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Parshat Va'era: From Despair to Redemption

Writer's picture: Rabbi Rina KrautwirthRabbi Rina Krautwirth

by Rabbi Rina Krautwirth In the first few verses of Parshat Va'era, we encounter a pivotal moment in Jewish history: The beginning of redemption. God tells Moshe that God has heard the anguished cries of the enslaved Jewish people and promises to fulfill now the earlier promise to the forefathers to bring their descendants into the land of Israel. God then tells Moshe to convey this message of hope to the Jewish people. In this message, God proclaims the four phrases of redemption that have since become integral to the Jewish tradition: “And I will bring you out,” “and I will save you,” “and I will redeem you,” and “and I will bring you in,” with the added fifth phrase “and I will bring you to.” (The Rabbis established drinking four cups of wine at the Passover Seder to correspond to these four phrases of redemption (Shemot Rabbah 6).)  


Sadly this message falls on deaf ears. The Jewish people, mentally defeated from years of oppression, could not hear it:

And Moshe told this to the Jewish people and they did not listen to Moshe, due to short-spiritedness and due to [the effect of] grueling work (Exodus 6:9). 


This verse raises a question: How is it that the Jewish people ignored the word of God? Rashi reads “they did not listen” as “they did not accept these words of comfort.” The psychological condition of the Jewish people from the severe trauma that they had experienced rendered them incapable of internalizing these words of hope, though they did in fact hear them. Other commentaries, such as Ibn Ezra, Haemek Davar, and Bekhor Shor, maintain that the Jewish people might not have even heard Moshe's words to begin with, as they did not have the emotional strength to pay attention, due to exertion. Ramban likewise maintains that they did not pay attention from despair and anguish and emphasizes that their lack of response did not reflect a lack of trust in God and God’s prophecy. 


Nechama Leibowitz points to a midrash that imagines a longer conversation between Moshe and the Jewish people, a conversation that sheds further light on the mindset of the Jewish people at this time. This Midrash (Midrash Hagadol, Exodus, 6:9), taught in the name of Rabbi Yehuda, asks: How is it possible that when a slave is told to go free, they do not go free? Rather, Moshe informed the Jewish people of the responsibilities involved in accepting the Torah, to which the Jewish people asked, “How is it possible for a slave to serve two masters?” The Midrash envisions them as saying, “Right now we are slaves to Pharaoh, how will we go against his commands? We are afraid.” The Jewish people had become so entrenched in their slavery that they could not imagine an alternative. From this conceived encounter, the Midrash derives that a person is not held responsible for that which they say when in distress. 


The response of the Jewish people in turn affects Moshe himself. When God next tells Moshe to speak to Pharaoh, Moshe’s response to God references the fact that the Jewish people had not listened: 

And Moshe spoke in front of God saying, the Jewish people will not listen to me, [and] how will Pharaoh listen, as I have a speech defect (Exodus 6:12). 


Rashi, quoting Bereishit Rabbah 92, points out that Moshe’s statement constitutes one of the ten a fortiori, or kal vachomer, arguments in the Torah. Gur Aryeh, commenting on Rashi’s comment, specifies the logic of the kal vachomer argument: If the Jewish people, for whom the message predicted a positive outcome, did not listen, then all the more so Pharaoh, for whom the message predicted a negative outcome, would not listen. Gur Aryeh maintains that Moshe, in constructing this kal vachomer argument, at first had expected that the Jewish people, even in the midst of such short-spiritedness, would have listened to this message of hope. 


As the events of the Parsha continue to unfold, God responds to Moshe by commanding Moshe and Aharon to appear before Pharaoh to request to free the Jewish people. God then outlines for Moshe how the redemption of the Jewish people will occur, with the culminating assertion that “And Egypt will know that I am God as I stretch out my hand over Egypt and bring the children of Israel out from their midst” (Exodus 7:5). This verse seems to suggest a two-fold goal: To prove God’s existence to the Egyptians and to redeem the Jewish people. The plan then begins to take place, with a cycle of plagues and God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, with the final goal to fulfill God’s assertion to Moshe about the revelation of God’s presence to Egypt, which ultimately would lead to the freeing of the Jewish people. 


Parshat Va'era starts out on a note of despair, describing a time when the Jewish people felt so depleted that they could not accept God’s own words that redemption would come. The Parsha, though, ends on a note of salvation, as God’s providence over the world becomes apparent by way of the first seven of the ten plagues. Ultimately, God sends the Jewish people the strength that they need to persevere. Ibn Ezra, writing in medieval Spain, comments on the verse in Psalms 29:11, “May God give strength to His people, may God bless His people with peace,” saying that it can read either as a prayer or as a prophetic prediction, that God will provide the Jewish people with the strength that they need during difficult times. Note here the order of God’s provision of strength first and then God’s blessing the Jewish people with peace. Perhaps this verse suggests that only after being bolstered by strength in challenging times can we come to know peace. Either as prayer or as prediction, may these words sustain and protect the Jewish people. 

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Rina Krautwirth attended Barnard College, where she majored in Biology. She is a graduate of the Drisha Scholar’s Circle, where she studied for three years. She also holds a Master’s degree in Modern Jewish History from YU and an MLIS from Queens College. She is interested in the intersection between science and Judaism and has written articles and spoken on the topic. Additionally, she has authored an article for Researchers Remember, an anthology of writings by children of Holocaust survivors.

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