Don’t be a Sore Winner

by Rabbi Mordechai Rhine

The Parsha begins by describing the first precious days of freedom as the Jewish people left Egypt. Just as they were beginning their journey, Pharoh had a change of heart, gathered his troops, and decided to give chase. Pharoh’s decision is confusing. Just days ago he had pleaded with the Jews to go free, and now he harnessed the horses to his chariot as he prepared to give chase. What is troubling Pharoh? What is it that caused him to change his mind?

At the conclusion of this first section of the Parsha the Torah tells us a piece of information that seems to be out of order. The Torah says, “The Jewish people left with pride.” The fact that the Jewish people left with pride would seem to be something that should have been mentioned in last week’s Parsha when we were discussing the Exodus. Why is this fact mentioned now?

I believe that the Torah is giving us an insight as to what was troubling Pharoh, and what caused him to give chase. You see, if the Jews would have slinked out, Pharoh would have been able to reframe the events and say that he was a benevolent ruler who decided to let his slaves go free. He would have everyone declare that he was progressive, and be heralded as a gracious and modern monarch. But the Jews did not slink out gratefully acknowledging the benevolence of Pharoh. On the contrary they viewed themselves as proud followers of G-d, the Almighty power. This gave Pharoh no room to reframe the events in a way that saved face, and so, he gave chase.

Pharoh is not the only person to live with this challenge of reframing and dealing with someone else’s success. Picture a scenario in which you help a poor, downtrodden person, and then they go on to make it “big”. Unfortunately many people do not have the generous spirit that they should, and grapple with the fact that the person who was once so dependent is now “better off” than most. Some people feel the pain of jealousy so acutely that they might comfort themselves by speaking disparagingly about the very people that they helped to succeed. They might be found saying things like, “I remember him when he was poor.” Or, “I used to give them my second-hand clothes.” Only by minimizing the successful person can they come to some peace with their jealousy.

Fortunately there is an alternative.

Jewish tradition states that although there is jealousy in the world, and it is our job to overcome such feelings, “One will not be jealous of a child or of a student.” That is to say, if I realize that I was fortunate enough to set that blessing in motion, I can see it in the way of benevolence, glad that what I did to help bore fruit and was successful. One example of this is Moshe, who was told to bless his student Yehoshua with one hand, and he proceeded to bless Yehoshua generously, with two hands. That simple act sent the message to his student, “I hope you succeed.”

Similarly, Elisha asked his Rebbe, Eliyahu, to bless him to be twice as great as Eliyahu was. Eliyahu’s response was, “As far as I am concerned, I hope so.”

So many people work hard to achieve what they have achieved. They earn money, build businesses, or start organizations. Then a person comes and they decide to help that person out. They benevolently give the person assistance that is so good that the person they help actually succeeds. The question then is what perspective do they experience. They could say, “It seems so unfair! No one helped me! It’s not fair that I help them and then they succeed even more than I.” This is the feeling of Pharoh. Had the Jewish people slinked away grateful for his benevolence he could have dealt with the Exodus. But the fact that they would succeed as proud servants of G-d frustrated him. It made it impossible for him to deal with what happened.

Fortunately Pharoh is not our role model, and there is an alternative to the bitterness. Our role models are Moshe and Eliyahu, people who saw their students do well, and they were proud. We can emulate them and reach out to those that we help or mentor and say, “The sky is the limit. I hope you succeed.”

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