The Antidote to Life’s Hardships

VAYIGASH

The Antidote to Life’s Hardships

What if you could find a switch, a hidden key, that would enable you to bypass all of life’s hardships, and end up safely on the other side?

The idea is that a Jew must rise above and beyond themselves. Hashem does not compromise on fulfilling our purpose and demands that each of us live and breathe our life mission. Therefore, the more a person elevates themselves above their own ego and accepts the yoke of Hashem, there is no need to bring them closer through negative means.

To fully understand this concept, let us raise a question central to our history: How did most of the years in Egypt become comfortable and even pleasurable? How did the severe decree of 430 years of slavery in Egypt end up being reduced to just one-fifth of that—86 years—while the remaining years were more comfortable than life in the Land of Israel?

The answer is powerful: They had the wisdom to choose a more comfortable form of servitude. They chose to dedicate themselves to Hashem through the sweet path of Torah

study in the yeshivah. By doing so, there was no need for painful slavery in Egypt. However, after many years passed and the last of Yaakov’s sons who had descended with him to Egypt died, the next generation, born in Egypt, abandoned the yeshivah. At that point, G-d was compelled to fulfill the decree of slavery in its literal sense.