Va'eira 5770 – Gilayon #634
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Parshat Vaera
Take your staff and stretch forth your hand over the waters of
over their rivers, over their canals, over their ponds,
and over all their bodies of water, and they will become blood,
and there will be blood throughout the entire
even in wood and in stone.
(Shemot 7:19)
Say to Aaron: Since the
Moses when he was cast into it, it therefore was not smitten by him, neither
with blood nor with frogs, but was smitten by Aaron.
their rivers: They are the rivers that flow, like our rivers.
their canals: These are man-made pools and ditches, [extending] from the
riverbank to the fields. [When] the waters of the Nile increase, it [the
their ponds: Water that does not spring [from beneath the ground] and does
not flow [to any other place] but stands in one place. It is called estanc [in
Old French], pond.
throughout the entire land of
even in wood and in stone: Water in wooden vessels and in stone vessels.
(Rashi ad loc, Judaica Press
translation)
Since the Nile protected:
To teach you proper behavior – "Do not throw stones into the cistern from
which you have drunk" (Bava Kama 92b),
therefore, it was improper for it [the
to be smitten by him.
(MaHaRaL, Gur Aryeh
ad loc)
The Exodus from
Revelation of God's Name in the World
During the revelation of the Burning Bush,
God convinced Moses to take upon himself the mission of leading the Israelites
out of
now the time for action has arrived. Moses goes down into the "lion's
den" of Egypt where he must contend with his brothers, both his
"cultural" brothers – the Egyptians – amongst whom he grew to
adulthood, and his "biological" brothers – the Israelites – whose
destiny he shares. One may well wonder about the order in which the series of
events unfolds, why this is the path taken towards the Exodus. I believe that
the Torah must be studied in conformity with the great principle taught us by
Rabbi Yehuda Leon Ashkenazi (Manitou) ztz"l: the Torah must be read in its
written order, from beginning to end, and not the other way around. We must
understand that each stage exists in its own right, and that each stage
involves choice. The events recorded in the Torah must not be studied as if
their outcomes are foreknown; that would make a tragedy of the Torah.
Parashat Va'era describes the second set of
encounters between Moses, the Israelites, and Pharaoh. Moses' first and rather
positive meeting with the Israelites and their elders is described in parashat
Shemot: And the people believed, and they heard that
the Lord had remembered the children of
themselves (Shemot
4:31). His audience with Pharaoh yielded a negative outcome; Pharaoh
refused to recognize Moses' leadership, he would not send out the Israelites,
and he even intensified their labors. Moses and Aaron emerged from Pharaoh's
palace to be greeted by an angry Israelite reaction: They met Moses and Aaron standing before them when they
came out from Pharaoh's presence. And
they said to them, "May the Lord look upon you and judge, for you have
brought us into foul odor in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his
servants, to place a sword into their hand[s] to kill us." (Shemot
5:20). Despite the Israelite's earlier faith that their prayers had been
answered and that God sent Moses and Aaron to deliver them, the mission had
failed and Moses and Aaron were seen as false messiahs. The Israelites called
upon God to pass judgment on Moses and Aaron for having worsened their
situation.
Moses immediately
addresses God: So Moses returned to the Lord and said, "O Lord! Why
have You harmed this people? Why have You sent me? Our parasha contains
God's answers to Moses, which treat two issues: 1) Why was Moses' meeting with
his people a failure? 2) Why did Moses fail in his contacts with
Pharaoh? Regarding the first question, God explains: I
appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob with [the name] Almighty God, but
[with] My name YHWH, I did not become known to them (Shemot 6:3). Inorder to understand how this constitutes an answer to Moses' question, we must
recall his first meeting with the people: And Aaron spoke all the words that
the Lord had spoken to Moses, and he performed the signs before the eyes of the
people.
And the people believed, and theyheard that the Lord had remembered the children of
themselves
(Shemot 4:30-31).That is to say: in
complete contrast to RaMBaM's approach, the people's faith was founded upon signs
and they looked forward to a miraculous exit from
them not to depend on miracles, since Pharaoh had ridiculed and rejected Moses
and Aaron and made the Israelites' work even more punishing.
The Israelites lacked
knowledge of God's Name, that is to say – they did not recognize the presence of
Divinity in the world. The Exodus from
brings recognition of God's revelation in history not only in terms of the
faith of the faithful; rather, it generates knowledge of God's action in the
historical present, both for
and the nations of the world. God makes Himself known to humanity through
observable, measurable deeds. It becomes possible to clarify God's nature, to
investigate His powers and to determine the presence of His activity in
reality. This goes beyond faith, but also produces wonderment; as soon as God
reveals Himself in reality, His infinite existence shrinks into the dimensions
of time and space.
That is why this time
God explains the stages of redemption to Moses. First comes remembering the
covenant: And also, I heard the moans of the children of
holding in bondage, and I remembered My covenant. Next comes the
recognition that God's Name is revealed through action in the natural
world: Therefore, say to the children of
'I am the Lord, and I will take you out from under the burdens of
the Egyptians, and I will save you from their labor, and I will redeem
you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. And I will take you to Me as a people, and I will be a
God to you, and you will know that I am the Lord your God, Who has brought
you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you to
the land, concerning which I raised My hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and
to Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage; I am the Lord.'
" The Exodus from
not some miracle whose reality is in doubt.
As for the second question, God sends Moses
to meet Pharaoh a second time: "Come, speak to
Pharaoh, the king of
and he will let the children of
out of his land." But Moses spoke before
the Lord, saying, "Behold, the children of
then will Pharaoh hearken to me, seeing that I am of closed lips?" (Shemot
6:11-12). Moses replies to God's request by stating, I am of closed
lips – Pharaoh did not understand me in our first meeting, why should this
time be any different? God's answer is surprising: The Lord said to Moses,
"See! I have made you a god over Pharaoh, and Aaron, your brother, will
be your prophet. You shall speak all
that I command you, and Aaron, your brother, shall speak to Pharaoh, that he
let the children of
out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and I will increase My
signs and My wonders in the
of
will not hearken to you, and I will lay My hand upon the Egyptians, and I will
take My legions, My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt with great
judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth
My hand over
will take the children of
out of their midst" (Shemot 7: 1-5). The
point of this encounter is for Moses to reveal himself as a god to Pharaoh and
to establish Aaron as Moses' prophet. The Ten Plagues were intended to bring
the Egyptians to recognize
as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, as it was described at
not only to free the Israelites from slavery, but also to bring the Egyptians
to the recognition that the Lord is God and that Moses is his emissary.
God sent Moses in
order that Pharaoh's attitude towards Moses would become one of a worshipper
towards his God. Here is planted the bad seed that will germinate later when
the people stumbles and makes the Golden Calf: because this man Moses, who
brought us up from the
of
what has become of him (Shemot 32:1). The people leaving
saw Moses as the god living in their midst and who led them through the
wilderness. When they thought he had died, they immediately made the calf. Personality
cults are always in danger of developing into idolatry.
When Israel sinned
with the calf and God wanted to destroy them and replace them with a new nation
that would rise from Moses' descendants – Now leave Me alone, and My anger
will be kindled against them so that I will annihilate them, and I will make
you into a great nation (Shemot 32:10) – Moses convinces God to
forgive them: Why should the Egyptians say: "He
brought them out with evil [intent] to kill them in the mountains and to
annihilate them from upon the face of the earth"? Retreat from the heat of
Your anger and reconsider the evil [intended] for Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom
You swore by Your very Self, and to whom You said: "I will multiply your seed
like the stars of the heavens, and all this land which I said that I would give
to your seed, they shall keep it as their possession forever" (Shemot 32:12-13).
Moses uses two
arguments to convince God to forgive the People Israel: 1) the reciprocal covenant
made between God and the People Israel and 2) our parasha teaches us that Moses
became a god for Pharaoh, and therefore the question must be asked: "What
will the Egyptians say?" If the People Israel is destroyed in the
wilderness, it will appear – God forbid – as a failure on the part of the
Creator, a failure of the revelation of the Divine Name in the world, both for
and for the Egyptians, since God is both the God of Israel and the God of the
World. This point arouses doleful thoughts in relation to today's Torah
leaders, who are incapable of translating the language of Torah into a
universal language. They cannot even translate it into the language of those
outside the narrow religious community.
Israel Pivko is a
poet and a lecturer on Judaism. He works at the publication of the writings of
Rabbi Yehuda Leon Ashkenazi.
God spoke to Moses and to Aaron, and charged them to the Children of
Israel… – He said to them, know you that they are the children of
rebellious (parents) and they are a nuisance, but despite this you must accept
upon yourselves (the fact) that they will curse you and stone you with rocks..
(Yalkut Shimoni, Bamidbar
11, 735)
Here we have a warning to all those who are sent to be leaders of the
Israelite nation – including those motivated by their desire and inclinations –
to be psychologically constituted , capable of tolerating all the bother and
distress involved with leading the stubborn Jewish nation. If they are not,
they are not suited to this task.
(Leibowitz, Sheva Shanim
shel Sihot al Parashat HaShavua, p. 217)
Omens are not
Evidence
based upon the miracles he performed; one who believes on the basis of miracles
is spiritually deficient, for it is possible that the omen was produced in
secret and through sorcery. The signs he produced in the desert were to serve
specific needs, but not for the purpose of offering proof of his prophecy. In
order to drown the Egyptians, he split the sea and engulfed them. We needed
food, he brought down the manna. They were thirsty, he split the rock. Korah's
band rejected him, the earth swallowed them. And so with all the other
miracles. And why did we believe in him at the Sinai revelation? Our eyes – not
those of strangers – saw; our ears – not those of others – heard the fire and
the sounds and torches. And he approached the mist, and the voice spoke out to
him, as we listened: "Moses, Moses – go and tell them such and such."
And so Moses says, Face to face did He speak to you all (Devarim 5:4), and it is written, It was not
with your fathers that the Lord cut this covenant (Devarim 5:4). And from where do we know that the revelation at
Sinai was the sole proof of the unblemished truth of his prophecy? It is
written, I will come to you in a thick cloud, in order that the people may
hear when I speak with you and so trust in you forever after (Shemot 19:9); from this we deduce that prior
to that point, they did not believe in him with everlasting faith – their faith
was subject to thought and deliberation… From this we learn that whichever
prophet appears after our teacher Moses will not gain our trust because of a
miracle alone ("If he performs a miracle we shall heed him in whatever he
says"), but because of God's commandment which Moses commanded us in the
Torah, saying that if he gives a sign, to him, shall you listen (Devarim 18:15). Just as He commanded us to
pass judgment on the basis of the testimony of two witnesses, even though we
cannot be certain whether their testimony is true or false, so are we commanded
to obey the prophet, whether his sign be true or produced by tricks or sorcery.
Therefore, if a prophet rises up and performs great signs and omens, but seeks
to deny the prophecy of Moses our teacher, we do not heed him, and we know for
a certainty that those signs are sorcery and secretly prepared, for the
prophecy of Moses our teacher is not dependent upon signs, that we should weigh
these signs against those signs, but with our own eyes we saw it and with our
own ears we heard it, just as he did.
(RaMBaM, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Yesodei
ha'Torah, 8:1-3)
Rabbi Simai said: It is
written, I will take you for me as a people and it is written, and I
will bring you. We deduce their exodus from
from their entry into the Land: just as upon entry into the Land, they numbered
two out of 600,000, so at their exodus from
said: And so will it be in the days of the Messiah, as is written (Hoshea 2): There she shall respond as in
the days of her youth, when she came up from the
(Bavli, Sanhedrin 111a)
The meaning of this
exaggerated discussion is that all the signs and portents and acts of judgment
which He brought upon the Egyptians in the ten plagues and with the crossing of
the Reed sea were justified even if they made possible only the bringing of two
out of 600,000 to the divine goal… these miracles were performed in the sight
of all, but only very few were able to perceive and understand the message of
morality, justice, and pure faith.
(Meshekh Hokhma, Shemot 6:7)
These words provide
material for deep contemplation. The Rav (Meshekh
Hokhma) deals at length with this, finding in it something symbolic
regarding the recognition of the Lord and of man's fate forever bound up with
this recognition…
These words have great
value for understanding the subject of prophecy in
during those many generations of Biblical history, when
of God who spoke the words of the Shekhina. Their words, however, are
understood only by the exceptional few in each generation. From the words of
the Rav we understand that the truth of recognition of God is not at all
contingent upon the number of persons who are fortunate to attain it. It is
sufficient that there are a few exceptional persons, such as two out of
600,000.
(Y. Leibowitz: Sheva Shanim shel Sihot al Parashat
HaShavua, p. 214)
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