A gitte voch! I heard an interesting vort this Shabbos wherein it was said that we must accept the Ohl Golus (Yoke of Exile) with love and joy, that through this we’ll be released from Golus. This bothered me, since it is essentially improper to accept anything other than the Ohl Malchus Shomayim (Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven) in my understanding of Torah, let alone Golus, particularly that connected to the Golus Mitzrayim, which was the worst in terms of impurity and spiritual destruction.
The main question to ask is when exactly did Hashem decide to redeem the B’Nei Yisroel from Mitzrayim according to the p’shat of the Torah? It wasn’t when they decided Golus was amazing and how much they loved it and rejoiced in Mitzrayim, rather it was when they cried out to Hashem and groaned to Him about their great misery as slaves. Then Hashem remembers the bris he sealed with Avrohom, Yitzchok, and Yaakov and sends Moshe to save them.
The Baal HaTanya teaches us in Torah Ohr on this week’s parsha that the avodah of our current Golus is the clarification of halacha. He brings this through tying the various labors involved with the slavery in Mitzrayim to different parts of the learning process. Essentially, before the halacha is understood, the learning is very difficult, but once the halacha comes to clear understanding and resolution of the various machlokes, then this is an aspect of Geulah. We must also consider what we learn from the famous maaseh of the Baal Shem Tov going to the Heichal HaMoshiach and asking when Moshiach will come: when the Toras HaBaal Shem Tov spreads out over the entire world like water from a wellspring, and when everybody can make Yichudim (Spiritual Unifications) and attain the same levels he did.
Considering these various ideas, we can come to a strategy for Geulah Yechidis (Personal Redemption), as well as the Geulah Shleima. Considering the nature of Mitzrayim as the most coarse form of corporeality, and what the Baal HaTanya says about clarifying halacha being part of the Geulah, we can see that coming to understanding of the Torah is imperative in this regard. The key to understanding Torah is to cry out to Hashem and ask Him to help us understand what is meant to be communicated to us. From this perspective, we can then sit and learn every part of Torah to understand what we must do with it practically, meaning more essentially implementation rather than abstraction. Once we come to knowledge and understanding of the Torah, this is part of the Geulah, which is accomplished through getting to know Hashem. The true Geulah is accomplished through knowing Torah, which is knowing Hashem to whatever degree possible, as it says in the Zohar that Hashem and the Torah are one. When everyone understands their “letter” of the Torah, and hence exists in the state of knowing God in the facet they are meant to know and reveal, then the Geulah will be manifest in its completeness.
Yismach Lev 