In this week’s parsha Moshe Rabbeinu tries to explain his message to the Jews but they ignore him because they are too overwhelmed by the burden of their slavery (Shmot 6:9).

The sense of being overwhelmed affects all of us. To a very great extent a person’s success in life depends on his or her ability to keep in mind their objective and avoid distraction. The famous dead white male poet, Rudyard Kipling, wrote a very nice poem titled If, dedicated to this subject.

Though I respect the concept of Torah uMada as much as the next fellow, I will try to limit this week’s dvar Torah to Jewish sources, to the exclusion of Kipling.

The Jews of Moshe Rabbeinu’s time, after years of slavery, were oblivious to their heritage and to their destiny. This state made them deaf to Moshe Rabbeinu’s message. Eventually the Jews shook off the effects of slavery and assimilated an awareness of being the people of the Torah.

Many of our gedolim have written about the threat posed to us by being oblivious. Fortunately evil dictators no longer enslave us but material pursuits can make us as deaf as ancestors in Egypt.

The observation that the pursuit of material gain can make us forget our purpose on Earth is certainly not novel. The Rambam expressed this brilliantly in Hilchot Teshuva (3:4) when he described the sound of the shofar as the call for us to wake up from our spiritual stupor.

Ramchal, in his Mesillat Yesharim (Chapter 2, Midat Ha’z’hirut) says that Pharaoh was quite ingenious. When he was alarmed at the prospect that the Jews may heed Moshe Rabbeinu’s message of freedom he didn’t panic. He merely increased the burden of their slavery. Pharaoh knew that drudgery would banish thoughts of freedom from the minds of the slaves. Ramchal teaches us that the Yetzer Hara is no less clever than Pharaoh. If Pharaoh knew how to enslave our bodies, the Yetzer Hara knows how to enslave our souls. Pharaoh made sure that the Jews were not given a moment’s respite from the toil of making an ever-increasing number of bricks. The Yetzer Hara sees to it that we are bombarded with temptations. Even when we know that we have absolutely no need for what we see, we have trouble controlling our greed. This is the genius of the Yetzer Hara, and Ramchal tells us that the only way that we can defeat him is with vigilance. We need to be conscious of the decisions we make in our lives. We need to weigh all our decisions to check that they are in accord with the demands of the Torah. The Sfat Emet ( parshat Shmot, year 5664) says that all we need to do is make the smallest hole in the coarse layer that envelops our hearts and then our souls will be free to illuminate our very beings.

There is a story that the Chassidim tell about Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. The Rabbi was once staying at an inn. He went outside and saw a wagon-driver greasing the axles of his cart while he was wrapped in his talit and t’fillin and reciting Shma. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak then addressed G-d and said, “Ribbono Shel Olam! Behold the greatness of your people! Even when they are ground down by poverty and struggle to earn their daily bread they wear their talit and t’fillin and say Shma!”

The story is beautiful, and reflects the reality of Jewish life in Czarist Russia. But most of us lead lives more comfortable than the one led in the Pale of Settlement. We don’t have the excuses of our ancestors for ignoring the message of the Torah.