Fire rains down, Egypt is shattered—and yet, some things remain untouched.
A single pasuk in the seventh makkah draws a sharp line between what is destroyed and what survives. What looks like an agricultural detail becomes a terrifying spiritual forecast: Arrogance and a corrupted mouth cannot endure the storm, while humility and attachment to Torah place a person beyond the reach of nature itself.
Ancient prophecy collides with a modern, jaw-dropping story of salvation that defies every rule.
When everything is falling apart, the real question isn’t what’s happening around you—but who you’re becoming.
Listen on: 
Dedicated by Zvi and Tova Mermelstein (Wesley Hills, NY) l’illui nishmas my father, R’ Naftali Simcha ben R’ Avrohom a”h
Parshas Vaeira 5786
Iran is facing a moment of upheaval. People are rising against oppression, and the outcome is unknown. Protests and unrest have spread across cities and towns, and thousands have died. Fear and anxiety are real in the region, and tension is rising around the world.
In times like these, it can feel as if the world is out of control. Yet we know that Hashem is guiding history. Even in the storms of life, some endure, some fall, and some grow quietly, steadily, with patience and humility. True strength is not always loud or immediate; it is measured by who remains connected to Torah and to Hashem, even when the chaos surrounds them.
HAIL
The 7th makkah, makkas barad: The hail comes down and literally rocks all of Egypt. Fire cased in ice, a miracle within a miracle.
Pharaoh is overwhelmed and asks Moshe to pray for him. Moshe responds that he will pray and the hail will stop. But Moshe adds a detail (Shemos 9:31-32):
והפשתה והשערה נכתה כי השערה אביב והפשתה גבעל. והחטה והכסמת לא נכו כי אפילת הנה.
The flax and the barley were struck, for the barley was ripe and the flax was in its stalk. But the wheat and the spelt were not struck, because they ripen later.
On the surface, what Moshe said about the different grains seem to be straightforward facts which he related to Pharaoh.
However, the Pituchei Chosam, Rav Yisroel Abuchatzeira, reveals that embedded within these words is a penetrating remez about kiyum, endurance, and who ultimately survives in olam hazeh and olam haba. He writes that the pasuk is not only describing different crops, but rather different types of people.
TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THE PASUK
The פשתה, flax, is read as a remez through its letters. פשתה is associated with the letters of שפתים, the lips. It alludes to those whose failure lies in misuse of speech: בעלי לשון הרע, שקר, חנופה, וליצנות.
Next in the pasuk is the barley, שערה, which is comprised of the letters רשעה, wickednesss, a remez to sinners, and specifically בעלי גאוה.
These two categories, the בעלי לשון הרע and the בעלי גאוה, are destined to be נוכתה, wiped out – completely obliterated. They flourish early, they rise to the top quickly like crops that ripen quickly, but because of that, they are vulnerable to destruction. They have a tough shell, but are flimsy and weak.
This is in contrast to the next grain, wheat and spelt, not just in their outer appearance, but in a deeper dimension as well:
"The wheat and spelt will not not get struck." Why do they survive?
The gematria of חטה is כ״ב – 22, corresponding to the כ״ב אותיות התורה – the 22 letters of the alef-beis, the letters of the Torah.
This represents בעלי תורה, those completely bound to the Torah and its precepts.
Spelt, כוסמת is the next grain that won’t get struck, and its letters are interchangeable with the letters סומכת, one who leans, who relies. אלו הסומכים על התורה, these are those who place their ביטחון on Torah and on the Ribono shel Olam.
These people will not get struck, not in this world, and not in the next. Why? Because אפילות הנה – they are “late-ripening,” They are humble. They do not rush to prominence. They allow Torah to form them slowly, deeply, organically. And from this process, authentic growth emerges. Their humility, joint with their attachment to Torah, is the key to their kiyum.
Thus, what appears to be a simple agricultural forecast becomes a timeless spiritual law. Those driven by gaavah and corrupted speech may rise quickly, but they fall. Those who bind themselves to Torah with anivus endure forever.
Moshe Rabbeinu was not merely warning Pharaoh about what would be destroyed in Egypt. He was revealing who truly endures through history.
A LESSON FROM THE MIRRER ROSH YESHIVA
This Shabbos, כ״ח טבת, marks the yahrtzeit of the Mirrer Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Shmuel Berenbaum.
Rav Zechariah Wallerstein, his talmid, recounts:
There was an avreich in the Mir, a yungerman in his early sixties, who had been learning in yeshiva for over thirty years. His wife had sacrificed everything to enable that life. She carried the burden of the home, raised the children, and allowed him to sit and learn with utmost yishuv hadaas, uninterrupted for decades. Together they had built a family of bnei Torah.
One day, his wife was diagnosed with stage-four cancer.
Broken and terrified, the avreich went to Rav Shmuel. “Rebbe,” he said, “My wife is dying. I have children to marry off, a family that depends on her. I need a neis. Please, do something.”
Rav Shmuel answered honestly. “I am not a mekubal. I don’t have access to segulos or kabbalos.”
The avreich replied, “Rebbe, for thirty years I have learned Torah here. My wife gave me that ability. If there is anything that can be done, you must do it.”
Rav Shmuel listened, nodded gently, and the avreich left.
A week later, the avreich returned, shaken. “Rebbe,” he said, “I didn’t travel anywhere. I didn’t seek out mekubalim. My wife went for a scan yesterday, and the cancer is gone. What happened?”
Rav Shmuel answered with complete simplicity.
“When you left my room, my heart broke. I thought to myself: I am not a mekubal, but I do have a shaychus with Abaye and Rava. I have lived with them for eighty years. You have lived with them for decades. I began to cry and I said: ‘Abaye, Rava, if you do not intercede for this man, how will he continue learning your Torah?’ That is all I did. If it had anything to do with your visit to me, it was likely in the zechus of Abaye and Rava.”
A LESSON FOR TODAY
While this sounds like a Rebbishe maaseh, one of kabbalah or esoteric power, the story happened with Rav Shmuel, who definitely was not connected to that. He was kol kulo nigleh, Gemara, Rishonim, Achronim, lomdus — this was his life.
But based on the Torah we have studied, it is not such a novelty. As we have learned, when a person is a כוסמת, when he is a סומך על התורה, when his life is bound to the כ״ב אותיות התורה, he is no longer confined to the narrow rules of teva alone. That does not negate doctors or hishtadlus, but it means that he is living primarily with the Ribono shel Olam.
Such a person is not operated by the world in the same way.
We all need miracles. We all carry darkness, the unknown. But with the Torah Hakedoshah, with חטה – the twenty-two letters of the Torah, and כוסמת – being סומכת on the Eibeshter, life is simply different.
During days like these, a time set aside for introspection, for strengthening קדושה and טהרה, for reconnecting to אמת, we must ask ourselves whether we are plugged into the right things. Sometimes it is difficult. Sometimes it looks strange. Sometimes people question why we are learning more, guarding ourselves more, living differently.
But it is worth everything.
It is not only the machlah, the cancer, that can be healed in the Beis Hamedrash through the koach of Torah. It is anything. Everything. There is no limit. Just as Hashem has no limits.
Life with Torah, humility, and trust in Hashem changes everything. •
