This Shabbat, the Torah relates to us the final downfall of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, as the Jewish people gathered around to sing praises to HaShem for their salvation upon seeing the Egyptians washed up on the shore.
The long road that arrogant Pharaoh took had finally come to an end. From a Pharaoh that knew not HaShem, when Moshe and Aharon came before him to release the Jewish people to worship HaShem, to the one that started to see His might and was then willing to release some of the Jews, to the one that felt the presence of HaShem in every aspect of Egyptian life and was then willing to let all the Jews go, but just not the animals, to the Pharaoh who, when all was finally lost and Egypt totally destroyed, declared: "HaShem is righteous, and I and my people are wicked."
But still, after all the dust has settled, arrogant Pharaoh just could not let bygones be bygones, and he still wanted to show who was the boss and that he still had power over the Jewish people. And so, in a fateful decision, he took all the chosen horses left in Egypt and gave chase after the Jewish people. And what a frightening scene that was, to be faced with seeing those 600 chosen horses and their riders advancing towards the young Jewish nation.
Our rabbis teach us that there were 30 men chasing the Jews for every Israelite. What a force that was going out with Pharaoh! When Israel saw this they were alarmed. The Israelites asked who could stand up to them? G-d replied: I swear that I consider them all like one single man and a single chariot. And all of them died in one breath.
He has triumphed over the proud. G-d triumphs over the proud, punishing them though the precise vehicle of their arrogance. So it was in the generation of the Flood, and in the generation of the Tower of Babel. The same occurred in Egypt, as it says: Pharaoh took 600 chariots and then Pharaoh's chariots and army He cast into the sea. And so on, throughout all of history.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says that the four cups of wine that we drink on Seder night correspond to the four cups of poison that G-d gives the wicked to drink, and to the four cups of salvation that He will give Israel in the future. Thus, the cup of poison is reserved for the nations who act arrogantly before G-d and cruelly to Israel, thereby profaning G-d's Name.
So it will be in the final Redemption. The arrogance that we see today from the nations of the world - which dictate their destructive policy to Israel, making her buckle under and opening her up to suicidal borders that will, G-d forbid, lead to her destruction - will, in the end, lead to their own downfall. As the prophet Yoel teaches us:
"I will gather all the nations and bring them down into the Vally of Jehoshafat and I will enter into judgment with them there for My people and My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, dividing up My land. Behold, I shall raise them out of the place to which you have sold them and shall return your retribution upon your own heads. For the violence done to the Children of Yehuda, because they have shed innocent blood in the Land. Although I have acquitted them for their other sins, I shall not do so for Israel's blood."
The L-rd dwells in Zion.
The long road that arrogant Pharaoh took had finally come to an end. From a Pharaoh that knew not HaShem, when Moshe and Aharon came before him to release the Jewish people to worship HaShem, to the one that started to see His might and was then willing to release some of the Jews, to the one that felt the presence of HaShem in every aspect of Egyptian life and was then willing to let all the Jews go, but just not the animals, to the Pharaoh who, when all was finally lost and Egypt totally destroyed, declared: "HaShem is righteous, and I and my people are wicked."
But still, after all the dust has settled, arrogant Pharaoh just could not let bygones be bygones, and he still wanted to show who was the boss and that he still had power over the Jewish people. And so, in a fateful decision, he took all the chosen horses left in Egypt and gave chase after the Jewish people. And what a frightening scene that was, to be faced with seeing those 600 chosen horses and their riders advancing towards the young Jewish nation.
Our rabbis teach us that there were 30 men chasing the Jews for every Israelite. What a force that was going out with Pharaoh! When Israel saw this they were alarmed. The Israelites asked who could stand up to them? G-d replied: I swear that I consider them all like one single man and a single chariot. And all of them died in one breath.
He has triumphed over the proud. G-d triumphs over the proud, punishing them though the precise vehicle of their arrogance. So it was in the generation of the Flood, and in the generation of the Tower of Babel. The same occurred in Egypt, as it says: Pharaoh took 600 chariots and then Pharaoh's chariots and army He cast into the sea. And so on, throughout all of history.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says that the four cups of wine that we drink on Seder night correspond to the four cups of poison that G-d gives the wicked to drink, and to the four cups of salvation that He will give Israel in the future. Thus, the cup of poison is reserved for the nations who act arrogantly before G-d and cruelly to Israel, thereby profaning G-d's Name.
So it will be in the final Redemption. The arrogance that we see today from the nations of the world - which dictate their destructive policy to Israel, making her buckle under and opening her up to suicidal borders that will, G-d forbid, lead to her destruction - will, in the end, lead to their own downfall. As the prophet Yoel teaches us:
"I will gather all the nations and bring them down into the Vally of Jehoshafat and I will enter into judgment with them there for My people and My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, dividing up My land. Behold, I shall raise them out of the place to which you have sold them and shall return your retribution upon your own heads. For the violence done to the Children of Yehuda, because they have shed innocent blood in the Land. Although I have acquitted them for their other sins, I shall not do so for Israel's blood."
The L-rd dwells in Zion.