Parshat Vaera

Take your staff and stretch forth your hand over the waters of Egypt,

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 land of Egypt,

even in wood and in stone.

(Shemot 7:19)

 

 

Say to Aaron: Since the Nile protected 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 Nile] rises through the canals and irrigates the fields.

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 Egypt: Even in the bathhouses, and in the bathtubs in the houses.

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 Nile] to be smitten by him.

(MaHaRaL, Gur Aryeh ad loc)

 

The Exodus from Egypt as the Revelation of God's Name in the World

Israel Pivko

During the revelation of the Burning Bush, God convinced Moses to take upon himself the mission of leading the Israelites out of Egypt; 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 Israel, and they kneeled and prostrated 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). In order 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 they heard that the Lord had remembered the children of Israel, and they kneeled and prostrated 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 Egypt. Reality, however, taught 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 Egypt 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 Israel 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 Israel, whom the Egyptians are 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 Israel, '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 Egypt is an historical event and 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 Egypt, and he will let the children of Israel out of his land." But Moses spoke before the Lord, saying, "Behold, the children of Israel did not hearken to me. How 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 Israel out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and I will increase My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh 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 Egypt, and I will take the children of Israel 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 Israel as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, as it was described at Mount Sinai. Thus we see that the goal of the Exodus was 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 land of Egypt we don't know what has become of him (Shemot 32:1). The people leaving Egypt 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 Israel 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

Israel's belief in Moses was not 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 Egypt 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 Egypt, two out of 600,000. Raba 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 land of Egypt.

(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 Israel during those many generations of Biblical history, when Israel was supported by emissaries 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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