"It's Harder to Change One Attitude in Yourself Than It Is To Learn the Entire Talmud" - Rabbi Yisrael Salanter

This reminds me of Steve Martin's "How to Be a Millionaire and Not Pay Taxes:" "Step One: Get a million dollars. Step two: When the tax collector appears at your door tell him two simple words from the English language, 'I forgot.' When he doesn't accept that say three simple words, 'Well - excuse me!'

Don't Wait For Someone To Be Friendly, Show Them How

One of the many wonderful things my school does to give personal consideration to students is to have a small group meeting for about 1o freshmen on a regular basis. Generally a topic seems timely. In the wake of The Freshmen Retreat this week's headline will be friendship.

This is what I shared with my colleagues:

"Here are some thought that came to mind from my brain's file cabinet that may be useful for our purposes:"

World Proverb – “If you have one true friend you have more than your share.”

Chazal - Dovid and Yonatan given as example in sixth perek of Avot of true friendship.

Chazal - “Kneh lecha chaver” (Avot, Perek Aleph) – What does kneh mean here? You have to give in order to get a friend (as opposed to a teacher or posek, which is simply appointed – (aseih lecha rav).

Story – A king was going to hang a man for being a spy. The man asked to see his family first. While this man travelled his friend stayed as collateral. The second friend asked to be killed instead of the first when the first seemed late to return. Then the other returned and they argued over who would give their life to save the other. The king allowed each to go on one condition. He said to them, “Teach me how to be a friend in life the way you are to each other.”

Story – In Vietnam, during the war, there was such a shortage of blood supply that they once approached a fifth grade class and asked if any student would donate blood for an injured classmate. One girl agreed. But when they set her up to donate the blood she start shaking and turned pale. They undid everything and calmed her down. This happened several times. They brought in a nun, who was the school’s version of a guidance counselor. In speaking to the girl the nun figured out that the girl thought that giving blood meant that you gave away all your blood. Now the nun understood why the girl was so scared – because the girl knew that if all your blood is taken from you then you die. But now the nun had to ask, “If you thought that giving blood meant giving it all away, why would you agree to do that for your classmate.” Without a pause the little girl replied, “Because he was my friend.”

Story – A Chasidish Rebbe said that he learned what love/friendship is from two drunks on park bench. One said to the other, “Do you love me?” The second drunk replied, “Sure, I love you.” The first asked, “What do I need?” The second said, “I don’t know what you need.” To this the first man responded, “Then you don’t love me – because if you loved me you would tell me what I need.”

Story - A poor man from a small village is treated by his rich uncle to stay in a hotel in the big city. He checks in. Then he starts to go upstairs to his room. He runs back to the front desk and tells the concierge that there’s a snarling, angry looking man at the top of the stairs. The clerk encourages the guest to try again. This happens several times in a row; each time the villager complains about the frowning man atop the stairs. Finally the concierge has an epiphany and says, “I just remembered who that man is. I know him and I guarantee that if you smile at him, he’ll smile back at you. (There was a mirror at the top of the stairs). “Kemayim panim el panim…”

Story – O’Henry’s Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen (available in library or I’d be happy to share it orally).

Powerful Question

Haiku About "Who Are You?"

I need not borrow

The voices are always mine

There are so many

I wrote this haiku in response to Phillip Schultz who (if I understand him correctly, and I suspect this is an oversimplification) feels that to write well you must find and use voices other than your own. I think your voice is always at the wheel.

In the his poem about Yom Kippur (which I wish I would have discovered a month ago) Schultz says that he pretended to be a Jew who "got" Yom Kippur. I think he found the voice inside him that gets it, or he wouldn't have been able to write this.

Snow Covered South Fallsberg Sukkah Frame: Today

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Where's Waldo?

Yom Kippur By Philip Schultz

You are asked to stand and bow your head,
consider the harm you've caused,
the respect you've withheld,
the anger misspent, the fear spread,
the earnestness displayed
in the service of prestige and sensibility,
all the callous, cruel, stubborn, joyless sins
in your alphabet of woe
so that you might be forgiven.
You are asked to believe in the spark
of your divinity, in the purity
of the words of your mouth
and the memories of your heart.
You are asked for this one day and one night
to starve your body so your soul can feast
on faith and adoration.
You are asked to forgive the past
and remember the dead, to gaze
across the desert in your heart
toward Jerusalem. To separate
the sacred from the profane
and be as numerous as the sands
and the stars of heaven.
To believe that no matter what
you have done to yourself and others
morning will come and the mountain
of night will fade. To believe,
for these few precious moments,
in the utter sweetness of your life.
You are asked to bow your head
and remain standing,
and say Amen.

Freshmen Retreat

These pictures were taken at

the Raleigh Hotel this morning.

Friday At Dusk

The work of not working

The thought of not thinking

The breath of just breathing

The now of just being

What do you have in your

pockets (or pocketbook)?

Noach – MiDor LeDor - By Rabbi Neil Fleischmann

Here's my go to thought on Noach.

Memories of Speech Class

The following is an excerpt from the poem "The Lanyard." During my eleventh grade Public Speaking course I presented an example of an informative speech. My topic was Billy Collins. In my intro I spoke about how most people don't like poetry and it's understandable. Then I segued into my thesis statement, which was something like, "Billy Collins is a talented, funny and accessible poet." The main body started with his earliest bio info - birthplace, parents, etc, then I spoke of his teaching career at Lehman and his early years as a poet, then his rise to fame and popularity (and the controversy over his marshaling of less cryptic writing then some of his colleagues), his being poet laureate of the U.S. and then of N.Y., his contributions as poet laureate ("The Names," and Poetry 180) and then I read What She Said and showed the YouTube clip of him reading "Feedback." My conclusion was that he's a good poet for students to know about because he's easily understandable and enjoyable and also usable for assignments.

I did not read "The Lanyard" during the speech, but did have it on hand. Afterwards, an exceptional student asked me if I could recommend others like Collins and I did but said I think he's the best of his ilk. Then I showed the young man "The Lanyard" and he read and loved it on the spot. He commented that most students wouldn't have gotten the reference to the "cookie nibbled by a French novelist." I had about two seconds to decide between pretending I got the reference or coming clean. I chose the latter. This young man told me that eating a cookie is the pivotal inspiration for Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. I asked him how he knew that and without the least bit of flippancy he told me that he read it - on his own. Cool.

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

Aish

At a recent campfire several people commented

that they could watch fire all day.

Not me. Fire scares me. Water is more my thing.

What are your thoughts on this?

And the Rappin Rabbi Goes Blog Blog Bloggin' Along

I'd like to thank those who read here and let me know that they read here - which is primarily done via comments. Teaching can be quite consuming. I'm proud to be teaching in the same fine institution for my sixteenth year. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I love teaching. I'd also be lying if I said that it was an easy job. Writing here is a way of exhaling, a luxury I don't always feel I have the time for.

Watch Your Steps

What do you see when you look back

into this year's Sukkot?

Joy To The Fishes In The Deep Blue Sea...

Taken on Chol HaMoed Sukkos 2011

After Playing Ball With

My Dear Old Friend

and His Son

Hevei Goleh LeMekom Torah

A man is on a street corner crawling along the pavement, the way one does when desperately looking for something. A boy sees him and silently joins in the search. Upon asking he learns that the man is looking for his wallet. After about an hour the kid says, "Are you sure you lost your wallet here, on this corner?" The man replies, "Actually I'm sure I didn't lose it here. I lost it two blocks over." "Then why are you looking here?" the boy asks. "Simple," says the man, "because there's a streetlight here."

When we look for something where it's easy to look but where that thing is not to be found we may have a comfortable search but won't be able to find there what we truly are searching for.

Nageela Flora

On Sunday I took this photo

of a fly on a flower in a planter in a camp...

What does this picture evoke from you?

The Camp Nageela Sukka: Questions for Mortals

One approach to Shmini Atzeret

is that it's a day for processing

the holiday season

and taking something

from this period of holy days

to hold on to.

What's your take home point

from this year's Tishrei?

Horoscopes For the Dead

Billy Collins's latest book feels a bit different, and in some ways better, to me than his previous work. Many of the poems are less funny and less formulaic, more somber, more poem-ey. Here's the start of the title poem (click here to see the whole thing):

Every morning since you fell down on the face of the earth,
I read about you in the newspaper
along with the box scores, the weather, and all the bad news.

Sometimes I am reminded that today
will not be a wildly romantic time for you,
nor will you be challenged by educational goals
nor will you need to be circumspect at the workplace.

"Return Again..."

Here is Jeremy Gaisin leading a Kumsitz last night

following the "3 Day Yom Tov (Not)."

He's an energetic and impressive musician

as well as a top notch human being.

Let Us Be Happy

It's 1:40 PM. Keeping it real is cliche, and an important truth.

I'm sitting on a couch in the lobby of Camp Nageela in South Fallsberg. Two women are chatting in a conspiratorial tone about three feet away from me. Now one parts to go to the dining room, telling her friend she'll be back "momentarily." One of the organizers authoritatively calls another one of them across the room and the latter runs to the office. The front door of the hotel opens and someone with the same name as me who is not me walks into the lobby. Last night someone handed me Rabbi Abraham Twerski's commentary on Mesilat Yesharim and said that a woman left and said to give it to me. It was for him, his book. I figured it out (without a pencil and a paper).

Some bloggers let up from blogging because they lose track or run out of what to say. When I don't blog much it's because I'm restraining myself - like now.

Esrog Shaleim - The Perfect Esrog - PART 2 (Click on this title to link to Part 1)

Kasriel carried his near perfect esrog home with the delicacy reserved for the beloved. He hid it inside it in its hair-like wrapping and then placed that odd looking fuzzy sphere in his ornate silver esrog box. Something didn't sit right with him. He took the esrog out again. It was closer to perfect than he even realized. He loved looking at it. What was making him uncomfortable? He couldn't bear having this esrog kept out of view.

He made space on the narrow flat area of his shtender in the corner of his study. He displayed the esrog and it filled the room with light. He called his wife into the room and showed it to her. She said it was nice - though she wasn't as excited as Kasriel was, she also wasn't as excited as he'd hoped she'd be. This bothered Kasriel, so he breathed deeply in and out as he thought the word "Hashem" to himself and as he exhaled he released any thread of anger from within.

It was Monday and Yom Tov was starting on Wednesday night. Kasriel was taking care of other aspects of the upcoming holiday and thinking about it in every second that passed: getting the best built Sukkah, the most delicious food ingredients, making sure everything was A level. He learned in his study about the laws and meaning of Sukkot as basked in the glow of his beautiful esrog.


His wife was also preparing. On Wednesday, Erev Sukkos, she did a final swoop through the house with the vacuum cleaner. She felt that it was getting late and in her typically efficient manner she was finishing touches in all areas - the last batch of fish was simmering, the napkin holders were on the napkins, the Ushpizin poster was still missing in action and Etta was determined to find it and have it up in the Sukka ASAP.


Kasriel looked up from his sefer and smiled lovingly at his wife as she pushed the vacuum into his study. His smile deteriorated as he saw it happen in slow motion: the corner of the vacuum bumped into the edge of the shtender. The esrog flew up in an arc into the air and then dove straight down to the floor. The esrog hit the ground, pitum first. The pitum popped off the esrog. Kasriel's first thought was, "She couldn't have busted this up more perfectly had she planned it." He knew Etta hadn't meant to render the esrog non-kosher. If for no other reason - and there were other reasons - she was in charge of their finances. And while she gave her blessing to this high end esrog - its price did not go unnoticed by her. Replacing it was not an expense Etta wanted them dealing with.


Etta gasped. In part she was upset about what had just happened, but in a way she was more afraid of what would happen next. She feared the wrath of Kasriel. Don't think that Etta considered Kasriel a bad man. She knew with certainty that he had worked harded on chiseling himself into a refined model of a human being, a servant of Hashem. In fact, she knew no-one who had successfully mastered their middot better than Kasriel. And yet, she knew his Achilles heel, and she had just stepped on it.


Anger. Etta had been on the receiving end of Kasriel's anger. He was so passionate and passion is a double edged sword. He exploded once when they were engaged. She made a comment about his family, which she thought was necessary to say in order to prepare correctly for them wedding, their life. Kasriel seemed possessed. It was hard to say if he yelled; he probably didn't. But the rage with which he spoke was shocking to Ella; seeing him in this Dr. Hyde state felt like more than she could bear. She retreated. She did not call him. She thought it was done. But he approached her. He apologized with such gentleness, such depth of understanding of how his behavior must have made her feel, such deep remorse - that she loved him even more than before. And yet he had been told at that time that she had a hard time with his anger - big time.

Keracheim Av Al Banim

A father's mercy -

keracheim av al banim -

stands alone in life

Haiku and Picture Too

Intimacy flows

from an unwelcoming home;

she can't live alone

Dirat Kevah Vs. Dirat Arai

Which element of the Sukka do you hear more

the side of setness or its temporary aspect?

Sukkos Photo and Haiku

The Sukkah of G-d

Can envelope us with peace

If we sit in it

Eiruv Tavshilin - $2.89 (Check Out Our Lechem Mishneh Special - 2 Rolls, Salt, and Plastic Knife - $3.57)

What thoughts does this photo evoke for you?

You're Highered

How could a journalist

think that the man pictured

is holding flowers for his wife?

Who are these people and

which one of them was my student?

Does it matter if you use fancy holders

for the lulav and esrog?

Where are they most probably going and

what are the tip-offs to your answer?

Share something about your experience

of carrying the arbah minim in public.

Her Politeness

By Kay Ryan

It's her politeness

one loathes: how she

isn't insistent, how

she won't impose, how

nothing's so urgent

it won't wait. Like

a meek guest you tolerate

she goes her way––the muse

you'd have leap at your throat,

you'd spring to obey.

From The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (Grove Press)

Or Do You Go Through The Sukkah?

Sukkah is one of three mitzvot that

COMPLETELY envelope you.

Can you name the other 2?

Does the Sukkah go through you?

A Sukkah Photo And Question

When have you felt closer to G-d

through sitting in the Sukkah?

Ananei HaKavod (Photo By Carla Kimball)

What conditions do you like around you when you fly?

Esrog Shaleim - The Perfect Esrog - PART I

I've been thinking about a classic story. Here's my take on it - copyright 2011 by Neil Fleischmann:

Kasriel and his wife Etta were happily married, not happily ever after but quite happy enough. Kasriel worked as a bank teller. He made a decent living. He was kinder than he had to be to all he came in contact with. He learned Torah; he gave tzedakah. He cherished his life. Some aspects of Jewish observance came easier to him than others and he worked on every element of his religious life. When he was young he had serious anger issues; in eighth grade he threw a tray of food at a kid (Avrumi) who teased him. He learned classic mussar works and practiced what he read in these books - Orchot HaTzadikim was his favorite. He took wisdom wherever he could find it and with the help of friends, rabbis, and teachers he worked on chiseling himself into a mentsch, particularly in regard to controlling his anger.

Some Jews spend money freely on vacations, fancy food, high end clothing, and other similar distractions. Some of those people scrimp when it comes to mitzvot. Kasriel was a rare breed. He didn't spend too much money on his own comfort - he and his wife had what they needed but didn't indulge. It was when it came to mitzvot that he went all out. He bought sefarim with great excitement on a regular basis, he put a twenty dollar bill in the tzedakah box every day (besides many other donations and acts of chesed). Every week for Shabbos he kept the sacred tradition of acquiring the best of the best.

Sukkos was approaching and Kasriel wanted to serve G-d and grow closer to Him during The Season of Happiness. He put his wood walls up in his backyard and his beautiful Sukkah felt like a clubhouse for him and G-d. The day afterYom Kippur Kasriel went to Moishie's sefarim store on Main Street. He asked the proprietor to see the best esrog in the house. The store owner said that they had esrogim ranging from twenty to eighty dollars. "Nothing else?" Kasriel scrutinized the esrogim on the table; none of them sang to him.

After four rousing rounds of "You don't want it" - "Yes I do," Moishie showed Kasriel his one and only esrog with a name, the Eitz Hadar, which was available to purchase for two hundred dollars. Kasriel was happy to pay the price in cash. He carried that kind of money for this kind of occasion. He was thrilled to have an esrog that was truly beautiful in the way that tradition and halachah frame the ideal esrog.

Wishing You A Happy Sukkot

This Year's Model

As Long As The Candle Burns, Fixing Is An Option

In recently posted pictures you can view the busted and then fixed hole in my ceiling. My ceiling situation reminded me of the analogy of the father who put nails in his son's ceiling whenever the son misbehaved. Eventually he took the nails out when the son behaved well. And after that - when the son behaved very well - the father redid the ceiling and all the holes were gone. So too, our mistakes. We put thumbtacks in boards where they don't belong, then the tacks are removed but the holes remain - until, with grace, the holes are fixed. Maybe. Teshuvah. Life is all about fixing.

The hole in my ceiling wasn't my fault. A pipe broke 2 flights up and went wild. All I saw was a drip and when I saw something I said something. The ceiling got soaked, as did the walls. Finally the ceiling collapsed and then was - partially - redone. The walls were shaved down and plastered. And yet the wetness is still there and mold came along.

What am I to make of these wall issues, this modern tzara'at?

Win a copy of my book!

The most right and articulate

and creative and interesting comment

about why I posted this picture today -

WINS!

Five Years Ago

Five years ago after the Israel Day parade I saw a fellow on the street selling original posters. His daughter was playing violin. They weren't getting many customers. I looked over his work and spoke with him. I bought a Cheerio box collage of inspiring words and a larger work of letters from assorted products spelling out The Gettysburg Address. At the end of this summer I dropped off the work of Michael Albert to be framed. On Erev Yom Kippur after physical therapy I picked them up. Yesterday I hung them. Freedom.

On Seven Years Of Blogging (Part I)

The seventh anniversary of this blog, my blog, is about a month away. In a way it feels like yesterday. On the other hand I feel every one of the seven years, even in my fingertips. As my fingers type I think back to when I resisted not considering myself the blogger type. The idea was first suggested to me by blog reading dear friend Moshe Radinsky. And then - like a dater that needs to give credit to a second, less direct source after "an idea" has been straightforwardly suggested by one person - I decided to start one when I read an article I liked by blogger Esther Kustanowitz.

Today (Yom Kippur), while waiting for Chazarat HaShatz I read a Chaim Walder story about Denmark and the Holocaust. It's mind boggling how many people were so much kinder than they had to be. They risked their lives for us. I am forever grateful for such uncommon decency.

I was reminded of the time that one of these heroes spoke in my school. I posted about it here. Jaap Penraat was the name of the typically humble hero who addressed us. I just discovered (NY Times obituary) that he passed away 5 years ago.

"Art should help to reproduce, and find a new version of ourself"

"Do you come to art to be comforted,

or do you come to art to be reskinned?"

- Ali Smith

A Good Year

Looking forward, what do you see?

It's been a couple of months, I think (without checking) since I've been posting the photos and quoting the questions of Carla Kimball. I am deeply grateful to Carla (whom I only know via a recommendation of the site from a friend). This time I went out on a ledge and I posted my own question under the picture.


Yom Kippur just ended. It's a clean slate, a new start. And the question is - what do I/we want?

Gmar Chatimah Tovah

In a recent post I showed the hole in my ceiling. The super said that the area had to dry for 10 days, and then he changed his mind and patched it up quickly. It is wet and the new plaster is gathering new mold. It's less disconcerting than a giant hole. And yet...

There are a lot of questions and answers surrounding the concept of teshuvah. Tradition has it that when G-d created the world He asked various forces what to do a man that sins. The consensus was that a man that sins should die. The analogy is offered of a kid who's entrusted with a hammer and does damage with it and the consequence is that it gets taken away. Done. Simple. And yet. We are given a soul and when we do damage through it, it is not taken away. G-d offers us the supra-rational process of teshuvah.

My students seem to take in the message of teshuvah as it is conveyed in the following story:

Once there was a boy who misbehaved a lot. His father came up with a system that every time he got in trouble a nail would be hammered into the ceiling over his bed. When there got to be so many nails that the ceiling was full it began to upset the child. They made a deal that every time he behaved well a nail would be taken out of the ceiling. He was so good that soon the ceiling was empty of nails. The boy was still sad when he looked up because he saw all the holes the nails left behind. His father said that the boy had been so good that the father would now plaster and repaint the ceiling so that it looked better than ever.

When we err and then mend our ways and make right in our relationship with G-d things can end up even better than they ever were before.

May we be so blessed this year.

Gmar Chatimah Tovah

HEAVEN

by: Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

ISH (fly-replete, in depth of June,

Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)

Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,

Each secret fishy hope or fear.

Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;

But is there anything Beyond?

This life cannot be All, they swear,

For how unpleasant, if it were!

One may not doubt that, somehow, Good

Shall come of Water and of Mud;

And, sure, the reverent eye must see

A Purpose in Liquidity.

We darkly know, by Faith we cry,

The future is not Wholly Dry.

Mud unto mud! -- Death eddies near --

Not here the appointed End, not here!

But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.

Is wetter water, slimier slime!

And there (they trust) there swimmeth One

Who swam ere rivers were begun,

Immense, of fishy form and mind,

Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;

And under that Almighty Fin,

The littlest fish may enter in.

Oh! never fly conceals a hook,

Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,

But more than mundane weeds are there,

And mud, celestially fair;

Fat caterpillars drift around,

And Paradisal grubs are found;

Unfading moths, immortal flies,

And the worm that never dies.

And in that Heaven of all their wish,

There shall be no more land, say fish.

Neilah

By Samuel Adelman

Day softly tiptoes

Out through the western horizon.

Soon night

Will encompass my heart –

To bring the shadows

Of fear

And uncertainty.

Words become blurred,

They cease to

Touch my reason –

Sound alone now

Moves me –

Carries me aloft

Before the Golden Gate.

Faster –faster

I hear the

Chorus of the Hosts on High.

Not words

But G-d’s soft unspoken plea is heard –

“Keep open your gate!

Keep open your gate!

Close not

The last remaining

Hope

Of man –.”

The stars wink down

Above me –

The gate is closed

As I turn to

Walk the lonely path

Of another year.

Efshar Letakein

Rav Yisrael Salanter, walking late one night saw that the shoe maker was working. Reb Yisrael walked into the small shop and asked the cobbler what he was doing up so late. The gentleman pointed to the flickering flame providing his light and then replied, "As long as the candle burns, it's possible for me to keep fixing," -"Kol zman shehaneir doleik efshar letakein." From then on Rav Yisrael was often heard repeating as a mantra, "Kol zman shehaneir doleik efshar letakein" - "As long as the candle of my soul is alight, I can continue to fix myself."


Life is filled with fixing. I'd write more about this but I have work to do. Lessons. Reviews. Tests. And then there's teaching too.


Last Wednesday I told my super, who lives in the building next door, about a dripping from the ceiling in my bathroom. He came by and said it would wait till Monday. On Monday the ceiling caved in. After contacting management it was fixed - to some extent - today. I have no idea what Paul M. meant by these words but they come to my mind's wanderings as inspired by the hole in my ceiling (caused by a pipe bursting 2 flights up): I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering where it will go. "I'm filling the cracks that ran though the door and kept my mind from wandering where it will go."

The King Is In

By Neil Fleischmann

years ago

from across

an ocean

a dear friend

told me that

the king is

in the field

it was ellul

and it struck him

so he told me

what he'd learned

a new expression

the king is

in the field

my dear friend

is a prince

He thanks G-d

for His kindness

all the time

with his smile

he brightens life

he always knew

always knows still

where his Father

the King is

in the field

the life field

all year round

Haiku of the Day

From the poet's post

Everything looks poetic

G-d is The Poet

A Teacher Teaching Shemot - Part II

(Continued From Eight Posts Before) (And also this earlier post)

Why was Paroh afraid of the Jews leaving his land, if you don't like someone don't you want them to go away? (Don't answer that he didn't want to lose his slaves, because they weren't his slaves at this point. That comes later.) Rashi says two words here - "al korcheinu," against our will. When you're forced to do something, even if it's something you want, you're not happy about it; it's a control issue. Rashi offers a drash following this pshat: Paroh was speaking euphemistically, really meaning to say that he feared the the Jews would force the Egyptians to leave their own land.

The Ramban says a straightforward pshat - that Paroh feared that the Jews would win a war against them and then leave - with all of the Egyptians' stuff! He didn't mind them going but he minded seeing his stuff lost and gone forever. It's interesting that this is what actually happens in the end, and it might not have happened had Paroh not enslaved the Jews to try to prevent this from happening! Two lessons here, from different angles. On the one hand, "Rabot machshavot beleiv ish ve'atzat Hashem hi takum," - the idea that you can't fight against G-d's plan and if you try to, then the way you attempt to stop the plan ends up being the way that the plan gets carried out. From another angle you can argue psychologically that we cause to happen those things that we fear most. Perhaps we do this just to right - even at our own expense. More likely, we do this because we so fear that this thing might happen, that we'd rather it happen sooner and not later, and so we sometimes bring upon ourselves bad things that we fear.

Rav Hirsch says that when Paroh said that he feared that the Jews would leave the land he meant the land of Goshen. He feared that they were growing and would spread out throughout the land of Egypt. Do you think that's a stretch from the words? Do you like it? Both?

On Apologizing