A vort from the Rebbe on this week's parashah, Parashat Vayigash. In Parashat Vayigash we learn that Yosef brought down his father and the family to Mitzrayim, and when Yaakov came to Mitzrayim, he visited Paroh. And before he left Paroh, the pasuk says: ויברך יעקב את פרעה ויצא מלפני פרעה, that יעקב בענטשט פרעה. So Rashi says: what berachah did he give him? שיעלה נילוס לרגליו, that the Nile should go up to his feet. That means when Paroh would come to the Nile, that itself would cause that the Nile should go up. Because Rashi explains: ארץ מצרים does not have rain, it doesn't rain there. So how do they irrigate the fields? The Nile, the Nile, goes up from time to time and mashkeh and irrigates the fields. So what would happen? From when Yaakov gave Paroh the berachah, whenever Paroh came to the Nile, the Nile would come up towards Paroh, and that would irrigate the fields. And as Rashi says in a different place, there were certain canals that they made throughout Mitzrayim that when the water from the Nile would go up, it would go throughout the whole Mitzrayim and irrigate the field. But after Yaakov gave him the berachah, whenever Paroh came, this is what happened: the Nile went up, and this all came as a result of the berachah of Yaakov.

And the Rebbe asks a she'eilah: Why would Yaakov give a berachah to to Paroh בנוגע the Nile? The Nile was the Avodah Zarah of Mitzrayim. The whole inyan of the Nilus was, by them, something special, it was the Avodah Zarah of Mitzrayim. And the reason, it says, why they worshipped the Nilus, because the Nilus was the natural way they made a living, that's how it irrigated the field naturally. So all they believed was in nature, they didn't believe in anything beyond nature. They didn't believe in Hashem, as it says in Chassidus many times it's written that when Yosef came to Pharaoh and Yosef said to Pharaoh that it's not him who is going to interpret, but there's the Aibershter, he said: אלוקים יענה את שלום פרעה. Elokim, Pharaoh only knew שם אלוקים. שם אלוקים is gematria the same numerical value as הטבע, as the nature. It refers to Hashem the way He is hidden in nature, and that's all Pharaoh knew about. So they believed basically in nature, they didn't believe in Hashem. They believed they believed in the outward part of it, in the nature part of it. And that was their Avodah Zarah, they worshipped it. So why would Yaakov give him a brachah concerning the Nilus? If the Nilus is the Avodah Zarah of Mitzrayim, then stay away from it! Give him a brachah in other things, but not a brachah within the scope of the of the Avodah Zarah.

And the Rebbe answers that the pshat is complete opposite: By doing this, this is how he would break their Avodah Zarah. Till then they believed in nature only, so when the Nilus would come up by itself naturally from whenever the time came, they believed in nature and nothing more. From when Yaakov gave him the brachah, they saw that the brachah of Yaakov is what made the Nilus come up. So they realized that it's not from nature. So this broke their Avodah Zarah. The whole Avodah Zarah was the believing in nature, now they see that it came from the brachah of Yaakov. That was the reason that Yaakov gave him specially the berachah about the Nilos. In whatever the Nilos is supposed to do, which is the which to them meant nature, they started realizing that it came from beyond nature, came from a berachah of Yaakov who was the tzadik and connected to Hashem, and they realized that. And that's the reason he gave him the ברכה בנוגע the Nilos. And this is a lesson also for everybody that we're able to even show goyim and work on showing goyim that what they think is nature, really the nature is only from Hashem. And that we have to work on. By Yaakov it came through his berachah, but our עבודה is to bring into the world that the world should recognize that there is no such real thing as nature, but even the nature comes from Hashem.