Hashem’s hashgacha is other worldly to put it mildly. Reb Simcha Bunim from Peshischa interpreted the passuk of רבות מחשבות בלב איש ועצת ה’ היא תקום as follows that many thoughts and plans lie within the heart of Man however only the counsel of Hashem will determine the outcome at the end. Reb Simcha adds the insight that the plan of Hashem will come to fruition through the many thoughts of man even if their intention was to sabotage the plan of Hashem. We don’t have to look further that the brothers of Yosef. After they heard his dreams they planned to kill him thereby turning his dreams into ash. They sold him as a slave to Mitzrayim a land upon which Chazal describe as no slave ever escaped from there. Mitzrayim was the place where Yosef will be lost forever and they need not worry further about his delusions of grandeur.
Yet Hashem had a different plan. The fulfillment of Yosef’s dreams will be executed by the brothers own hands. For by selling Yosef to Mitzrayim Yosef rose to power to become its viceroy. He became the sole controller of the food distribution in Mitzrayim. The brothers all came down to bow down to him for they too needed food for their families. Because of his power and leverage position Yosef made sure to have even Binyamin come down to Mitzrayim to fulfill the dream completely to the tee that everyone of his brothers would bow down to him. They thought to dash his dreams by getting rid of him for good. Hashem took their plans and wove them within a tapestry that only Hashem could put together so that their own actions caused the dreams of their hated brother to come to fruition.
A similar example is in our parsha. Pharaoh’s astrologers gazed at the stars and got a premonition that a savior to the Jewish People will be born. They did not know if he will be Jewish or Egyptian. Nevertheless, to avoid such a catastrophe to himself and to the land of Egypt, Pharaoh decreed that all children born on that date should be killed by throwing them into the Nile. Moshe was born and placed into a basket and set afloat on the river as Miriam his sister watched by. The daughter of Pharaoh Basya went down to the river to bathe and she saw the basket and realized the baby was Jewish and took him to the palace. When Moshe refused to be nursed by Egyptians, Miriam suggested to hire a Jewish woman to nurture the child. Basya agreed and Miriam brought Yocheved, Moshe’s mother, to nurse him. Moshe was then raised in Pharaoh’s house as a prince with nobody except for Basya knowing his true identity.
Here once again we see how Pharaoh himself with his plans and strategies brought upon the entire Egyptian civilization its downfall. He decrees to kill every child born that day lest the future savior will survive and emancipate the Jewish nation of slaves. Yet through his very own plan, the Jewish savior Moshe was saved by the water which was supposed to drown him. The savior of Moshe was ironically Basya the daughter of the one who decreed that he should be murdered in the first place. The one who nursed Moshe and raised him from a baby was no one else but his own mother. Then he was raised in the very palace under the nose of the evil Pharaoh who made the decree in the first place to ensure that the savior will not survive the day.
In Yiddish there is a saying a mentsch tracht un G-t lacht. Man makes plans and Hashem laughs. People say if want to make Hashem laugh just make some plans and watch what happens. A Yid always accompanies his plans with the bitachon words of אם ירצה ה’ or בעזרת ה’ which is a tefillah that Hashem should fulfill them if it is beneficial for him. But from the two stories above we see a demonstration of a greater capability beyond human endeavor and that is to fulfill His ratzon through the very actions with which man tries to offset His will.
This we see in the Purim story upon which the Megillas Esther capsulizes it with two words ונהפוך הוא all the plans of Haman fell back upon him. The Navi says עת צרה ליעקב וממנה יושע (Yirmiyahu 30,7) when the time of tzarah reaches the Jewish People, from it we will be delivered. One of the commentators wrote that the word וממנה also spells ומהמן and from Haman we will be saved. Haman himself brought about his own downfall.
His goal was to make Mordechai humiliated and feel as low as vermin. Yet Haman through his brazen haughtiness and self conceit was the one who instructed the King to honor, unbeknown to him at the time, Mordechai the individual he despised the most and was about to hang. He was to ride Mordechai on the King’s horse with all the royal accessories and he became the one who was humiliated by parading Mordechai in the streets of the capitol announcing as he went this is what happens to the one who the King desires to honor. Instead of making Mordechai feel like garbage, it was his daughter, thinking that Mordechai was the one who is leading her honorable father on the royal horse, poured the garbage over her father thereby disgracing him in public. Here we have Hamam who prepared a tree to hang Mordechai and a noose that he even tried out on himself, relishing all the time that soon it will be Mordechai’s head with the noose around his neck. This hashgacha was Hashem’s way of laughing at Amalek ונהפוך הוא. How could one think that one could go against the plan of the Creator of the world and the One who sustains it every second. Shlomo Hamelech said it very clearly (Mishlei 20,5) אין חכמה ואין תבונה ואין עצה לנגד ה’.
Even at the Pesach Seder we declare this same principle of Ironics והיא שעמדה לאבותינו ולנו והקב”ה מצילנו מידם even though in every generation the nations of the world plan and strategize to annihilate us from the face of the earth, Hashem saves us מידם from their own hands. When the Egyptians shot arrows towards Yisrael at Yam Suf the Clouds of glory bounced them right back at them. They in essence killed themselves instead of killing the Yidden.
On Shabbos one brings to heart the revelation of the authenticity of Hashem’s constant Hashgacha in the world. Even the question of צדיק ורע לו רשע וטוב לו doesn’t bother one on Shabbos. As we say in the Mizmor Shir Leyom Hashabbos איש בער לא ידע וכסיל לא יבין את זאת בפרוח רשעים כמו עשב להשמדם עדי עד only fools and unlearned people don’t understand that if there is Hashgacha of Hashem why do the wicked still prosper in this world? The answer is להשמדם עדי עד in order to give them their reward for their few mitzvos in a fleeting world and not the eternal world. On Shabbos an observant Yid has a deeper understanding in Hashem because of his neshamah yesairahand thereby his emunah is fortified and deepened to believe strongly in Hashgachas Hashem. That is why the words יום השבת is the same gematriahofאין חכמה תבונה עצה . The difference between Shabbos and the six days of the week is that during the week Hashem laughs at us but on Shabbos as we look back at the past week, we find ourselves laughing together with Him.
Rav Brazil
Gut Shabbos
