A vort from the Rebbe on this week's parshah, Parshat Vaera. In Parshat Vaera we learn that the Eibershter said that Aharon should go in front of Pharaoh, take a stick and throw it down on the floor, and it'll turn into a snake. And the Torah tells us that that's what Aharon did, and when he did that, so the magicians of Pharaoh did the same. וישליכו איש מטהו ויהיו לתנינם. Each one threw down their stick, and they also became into snakes. But then the pasuk adds, ויבלע מטה אהרן את מטתם. The stick of Aharon swallowed their stick. And Rashi said, what does that mean? Not that after the stick turned back into a snake then it swallowed. While it was a stick, מאחר שחזר ונעשה מטה, after it became a stick, בלעם כולם, it swallowed them all. And it's a big nes that a stick could swallow.

But there is a lot in the simple peshat of the pasuk, the way Rashi explains it, but the Rebbe gives a lesson, an horaah, an horaah in avodat Hashem, serving Hashem. When the Yid works on being mashpia and influence other Yidden, so usually the right way to do it is in a form of you being mekarev, it has to be with the right side, which shows kiruv, that you're mekarev the person. You speak to the person nice, like it says in Pirkei Avot, you should be like the talmidim of אהרן, אוהב שלום ורודף שלום, אוהב את הבריות ומקרבן לתורה. You love peace, you love the people, and you're mekarev them through love in a positive way. Sometimes there is an exception that that won't work. And therefore sometimes you have to go with the level of שמאל דוחה. The left side should push away. You got to sometimes bring a bitul into the person. Sometimes the person cannot be a vessel to accept what you're telling him because there's something blocking, there's a blockade there. And you got to break that blockade. You got to be mevatel the person, and you got to be careful how you do it, but you got to do it, and that's the way you could be mekarev him. That's hinted in the concept of swallowing. When one thing swallows the other, it means the metziut of the other is completely null. And that's what the remez is in swallowing, that you make that metziut not existing anymore, it's not felt anymore. And this is what the remez here in the Torah, that the stick of Aharon swallowed their sticks. That means that this was a time that the way to the Eibershter's word should have a hashpaah on them, you had to swallow them in, you had to be mevatel them.

But there are two conditions here. One condition is, it has to be done with the stick of Aharon. Aharon, as I said, represents ahavah, chesed. Bichlal, the kohanim are inyan of chesed. תמיך ואוריך לאיש חסידך the pasuk says, and Aharon the Kohen is called איש החסד. Aharon was אוהב שלום ורודף שלום, אוהב את הבריות ומקרבן לתורה, he was mekarev them through good. So only a person who's completely absorbed with chesed and Ahavat Yisrael like Aharon Hakohen, he's the one that could use this way. That means that even if you're for some odd reason have to use the way of bitul, but it should be done that itself should be done by a person who is completely chesed. Because if it's not like that, so sometimes you do it in such a way that you swallow him in, but there is also an involvement, a mixture of sometimes your bad middot, the bad middot of a person. It could be a person has bad middot, and that could be the one that's the thing that's pushing him to be mevatel that person. So that's, you know it's not the right way. You can't have any metziut of yourself involved. So it has to be done through the stick of Aharon, has to be done through a person that generally speaking he's איש החסד, and therefore when he does something like this, you know it will be pure lishmah shamayim, not because of any other ulterior motives. And the second thing is, it has to be done when it's a stick, not when it's a snake. The nature of a snake is to take revenge. The nature of a snake is to be angry and go against others. So when you have to be mevatel somebody else, you have to make sure that the way it's done is without any emotion, without emotion that you feel angry at the person, etc., etc. You have to do it like a stick. A stick has no emotions. There should be no emotions in what you're doing, and it should be just done be done because that's what this situation requires, but not because of your emotion of anger, etc., etc. And then, if it comes to a point where you have to do this שמאל דוחה, you have to do it from the left side, not with kiruv, but with the other way, you know you'll succeed because you're doing it in the right way. But if, chas veshalom, someone does it with emotion, with anger, etc., etc., then they won't succeed. And this is the lesson that we take from here, that when it comes to swallowing somebody else, has to be done through the stick of Aharon, which is chesed, and only a person like that could do it, and also when you don't involve your emotions, you do it just because that's what this situation requires. requires al pi Torah.