Parshas Bo: Pharaoh's Downfall, Ego Battles, and Rebbetzin Waze

What happens when unchecked pride leads to the collapse of an entire civilization? Pharaoh's story in ancient Egypt is a powerful cautionary tale, revealing the destructive consequences of arrogance and the redemptive power of humility. Through vivid storytelling, we revisit the biblical account of Pharaoh, Moses, and the plagues, drawing timeless lessons that resonate with our daily lives. Picture a simple road trip argument between a husband and wife—a seemingly trivial conflict that mirrors the universal struggle with stubborn pride. This episode invites you to reflect, challenge your perspectives, and explore the virtues of humility.

Join us as we delve into the delicate balance between pride and humility, weaving together personal anecdotes and the enduring story of Moses to underscore the importance of self-awareness and authentic leadership. Pharaoh’s unrelenting ego becomes a backdrop for examining the spiritual and ethical imperatives of focusing on God and serving others. By embracing humility, we unlock personal growth, align with divine purpose, and cultivate more harmonious relationships. This exploration encourages us to confront our egos, prioritize the well-being of others, and rediscover a sense of greater meaning in our lives.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Battle of Egos
• 17:09 The Dangers of Haughtiness
• 25:36 The Power of Humility

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Close your eyes and just imagine what the land of Mitzrayim looks like. After seven straight punishing, brutal Makos have now tortured the land and its people, from cutting off the water supply to ferocious wild animals and Rav Hirsch tells us that Sephardim, the frogs were actually more like alligators to punishing boils upon the skin. The hospitals low on supplies, having to treat so many people. Funeral after funeral. People screaming in the streets, homeless under bridges. Funeral People screaming in the streets, homeless Under bridges or wherever they can find shelter, even a gentleman in the corner sleeping in a cardboard Amazon box. But yet pyro holds out. Pyro remains firm, paro remains stubborn. Pashaspo tells us that Hashem tells the dynamic duo of prophets, the terrific tandem, the holy brothers Moshe and Aaron, to come to Paro and to kindly ask him if thy let thy people go. But Hashem sends Moshe and Aaron with a very precise and targeted phrase, to bestow upon Pharaoh's ears. Quote Upon Pharaoh's ears. Quote Moses and Aaron Went to Pharaoh and they said to him so said the God of the Hebrews, how long will you? Let's leave that untranslated for a moment. Therefore, let thy people go. Shalach ami v'yavduni. Let my people go so they can worship me. The targeted attack of let my people go. It's prefaced with this previously untranslated phrase of a introduction of what it is that's holding back Paro from just relinquishing control and sending the people out.

Speaker 1: 2:53

There is a brutal question being posed, coming directly from Hashem. What does it mean? Ad Mosai mei anto le'anos Rashi says. The word means, like Targum Onkelos, to be humbled. It is from the derivation of the word ani, lacking a dearth poor, so that the passage reads paro. Ad mosei me'anta la'ano says Rashi me'anta lihios ani ve'shof al mi'ponai. Why have you refusest to be poor and lowly before me? Why have you failed to humble yourself before me? We are treated to the therapy session that Pharaoh didn't pay for, and the reason why Pharaoh keeps making poor decisions, it is that he refuses to humble himself in the standoff. With Hashem, pharaoh's grave error on full display. It's screaming from the rooftops, the very root of his problem.

Speaker 1: 4:39

The paro thinks of himself in a very haughty way. He suffers from big-headedness, smugness, pomposity, egotism, bumptuousness your poison. Pick your synonym. His gaiva has gotten the best of him. He has said that he will not give up. He has said that he's in control. He is the one who calls the shots and while God continuously shows him otherwise he is blinded by the truth. Maybe he does see it, but he is far from ever acting upon the truth that he chooses to deny. This is a common thread through all of Pyro's actions. This pomposity, haughtiness and gva-va lave a haughty heart.

Speaker 1: 5:26

We've already found that paro sneaks out in the morning to go to the nile and it's at that moment that moshe is told to go and discuss different important matters with paro. Why is it that the posse tells us that paro goes to the nile early in the morning, says Rashi previously, because he wants to show himself off as an Elokei, as a god, to pretend that he is a god. And gods don't go to the bathroom, gods are perfect. He treats himself, considers himself and pretends to be a god. That's how far his gaiva has taken him. His pompousness and big-headedness believes himself to be a god and larger than life. The entire town is in shambles, in ruins. He's wrong and he has lost. But his gaiva does not enable him to concede, to submit to God who is the winner. It's sad, it's pathetic, to have one person standing in middle of his failure but yet still fight on. And everybody knows that he has lost, but he continues to deny it. But one should not be so quick to snob and laugh at Paro's misery, or at least I shouldn't snob or laugh at it.

Speaker 1: 7:09

For just a couple days ago, while tripping, vacationing, traveling, voyaging to a khasana, my family is in the car. Should we go exit 137? We're going north, are we going south? There is some ambiguity, uncertainty. My brain says let's go left. That's the directions, that's how we get there. Holy, venerable and sacred Rebetzin said. I think, dearest husband, perhaps it is right we are to turn, not to the left, but veer here off to the right, where the off-ramp will take us to our location. A standoff, a Shalambayas, possible debacle? What to do? Only one can be right.

Speaker 1: 8:09

As we got closer and closer to the area that would actually require me to make the call, I felt myself to be perfectly just in trusting my dad instinct. And of course, we go left. I've done this drive so many times. But as I got closer and closer, I thought about it again and I saw a different landmark that reminded me wait a second. I've thought about this before. I made this turn the wrong way last time. I got to change, I got to go right. So instead of just conceding to my significant other and saying you know what? I was wrong and you were right. We should have been making a right all along.

Speaker 1: 9:01

I failed in my sholombias and I failed because my gaiva had me. Do I tell you from the bottom of my heart, reach for my Waze device, open it up just to say I'm double-checking to make sure, too afraid to allow myself to be wrong, blatantly wrong, typed it into Waze until Waze shouted out loud in the voice that it does, in 1,000 feet, turn right. And only then did I say hmm, I guess you're right. But I thought that all came from a point of not wanting to be wrong, not wanting to be shown up, and thinking that I'm the boss, I know how to do this, I'm in control and I know the right way to go to blind it to the truth. And even when I did discover the truth seven macos in hundreds of feet closer to the turn I was unable to admit it and act upon it until told by Rebbets and Wades.

Speaker 1: 10:18

Everyone has their own scenarios that either they can remember off the top of their head or they'll probably not take very long to come up with a time that they knew themselves to be right or the opposite. But they could not give up their position. They could not tolerate being incorrect when it came to be that they could not just concede and say I was wrong, I stand corrected. Ooh, it hurts. It hurts to give in and let somebody else be right. And what if that person is your enemy? What if it's not One of your family members, somebody that you love? That's already hard to be wrong, but somebody that really stands up against you, somebody that's been your enemy since day one. You're the two aspiring attorneys and he's the one that graduates the top of the class. There's only one job available and you both debate it out and after the long debate, who should win should score the job. And he outduels you and you find yourself to be defeated. Oh, to be wrong. You'll do anything, but to admit that you were actually wrong and he won, somebody cheated.

Speaker 1: 11:35

There was this incredible happening outside, based Medr, majestor Esch said just last week. I heard the story secondhand from the great Rabbi Braug, the brilliant Magad Shir. He said he was outside and there was in the liquid traffic a large bus that had pulled out into the intersection and was there stopped, letting the children off. That had pulled out into the intersection and was there, stopped letting the children off. And as soon as the stop sign was to close and the bus would be done dropping off the kids, there was a car at the other end that had clearly beaten the car to the spot. Sorry, had beaten the bus to the spot. It was there first, but the bus used its leverage and size to kind of enable the turn of the other car. So there's this standoff. Nobody can move forward. The smaller car had come first, but it cannot out-duel the large, formidable and yellow children's school bus. So what to do? So what happened? I'll tell you what to do, but this is not what happened. The car smaller car began creeping up closer and closer so that when the stop sign would close and then it would be legal to zoom past the bus, the turn could be made. Once the stop sign was gone. There was one little area. As soon as that stop sign would close, he would shoot off. But as soon as the bus driver I kid you not closed the stop sign, the bus floored it to cut off the smaller car. And now there was a total standstill because the way that the bus was, it could not turn and make the turn because the smaller car was in the way. But the smaller car also was blocked because of the impetuousness of the larger school bus. Both players sat on their horn, not wanting to let the other car go or other bus go.

Speaker 1: 13:36

The man, an elderly fellow fellow, I will not tell you which part of Judaism or which part of the faith he subscribed to Hasidic, yeshivish, slavodka, nevardic, sephardic, ashkenazic, hasidic. He picked the poison. I'm not going to tell you. But while he was sitting in his car, one of the bakken from our yeshiva just said buddy, back up, let the bus go and you'll go after him. The guy says to him but I was first, he's wrong. I have kadima kol hakoitem Zohar, tell the boss to back up. I'm right, he's wrong. So the bacher said to the guy you know what? Just so we can get the traffic to move. What do you think if I move the car back? Because he didn't cut me off? The guy for a moment thought to himself you know, that makes sense. Then I'm not wrong, so we can get everyone to go, but someone else will back the car up Before eventually, with the help of the Almighty, the man caught himself. Wait, that doesn't make any sense. I should let him back. Let me just back him. And eventually he pulled back and everyone went on their way.

Speaker 1: 15:07

But the Einfall, the absolute, brutal truth here, that the man was so caught up in not being wrong His Geiva, his Geiva, his focus on his own needs and how important his getting to his obligations are, and nobody else around him. It blinded him to the most obvious truth of how foolish he was looking and how poor of a choice he has made, to the point that he would even allow it if somebody else would jump in the car and make the turn, because then at least he wouldn't be wrong. This story may be facetious, but this the aside, that our gaiva, our inability to be wrong, our hatred of being told off and conceding to the other party, submitting to what they want, breaks marriages and causes divorce into a hatred and a despising of their other significant other, of somebody that once in their life they very much cared for, maybe even the L word. They loved them, and now it's all been broken. But it makes a lot of sense with this history because I'll tell you, it makes sense to me that when somebody cannot say that they were wrong, it irks them so bad that even the slightest thing could blow up in their face and see that they have to evas Hashem kol givah leiv. Then it just keeps lingering and lingering and simmering and simmering, just from a.

Speaker 1: 17:09

I said go left, you said go right. I don't believe that I'm off base by saying that may cause some couples to have real issues. Nobody wants to say that they were wrong. I have since made up and said Reb, it's the next time I'm going to listen to you. I was wrong. I was about Gaiva and I should have just said hmm, let me think about it. Maybe my wife knows what she's talking about. I caught myself. Maybe, just maybe.

Speaker 1: 17:43

This is what is the translation and what the sages mean to be conveying to us when they say that kinah and taseeking and jealousy, they remove a person from the world Because, while maybe our body is still in the world, what type of world do you even live in? And can you imagine power? Would you consider him to be living in a world so full of gaiva that he will not listen to ten merciless plagues berating his colony? I went through the same existence in a way, or the same remedy from Rebbetzin Ways, who told me off that Paro eventually gets. How does Paro finally sit down to the negotiation table with Moshe and Aaron Paro's lowly avodim Apps on his phone Waze People that he's not embarrassed to take advice from because they're there just working for me.

Speaker 1: 19:06

Only once they say how long shall you be the one to snare us? Let the delegation go to worship thy God. Are you not aware that Egypt has lost? Only then does Pyro finally acquiesce and begin to say fine, go worship your god, but let's make sure that not everyone's going. Who's going? Just the men, but only some level of admitting when it comes not from the other party.

Speaker 1: 19:38

Kinna, taiva, covid, haughtiness, self-centeredness, pomposity and swagger, bumptiousness. It blinds the heart and makes you make terrible decisions. Last I checked if you'd like a schmooze on why you shouldn't be haughty and why you should act with the utmost sense of lowliness, the utmost unassumingness is because do you think they're going to remember you in 500 years? Maybe your family, but are you truly legendary? Are you to be mummified and praised after death as if you're God's gift to humanity? Have you been touched by God? Have you done something that has been so incredible that literally there will be books about you?

Speaker 1: 20:28

Well, some of you listening, I hope yes. For me myself, I hope yes, but at this point those are dreams, point. Those are dreams. And even if I did have those and you did have those, that still does not enable you to lord yourself over your friends. Those are just gifts that God has given you that you've not messed up. Your energy, your eyeballs all from God, not from you. Try doing it for a day without vision or without energy. If that's not enough, just remember that in about 120 years you'll have maggots crawling through your ribcage and little ants nibbling upon your skull. That's where our end is.

Speaker 1: 21:17

So how dare you lord yourself over your peers? We so badly need to be correct. We so badly feel the need to not have our honor ever slighted and to be wrong. Once I saw this idea, it made me remember that don't ever make that horrible mistake and begin a public lecture, a public speech, by ever trying to convince somebody of something that is currently not his opinion, by ever attacking him in a way that he'll put up his guard and say no to what you're saying, because then to convince him throughout the speech of why I'm right and he's wrong is impossible, because once he decides, once you have attacked and he's built his fence of no, his gaiva. His honor and his pride is on the line and you'll never win him back. You must meet them in the middle, butter them up, make sure that they do not have any pride in the argument if you would like to win them to your contest, to your side. This, up until this point, has been all ideas of how corruption happens and how one can lose without ever seeing that he is losing.

Speaker 1: 22:43

But let us turn the record over and play the record from the other side and just look at how the greatest Jewish leader, moshe Rabbeinu, felt himself so inadequate, so shofal v'savlon, such an unavmikol adam, that for days upon days, weeks, he did not even want to go to save the Jewish people because he felt himself to be so inadequate, blaming it on every possible reason as to why he is unworthy of such a shteler, of such a position of power. Give it to anyone else, give it to my brother. He's the one. I don't want to hurt him. But me, I have Kvad Peh. What have I done? I'm a lowly shepherd.

Speaker 1: 23:35

Moshe Rabbeinu, the ultimate un-of the ultimate other side of the spectrum, from Paro-HaRosha Mishle tells us the scary words of how important it is for us to find humility, honest humility, to really believe that we are not deserving of special honor. It doesn't have to go our way. Life isn't about me, it's about God and others. That's how I'm commanded to act. The Puzzle says Lev as Hashem Kol Geva, lev, every haughty person is abominable, abomination. He is an abomination to the Lord and Yad Liad Lo Yinaka. Assuredly he will not go unpunished.

Speaker 1: 24:28

I picked up on the fact that it says you are a ta'eva To feel self-centered, to act like. It's about you To say I must go first in the traffic, I must go first online, I only fly in VIP. I don't even want to hang out with the passengers from Coach, from Economy Plus. Get them out of my eyesight, those. You're called a teyeva sashem. You know who else is called a teyeva sashem, who gets the same rebuke-filled word? Somebody who lies with the same gender. It's toyeva, that's what the Pasek says. I believe it's achrimos kedoshim Toyeva. That's an abomination Lying with the same gender. That easily resonates as putrid, gross and an abomination, but a built of self-pride. It's all about me and I never wrong. That's harder to understand how terrible it is.

Speaker 1: 25:36

So King Solomon tells us See the ma'albim there for a further rant about haughtiness, but our attitude going forward should be that we live in a beautiful world and the world was created by God. And God said here you go, I'll give you a couple things and do what you can with them to accomplish what I want you to accomplish. But should you ever lord yourself over what I want you to accomplish? Or dare it be even me? How egregiously pathetic is that.

Speaker 1: 26:22

This is a chassanah. The medrash says this world is a big wedding hall and everyone's dancing together and standing as the chassanah in the middle is the Almighty, the party's. For him, it's his honor, he did it all. But at the very beginning, when they're about to Introducing the Chasen and Kala HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you jump out and you make it about you. You jump in the middle of the circle and dance with his father, dance with the Shadcha and dance with his Zaydi. How awkward would that be To make the Chasen, this world About you? Awkward would that be to make the chasana this world about you, about me and not about Hashem and what he wants, which is for it to be about the fulfilling of his will and honoring and giving pep talks and encouragement to others and making them the purpose of your existence. That's the way to others, and making them the purpose of your existence, that's the way to go about life.

Speaker 1: 27:26

Paro, needless to say, did not go about it like this, and he was only able to see a bit of truth from his servants, but unable to see that everything had been destroyed. He still needed three more plagues until, finally, it would be over and he would go down with the army and they would lose everything. If Paro would at least lay down his snobbishness and smugness, hubris, and end it here, wave the white flag, maybe there would be something left of Egypt. They are gone because of Gaiva, because of Paro's feeling of special importance, the feeling of being better than others, being very, very prideful and even treating himself as a god. Don't be like Paro. Don't live in a world that you believe is all about yourself. Be humble, be humble, be pleasant. Live with a sense of shofal, of lowliness and unassumingness, and follow in the path of Moshe Rabbeinu, who couldn't even figure out why it is that Hashem wanted him to be sent. Live with humility, and don't you dare live with a sense of pride and gaiva, because it totally breaks worlds and blinds the eyes.