A vort from the Rebbe on this week's פרשה, פרשת בא. In פרשת בא we learn that one of the times when Moshe Rabbeinu spoke to Pharaoh, Pharaoh said to Moshe that, you know what, you could go, but just leave the cattle with me. And Moshe Rabbeinu said, \"No, we will take everything. גם אתה תתן בידינו זבחים ועולות. You will even add to us more animals so we should have more korbanot.\" And then Moshe Rabbeinu continued and he said, \"ואנחנו לא נדע מה נעבוד את ה׳ עד בואנו שמה.\" And we don't know how we're going to how much we're going to need to serve Hashem till we get there. And Rashi teitst oys, what does that mean? We don't know כמה תכבד העבודה, how hard the service of Hashem will be, שמא ישאל ממנו יותר ממה שיש בידינו. Maybe He will ask for more than what we have. And the way it seems pshat in Rashi, the way the Rebbe explains that this is a continuation of what he said: You're going to give also, because we don't know if what we have will be enough, we'll need more than that. But the Rebbe explains this Rashi also על פי חסידות, על פי פנימיות התורה. We're talking here about serving Hashem.

Now we know the vort of the Baal Shem Tov, that whatever a Yid sees or hears in the world, עניני of the velt, not davka in Torah and mitzvot, is a lesson to him in עבודת ה׳. Whatever he sees, it's Hashem showing him something in a way of to teach him something in serving Hashem. As the famous story is, that after the Baal Shem Tov said this, the Toldot was once sitting in his house and it was the middle of the winter, and the goyim in that city had a custom that on their חגיא, on their holidays, they would it was the middle of the winter, so they would go to the river and the river was frozen, they would chop out, Rachmana letzlan, a cross and march across the city with the cross. And the Toldot saw that happen, and he wondered, what lesson can I take from here? So he went to the Baal Shem Tov, and the Baal Shem Tov said the lesson is that if you get cold, you could turn into a tzelem, you could turn into a cross. But that's just to show the point that Baal Shem Tov said that Hashem sometimes shows us things in order to give us lessons in עבודת ה׳.

And the Rebbe asked the shailah: Why is it not enough, the lessons we have in avodat Hashem from Torah? In the Torah we have everything that we need, we have all the lessons that we need. Nevertheless, we see here that sometimes the Oibershter wants to give us extra lessons in certain things which are important at that time, and that is done through וועלטישע זאכן, that He tells us, shows us different things, worldly, גשמיותדיגע ענינים, in order to give us lessons. And that's what the pasuk means in the way Rashi says: שמא ישאל ממנו יותר ממה שיש בידינו. Hashem wants from us to serve Him with more than what we have. In other words, we have is what the Torah tells us, that's what we have beyadeinu, that's what the Oibershter gave us. But the Oibershter wants from time to time that we should serve Him in more inyanim, extra things, and that's when He gives us lessons even from things which are not Torah. Similar to here, Moshe Rabbeinu told Pharaoh: Besides the sheep that we have, which is there to serve Hashem, you are going to give us more, because we might need that to serve Hashem. Now, the things that we take from Pharaoh is parallel to the things of worldly matters. The things that we have, idishe things, that's ruchniyusdike things, so that we serve Hashem because Hashem told us to serve in these ways. But then we have from Pharaoh, we take things from der velt, and utilize to serve Hashem. And as the Baal Shem Tov said, that the Oibershter, whatever we see in velt is because the Oibershter showed us and wants us to take a horaah from it.