Devar Torah - Shemos

We Never Look Away from an Opportunity to Help Our Brother
By Rabbi Shimon Raichik

The first event the Torah discusses about how Moshe Rabbenu lived is when he left the palace of Pharoh to see how his brethren were doing. He saw a Jew, the husband of Shlomis bas Divri from the tribe of Dan being beaten by a Mitzri. The cause of his abuse was not because of him rather because of his wife. He killed the Mitzri and the fled Mitzrayim.

Until this point Moshe Rabbenu had lived a life of luxury in the palace of Pharoh with Batya taking care of his every need. Nonetheless he went out to see the condition of his brethren. He looked around and didn’t see anyone going to help this Jew. He didn’t think about himself or the danger. He thought only of his brother and saved him so that he wouldn’t be killed. From that point on he became a fugitive. No longer could he return to the comfortable life he had in the palace. 

This is a lesson for each one of us. We need to go out and look into the condition of our brethren and see to it to help save them from the dangers of the Mitzri, any difficulty, both physically and spiritually.

We see this same approach in the Rebbe’s struggle to clarify the law of Mihu Yehudi in Israel as well as his insistence not to give away the Shtachim, the territories conquered in the wars in Israel. The Rebbe was a lone voice; no one else was involved or listening. Nevertheless the Rebbe waged unrelenting campaigns because it was necessary. At one point the Rebbe was threatened that his insistence to speak out would cost a setback in the Tefillin Campaign. He was told if he didn’t stop the Tefillin booth at the Kosel would be shut down. Nevertheless the Rebbe continued to speak out. 

We must ask ourselves; if we saw a fire burning down someone’s house, would we look away and just say things like; it’s not my problem. I can’t get involved. Why me? There are others greater than me, etc.? Would you sit around and make calculations or would you get out there and help the other person? So too with ruchnius, whether its chinuch or kashrus or a hidur mitzvah or ahavas Yisroel, we need learn from Moshe Rabbenu to do what we can and be concerned about everyone. 

This has special importance to us today when so many of our brethren need encouragement to stay strong in all matters of Yiddishkeit. We need to help each other with words of encouragement and support all efforts. We also need to struggle against any foreign influences even if we feel as if we are only a lone voice or that it is an uphill battle. We learn from the example of the Rebbe and Moshe Rabbenu not to be concerned about social pressure or even threats to hold us back from going forward in any way available to help each other.

With such ahavas Yisroel, doing without thinking of ourselves and without any calculation will we merit the revelation of Moshiach Now!