Many are the topics in Parshas Re’eh, including but not limited to: Moshe’s urging to the nation to choose a life of Torah, which will yield Divine blessings; warnings not to stray after idolatry; the importance of serving Hashem in the place that He has chosen to rest His presence there; warnings to be on guard against a false prophet, one who sways his fellow Jews to serve idolatry, and an entire city that becomes wayward; the mitzvah to give tzedaka; forbidden and permitted animals that we may not, or may, consume; and the shalosh regalim. 

In regard to Chag Ha’Pesach and the Korban Pesach, the pasuk tells us:

לֹא־תֹאכַ֤ל עָלָיו֙ חָמֵ֔ץ שִׁבְעַ֥ת יָמִ֛ים תֹּֽאכַל־עָלָ֥יו מַצּ֖וֹת לֶ֣חֶם עֹ֑נִי כִּ֣י בְחִפָּז֗וֹן יָצָ֙אתָ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם לְמַ֣עַן תִּזְכֹּ֗ר אֶת־י֤וֹם צֵֽאתְךָ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם כֹּ֖ל יְמֵ֥י חַיֶּֽיךָ

You shall not eat leaven with it; for seven days you shall eat with it matzos, the bread of affliction, for in haste you went out of the land of Egypt, so that you shall remember the day when you went out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life (Devarim 16:3).

On the haste, בְחִפָּז֗וֹן, with which we left Egypt, Rashi (ibid), quoting the Sifrei, comments:

כי בחפזון יצאת. וְלֹא הִסְפִּיק בָּצֵק לְהַחֲמִיץ וְזֶה יִהְיֶה לְךָ לְזִכָּרוֹן; וְחִפָּזוֹן לֹא שֶׁלְּךָ הָיָה אֶלָּא שֶׁל מִצְרַיִם, שֶׁכֵּן הוּא אוֹמֵר "וַתֶּחֱזַק מִצְרַיִם עַל הָעָם וְגוֹ’"

For in haste you went out of the land of Egypt. And the dough (that you had prepared for eating) did not have time to become leavened, so this (the matzah) will be for you as a reminder. And the haste (mentioned here, that occurred on the night of the Exodus) is not on your part, but on the part of the Egyptians, as the verse says, “So the Egyptians urged the people (to hurry to send them out of the land).” (Exod. 12:33).

The redemption from Egypt was in haste, בְחִפָּז֗וֹן, which Onkelos explains as בִּבְהִילוּ. The Egyptians, suddenly, with an abrupt change of heart - after centuries of slavery, decades of oppression, and months of refusal - pressed and urged us to leave their land. And though the Israelites longed for redemption, perhaps when the moment came, they were as surprised as their slave drivers. For suddenly, the yad chazakah and zero’ah netuyah was outstretched to save them. 

And what was the ultimate destination, to where the nation would journey when they left the land of “every male that is born shall be cast in the river” (Shemos 1:22)? As Hashem promised Moshe, the first four lashonos of geula - and I will take you out, and I will save you, and I will redeem you and I will take you to Me as a a nation (Shemos 6:6-7) - would be followed by a fifth promise of geula, through which our redemption would be complete:

וְהֵבֵאתִ֤י אֶתְכֶם֙ אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֤ר נָשָׂ֙אתִי֙ אֶת־יָדִ֔י לָתֵ֣ת אֹתָ֔הּ לְאַבְרָהָ֥ם לְיִצְחָ֖ק וּֽלְיַעֲקֹ֑ב וְנָתַתִּ֨י אֹתָ֥הּ לָכֶ֛ם מוֹרָשָׁ֖ה אֲנִ֥י ה’

And I will bring you to the land, about which I raised My hand to give to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to Yaakov, and I will give it to you as a heritage; I am Hashem (Shemos 6:8).

This teaching - the haste with which the redemption occurred - should be a source of great chizuk for us all. Today, we are in a dark galus that seems endless… when, we wonder, will the redemption come. How, we muse, will it unfold? In what fashion, we hope, will we all return to our homeland?

While we continue to daven and yearn for geula, we must strengthen our belief that when Hashem wills it, with great haste, it will occur.

In his annual teshuva drasha, delivered in October 1970, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the Rav zt’l, related the following:

“I heard from my father that Reb Chaim of Volozhin was once asked “How will the Messiah come?” He responded: “Let me tell you the following parable, and you will understand how the Messiah will come.  On an ordinary weekday, I came home from the yeshiva after morning prayers.  My wife asked me: ‘Chaim, are you ready to eat your breakfast?’ I answered her: ‘Relka, I have not finished preparing my lecture for today, and I cannot eat until I review the texts that I have to teach in the yeshiva.’

“‘All right, Chaim,’ she says, ‘let it be. While you are preparing your lecture, I will go to the market to buy a few things. In the meantime I will leave the soup cooking on the stove. Please be careful, Chaim, that it should not burn. Please be careful, I know you, and I am aware that you forget everything once you get involved in your learning.’

“My wife left for the market, and I opened my volume and started to study the appropriate texts. Suddenly, I look out the window and I see that the sun is shining with much greater brightness than ever before. What intensity! Then I hear the birds in the garden chirping a new tune, a stirring enchanted melody. I hear a commotion on the street. I look out my window and see Eli, the shoemaker, running and dancing. I call out: ‘What is happening, Eli, why is the sun so bright? What are these enchanting songs of the birds? What has happened to the trees that are suddenly blooming with new leaves? What is happening?’

“Eli looks up at me and says: ‘Rebbe, don’t you know, the Messiah is here!’ Immediately, I run to my closet to get my Sabbath clothes to wear to greet the King Messiah, and I take out my suit, and to my chagrin the jacket is missing a button! Last Saturday night it fell off, and when I told my wife to mend it she said to me: ‘Why the rush? You will not need it until the next Sabbath.’

“Now I have to go forth to greet the Messiah with my jacket missing a button. While I am debating with myself whether to wear this defective jacket or whether I can go to greet the Messiah with my weekday jacket, my wife comes running home. She breathlessly cries out, ‘Gevalt, Chaim, where are you!  The soup has burned! You forgot to turn it off!’ At that moment, I say to her, ‘You foolish woman, we are going to greet the Messiah and you are worried about the soup!? Go and dress in your finest Sabbath clothes and come with me to greet the King Messiah.’”

“This story, which I heard from my father [Rav Moshe, the son of Rav Chaim Brisker, the son of the Beis HaLevi], summarizes the whole saga of the redemption of the Jewish people. A Jew waits endlessly for the redemption, and then it comes unexpectedly (italics added). At that moment he discovers that a button is missing from the suit he has to wear to greet the Messiah” (The Rav, The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, v.2, p.134-135). 

On the occasion of the first yarzheit of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lubanov and Carmel Gat z’l HY”D, we contemplate the darkness of galus (exile) and continue to beseech HKB”H to send the geula shalaimoh (complete redemption).

And when it comes, we will all put on our Shabbos finery and go to greet the king. 

May we merit the ingathering of the exiles, the blessing of everlasting shalom for our land and our holy city, and the eradication of the evil that seeks to destroy us.

And on that great day, וְהָיָ֧ה ה’ לְמֶ֖לֶךְ עַל־כָּל־הָאָ֑רֶץ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֗וּא יִֽהְיֶ֧ה ה’ אֶחָ֖ד וּשְׁמ֥וֹ אֶחָֽד, and Hashem shall be king over the entire earth, on that day Hashem will be One and His Name will be One (Zechariah 14:9).

בברכת בשורות טובות, חודש טוב, ושבת שלום