"For You Shall Go Out with Joy"

"And they did not listen to Moshe because of shortness of breath and hard labor" (Shemot 6:9) -

(Transcript from a lesson by Rabbi Eliezer Berland)

Moshe Rabbeinu arrived in Egypt and said, "Gentlemen, Hashem has revealed Himself to me! The Geulah is about to happen! Start rejoicing! Start singing! Start playing music! The time has come to dance! Sing! Bring orchestras! Bring violins! Bring flutes! Start singing about the tidings of the Geulah." "And they did not listen to Moshe because of shortness of breath and hard labor." Rebbe Nachman says (in Likutey Moharan, Torah 66), "Those of little faith are in the category of 'shortness of breath'... because they are in the category of 'shortness of breath' due to their lack of faith, they require hard labors and fasts." Those who are in the category of "shortness of breath," who lack complete faith, are inclined toward self-affliction and fasting.

The Noam Elimelech says that this was the argument between Moshe and the tzaddikim who were in that generation. Moshe said, "Stop with the fasts and self-afflictions! Stop with the hard labors! Now the service is to start dancing, rejoicing, singing, and playing music." In truth, from the beginning of the enslavement, the Jewish people were not silent, the tzaddikim were not silent; the tzaddikim fasted, wept, and sat on the ground. They saw every day that children were being thrown into the Nile, every day children were being slaughtered, every day children were being placed inside the walls, every day Pharaoh was bathing in the blood of infants. No one was silent; everyone fasted, wept, and afflicted themselves to bring the Geulah. Moshe came and said to them, "Gentlemen, this is not the way!! You want to fast? Fast! But it will not bring the Geulah. With fasts and self-afflictions, one does not draw the Geulah closer; the Geulah will arrive only with joy!" They said to him, "What!? You are suggesting a new path in the service of Hashem? You want to take away our service of fasts!? The service of self-affliction!? After we have already been fasting and afflicting ourselves for years upon years?" "And they did not listen to Moshe because of shortness of breath and hard labor." They did not listen to Moshe because of shortness of breath and hard labor; out of despair, out of shortness of breath, out of hard labors, they were unable to shake off the despair, to believe in hope, to believe in the Geulah.

Moshe said, "The time has come for the service of Hashem through joy, through tremendous joy; only joy will subdue the kelipah (shell), only joy will bring the Geulah." The Noam Elimelech says that the tzaddikim who seek hard labors and fasts have a precious soul, not just an ordinary soul, but they do not see what the tzaddikim who are in the category of Moshe see, for the true tzaddik annuls the judgments and the decrees with the utmost ease! He does not need any effort! He does not need any self-afflictions! No fasts! He annuls the judgments with joy, with melodies, and with songs.

The world is in error! A person thinks that in order to merit salvation, healing, and to sweeten judgments, one needs hard labors, self-afflictions, fasts, etc... In fact, the Baal Shem Tov already completely abolished the matter of fasts and hard labors, and this is what Rebbe Nachman says in Torah 66: "...because they are of little faith... they require hard labors and fasts." Rebbe Nachman says that the world does not believe that it is possible to merit salvation, parnassah, healing, and to sweeten all the judgments in the world through melodies, through songs, and through joy.