Here's a nice vort for the Shabbos table, as well as a profound understanding into our struggle with the Yetzer Hara. It is not for nothing that these Parshios of "leaving Mitzrayim" were chosen to be SHOVAVIM (which are weeks that are especially opportune for breaking free of the Yetzer Hara and Tikkun Habris).
In the end of last week's Parsha, Moshe asks Hashem "Since I have come to Pharaoh to speak in your name, it has only become worse for your people and you have not saved your nation?" And Hashem answers Moshe, "You shall see what I shall do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand they shall send them out and with a strong hand they shall banish them from their land".
We need to understand how Hashem's reply is an answer to Moshe's question? Moshe wants to know why, just when it should be getting better - it's getting worse, and Hashem answers: "you shall see that they will banish them with a strong hand", but how does that answer the question of why it is getting worse now?
Chaza"l say that when it came time to leave Mitzrayim, many Yidden didn't want to leave. Four fifths were struck down by Hashem during the days of darkness, and even with the remaining Jews, the Medrash says that the Egyptians had to chase them out with sticks!
According to this, Hashem's reply to Moshe was the perfect answer! Moshe wanted to know why it's getting worse, so Hashem tells him, "you shall see that the Egyptians will need to chase out the Yidden with a strong hand (with sticks!) even after it has gotten so much worse!" In other words, if it wouldn't get worse now, how much more so would the Yidden not want to leave!
This is a profound lesson to understanding our struggle with the Yetzer Hara. For years we simply didn't want to leave Mitzrayim. We didn't have the willpower or the strength, and the temptations were too great. But Hashem didn't send us to this world to keep us in Mitzrayim. He wants to give each Jew a chance to do Teshuvah and break free of the servitude to the Yetzer Hara. And so, to awaken our hearts to a true and proper Teshuvah, Hashem makes it start to get WORSE just as we are ready to do Teshuvah. We start to have real pain from our addiction, our lives often start to fall apart and we feel ourselves falling even farther. And we ask Hashem; "WHY?!", since we came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, since we decided we want to do Teshuvah and break free of the Yetzer Hara's grasp, it has only gotten worse?! And the answer fm Hashem is that we didn't REALLY WANT to leave Mitzrayim yet. A person needs to "Hit Bottom" before they are ready to surrender to Hashem and finally let Hashem take us out of Mitzrayim. And "Hitting bottom" means that the person can no longer bear to live the way he has been living until now.
And that is what it says in this week's Parsha; "I will take them out from sivlus Mitzrayim". R' Bunim of Psische explains, what does the word "sivlus" mean? It means to tolerate, to accept, to swallow, to bear. Before Hashem can take a person out of Mitzrayim, he needs to first take him out from the SIVLUS Mitzrayim. In other words, one is not ready to leave Mitzrayim until he can no longer BEAR the enslavement of the Yetzer Hara.
To take this lesson to a practical level, we need to daven to Hashem every day that he take us out of the Sivlus Mitzrayim without it having to get worse. Our constant Teffilah to Hashem should be, that he should put into our hearts NOW, that we can no longer tolerate (be sovel) the Yetzer Hara.
Daven: "Help me Hashem to "hit bottom" without having to fall anymore, take me out of the SIVLUS MITZRAYIM and help me already today to hate the Yetzer Hara to the point where I can't bear it anymore.
And as soon as we reach that point, we are ready to leave Mitzrayim for good.