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| Sun, 22 Dec 2024 02:18:00 -0600 — |
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D'var: Parashat Va'eira 5784 Commentary by Michael Goldstein Friday, January 12, 2024 |
| Exodus 6:2 — 9:35 |
| Genesis 12:1-2
The word ‘vaera’ means I appeared. It is used in the second verse (6:3) of the Parashat: I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob… In Vaera, God tells Moses to demand of Pharaoh that he free the Israelites, but he replies that his speech problems will make it impossible. Vaera tells us that God then tells Moses that Aaron will act as his spokesperson. Pharaoh refuses to let the Israelites leave, so God sends ten plagues. Seven of them are included in this Torah portion. The first is changing the Nile’s water into blood. Then come frogs, lice, noxious creatures, pestilence, boils, and hail. After each one, Pharaoh promises to free the Israelites, but God hardens Pharaoh’s heart so he reneges on his promises. Let’s consider Moses and Aaron. The Torah tells us that Moses felt he was ill-equipped to lead the Israelites out of slavery. In the prior Parashat, Shemot, Moses says to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should take the children of Israel out of Egypt?" Later in Shemot he says, "I beseech You, O Lord, send now Your message with whom You would send." Then, in Vaera 6:12, he tells God, "Behold, the children of Israel did not hearken to me. How then will Pharaoh hearken to me, seeing that I am of closed lips?" Moses was raised as the child of Pharaoh’s daughter. He grew up in luxury and with privilege. He was not beaten or subjected to exhausting back-breaking, mind-numbing work. While he could feel rage for the terrible conditions of the Israelites, he had never been subject to the burdens they had. He never felt their pain or their desperation. Simply said, he had never been a slave. Aaron, on the other hand, did not know what luxury and privilege felt like. He had never lived in Pharaoh’s palace or had the comforts that Moses enjoyed. His upbringing was very different. He, his family, and, in fact, everyone he knew were enslaved and, therefore, he was raised knowing only the misery of a slave’s life. In their meetings with the Israelites and their confrontations with Pharaoh, Moses came to rely on Aaron’s knowledge of that terrible life as well as his ability to speak well. Aaron became a constant reminder to Moses that, to be effective for the Israelites, he needed to reach beyond his own personal experience. Because Aaron could speak as someone who had been oppressed, his role as spokesperson helped Moses bridge the gap between himself and his enslaved brethren. Each time Aaron spoke for him, Moses faced the fact that, while he could speak with God without an impediment or a barrier between them, advocating for the Israelites to Pharaoh or even just speaking to his people was different and more problematic. Moses stands apart throughout the final four books of the Torah. He is the leader to whom everyone turns. He is the judge, the teacher, and the sermonizer. He is the one who meets and discusses and even negotiates for the Israelites with their God. If God is the CEO, Moses is the COO and HR Director. Like Moses, we American Jews have been raised in privilege. While this gives us the luxury of being able to advocate for those in need, it also means that, although we may have witnessed their struggles and sympathized with them, we have not personally shared their experiences and their misery. The alliance between Moses and Aaron helps us realize that the inequity others suffer requires us to work with those we seek to help. Whether or not we believe that Moses existed, and whether or not the narrative of the Exodus is truly history, as Jews we are taught to believe that he was our greatest leader and teacher. Among the lessons we learn from his collaboration with Aaron is that his handicap meant that he needed Aaron’s personal experiences in order to lead a people whose hardships he had not shared. It shows us that when we commit ourselves to good causes, the communities we help face challenges and deprivations that we have never experienced. To me, therefore, the message of Vaera is for us to proceed with what we believe is our cause, in spite of our self-doubts or what we think our inadequacies are. So, yes, while it’s easier to say a task is beyond our competence or to wish, as Moses did, that someone else would do it, we should remind ourselves of Rabbi Tarfon’s words in "The Ethics of the Fathers;" "You are not obliged to finish the task, but neither are you free to neglect it." Michael Goldstein |
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