out of the corner of his eye the scientist noticed a big map of the world.
“You like puzzles, right?” He asked his inquisitive son.
He then took the map and cut it into many pieces giving them all to his son- with a board and some glue.
“This is the map of our world, go and fix it up. When you finish, there’s a big prize waiting for you.”
Knowing that it could take his son days to complete this project, not knowing the continents, the scientist relaxed and went back to work. Imagine his surprise when a few hours later the boy brought an entire world back to his father, put together correctly!
“How in the world did you do it so fast? How did you fix the world?”
“Daddy, I have to tell you” I don’t know what the world looks like, but there is one thing I did discover. There was a picture of a man on the back of the map you gave me. I simply turned the world around, fixed up the man’s image and presto, the world was arranged correctly!”
We can all appreciate the message. If we would only fix ourselves first, our world, and the world around us, would be changed for the better so much sooner! If Pharaoh would have taken this approach rather than the stubborn path he eventually chose – he and his country might not have been brought to their knees. Evil is slow to change, if at all – but we can learn. Evil will always choose to destroy and in the process usually destroy itself, as we see from our enemies in the Middle East today. We must double down in battle. But if we at the same time look inwards at our own behaviors and resolve to change, rather than blame others, we can be successful in building ourselves and our future generations. What will we do to become better? Is there anything we can change? May Hashem help us make all the right choices and may we merit seeing the fruit of our labors and the beautiful outcome of those decisions.
Written by R’ Avrohom Hillel Reich based on a lesson and story by Harav Ben Tziyon Sneh Shlita
