In this week's parsha we read about the first seven plagues which Hashem brought upon Paroah and Egypt. We all know how the story ends but it is worth contemplating the mindset of Paraoh, after the first two or three plagues didn't he get the picture? Didn't he understand what was going on and that he had no chance in succeeding? The Torah tells us that Hashem did harden his heart but even before one would think that it should have been clear to him to release the Jewish People. 

We can learn an important lesson. Sometimes we are deeply invested in an idea, path, mindset or certain goal. At times, things don't go as we expect. Of course a person shouldn't give up and abandon their goals and ideas just because of some difficulties, but when a person starts seeing that things are not going the way they want in almost an unnatural sense, a person should consider maybe G-d is trying to tell us something. We should reconsider and think whether the plan we have for ourselves might not be the plan that G-d has for us. 

May this be a refuah shelaima for:

Chaim Zvi ben Malka

Gershon Ephraim ben Shifra

Shabbat Shalom,

Heath