It Wasn’t The Envelopes

If the Jewish people were finally leaving Egypt, why does the Torah seem sad about it?

Learning at Home

Rabbi Mordechai Kanelsky is a Chabad rabbi in New Jersey who has worked since the 1970s with Jews who emigrated from the former Soviet Union. 

He himself grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and there’s a fascinating story he tells about it.

In Russia, there was a law of compulsory education starting at age seven, requiring every child to attend public school. For a Jewish child, this was a nightmare. Not only was the curriculum aggressively filled with atheism, not only were the classmates non-Jews who often hated Jews, not only did you have to sit in class without a kippah—the worst part was that you were required to attend school on Shabbat.

When he turned seven, his father managed to bribe a doctor, who in exchange provided a letter stating that the child was sick and physically weak and therefore unable to attend school. But after one year, the doctor refused to renew the letter—even after being offered a substantial sum of money.

At that point, his father sat him down and shared the problem with him. He explained that there were now two options. The first option was to attend school—but not on Shabbat. And when Monday came and the teacher asked why he hadn’t shown up on Saturday, they would have to be very creative, inventing a new excuse every single week.

The second option was to study at home. But that meant hiding in the basement, essentially never seeing daylight until he reached the end of school age—or until they managed to leave Russia, whichever came first. Eight-year-old Mordechai chose to stay home, and that decision quickly took on a very real meaning: he could not step outside during daylight hours, in case a neighbor saw him and reported him to the authorities.

While every other child his age could play outside, have friends, and enjoy games, young Mordechai Kanelsky lived alone inside the house—for two full years. No friends. No games. Nothing.

Then the authorities began conducting surprise inspections, checking how many people lived in each apartment. One morning, there was a knock on the door. His father wasn’t home. His mother opened the door, and they asked her how many people lived there. When she answered that there were three—father, mother, and the younger brother, Avraham—they announced that they needed to conduct a search.

At that very moment, he was not in the basement—he was inside the house. It’s easy to imagine the overwhelming fear that seized him. In the end, he managed to slip out of the house and hide in the basement. It was a terrifying experience—for a child just eight and a half years old.

“You Will Die in Russia…”

When his father returned home from work and heard about the inspection, he realized that this situation could not continue. They had to try to leave Russia. Of course, Chassidim never take such a step without asking the Rebbe—but how could they possibly send a message? Sending a letter directly to the Rebbe could lead to immediate arrest. Even mentioning the words “Chabad” or “Schneerson” was forbidden.

His father came up with a creative idea. He photographed the entire family and sent the picture to his cousin, Rabbi Naftali Hertz Minkowitz, who lived in Crown Heights. On the back of the photo he wrote: “Please show this picture to Grandpa, and tell him that we very much want to see him.”

Rabbi Minkowitz received the photo during the Ten Days of Repentance of the year 5729 (1968). On the eve of Yom Kippur, it was the Rebbe’s custom to distribute a small piece of honey cake to everyone, wishing each person a “good and sweet year.” Minkowitz decided this would be the perfect opportunity to give the Rebbe the photograph he had received from his cousin in Moscow. When his turn came, he handed the picture to the Rebbe. The Rebbe took it and silently placed it into the drawer of his desk.

After the holiday, Minkowitz wrote to his cousin in Moscow and described exactly what had happened. Kanelsky recounts that after three months of agonizing anticipation, they received the following reply: “We received the picture, gave it to Grandpa—and he didn’t say anything.” The disappointment was crushing. They had waited so long for a blessing from the Rebbe, and this was the response?

As if that weren’t enough, it became known around that time that one could submit an exit request only once per year. His father went to file the paperwork. According to the letter of the law, he had a chance: his grandfather—his father’s father—who lived in Israel, had submitted a request for family reunification. Under Soviet law, if a close relative living abroad requested that you join them, you were supposed to be granted an exit permit.

When his father arrived at the offices of OVIR, the immigration authority, to submit the documents, the clerk tore them up in front of his eyes and said viciously: “You will never leave Russia. You will die here.”

His father returned home broken and devastated. He sat and cried, and the atmosphere in the house was unbearably heavy.

A year passed, and the eve of Yom Kippur of 5730 (1969) arrived. His cousin, Rabbi Minkowitz from Brooklyn, once again went to receive a piece of honey cake from the Rebbe. As he passed by, the Rebbe asked him to wait a moment. The Rebbe then opened his desk drawer, took out the photograph, handed it back to him, and said: “I no longer need this picture.”

What Really Helped

At the beginning of the month of Adar, 5730 (1970), they suddenly received a telegram from OVIR stating that they were permitted to leave Russia within eight days.

His father wasted no time. Within five days they were already on a plane to Vienna, and from there on to Israel. Before the High Holidays of 5731, Rabbi Nosson Kanelsky and his son Mordechai traveled to the Rebbe. When they arrived in Crown Heights, they stayed with the Minkowitz family—and to their astonishment, Rabbi Naftali Hertz opened a cabinet and took out the very photograph they had once asked him to give to the Rebbe.

They were stunned. The picture was supposed to be with the Rebbe!

Rabbi Minkowitz smiled and explained. When he had first received the photograph, he had indeed given it to the Rebbe, telling him that it was from his cousins who were seeking a blessing to leave Russia. The Rebbe took the photo, said nothing, and placed it in his desk drawer. That year, on the eve of Yom Kippur 5730, when he passed by the Rebbe to receive a piece of honey cake, the Rebbe surprised him by taking the photograph out of the drawer and saying, “I no longer need this picture.”

During the Ten Days of Repentance of 5731, the Kanelsky father and son merited a private audience (yechidut) with the Rebbe. For the first ten minutes, the Rebbe spoke with the father about the situation of Jews in Moscow. Toward the end, the Rebbe asked him, “How did you manage to leave Russia?”

The father told the Rebbe that two months before their departure, he had borrowed 5,000 rubles from friends—a very large sum at the time—and placed it in an envelope, which he gave to a senior official at the OVIR offices. He believed that this step was what earned him the exit permit.

The Rebbe smiled and asked, “Are you certain that this is what helped you?”

The father answered yes.

The Rebbe smiled again and asked, more pointedly, “Are you really sure that this is what helped you?”

What Is Painful About the Exodus from Egypt?

This week’s Torah portion, Beshalach, opens with the word “Vayehi”—“And it was.” 

The Gemara explains that the Men of the Great Assembly—who lived at the beginning of the Second Temple period—passed down a tradition that whenever a story begins with the word vayehi, it foreshadows suffering or hardship. The Gemara gives several examples: the Megillah, which begins with vayehi and revolves around Haman’s plan to annihilate the Jewish people.

The Book of Ruth also opens with vayehi, and it describes a devastating famine in the Land of Israel. Parashat Shemini opens with the words “And it was on the eighth day,” describing the inauguration of the Mishkan—and what immediately followed? The tragic death of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu (Megillah 10b).

The Rebbe asks: What exactly is painful about the sending of the Jewish people out of Egypt? (Torat Menachem, vol. 27, p. 318). After all, our parshah describes the Exodus itself. What could possibly be better than that? This was what the Jewish people had been waiting for, praying for, for hundreds of years. The dream finally came true. So what is the pain here? Why does the parashah begin with vayehi?

The Rebbe explains that the answer lies later in the parshah, in the verse “And Pharaoh drew near.” Our Sages interpret this to mean that Pharaoh brought the Jewish people closer to their Father in Heaven (Midrash Lekach Tov). And this, says the Rebbe, is the pain—that it required such a cruel king as Pharaoh to bring the Jewish people closer to G-d.

It seems that the pain already appears in the very first verse: “And it was when Pharaoh sent the people.” The Torah emphasizes that Pharaoh sent them. Pharaoh believed that the Jewish people left Egypt not because of G-d’s ten plagues, but because he decided to let them go. He thought the Exodus depended on his permission—and that is precisely why he soon changed his mind and chased after them, trying to bring them back. He truly believed the power was his.

But that still isn’t the deepest pain. What is even more painful is that the Jewish people themselves also believed—at least on some level—that they left Egypt because Pharaoh granted them permission. This is the true vayehi of sorrow. Instead of seeing the unmistakable hand of G-d in these events, they thought Pharaoh was the one who freed them. And that is why, when they suddenly saw “Egypt traveling after them,” they panicked: “They were very afraid” (Exodus 14:10), and cried out to Moses in despair, “Were there no graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the desert?!” The pain lies in the fact that they did not yet feel G-d’s presence.

We see this again at the end of the parshah, in the story of the war with Amalek. Why does the Torah place the story of Amalek immediately after the verse, “They tested G-d, saying: Is G-d among us or not?” Rashi explains: G-d is saying, “I am always among you and ready to provide for your needs—and you ask, ‘Is G-d among us or not?’ I swear, the dog will come and bite you, and then you will cry out and realize where I am” (Rashi to Exodus 17:8).

This shows that the same problem present at the beginning of the parshah appears again at the end—the lingering question, “Is G-d among us or not?” That is the meaning of vayehi as a word of pain.

And yet, after all this explanation, the Rebbe concludes with a powerful perspective: Everything was worth it—all the pain and confusion—because it led to the ultimate goal: arriving at Mount Sinai to hear “I am the L-rd your G-d,” and “You shall have no other gods,” and to receive the entire Torah.

The Torah tells us all this so that we repeat it to ourselves every day: it was not Pharaoh who took us out of Egypt, and it was not “envelopes” that took us out of Russia. It is G-d who leads us by the hand and takes us out of all our personal Egypts—out of every boundary and limitation.