01/03/2022
Parashat Va'era
Moses has been sent by Gd to “tell ol’ Pharaoh to let my people go” and let’s just say that Pharoah is not inclined to do so. Not only does he refuse to let them go, but he also makes the Israelite slaves work harder, and they are none too happy about it. When they see Moses and Aaron, they snidely tell them, “May the LORD look upon you and punish you for making us loathsome to Pharaoh and his courtiers—putting a sword in their hands to slay us.” Basically, thanks for making it worse.
Now, from the beginning, Moses has told Gd that he is not the guy for this job. He can’t speak properly; he calls himself a man of “impeded” speech multiple times in a span of a few verses. How overwhelming it must have been to feel commanded to speak and then to deal with the paralyzing fear of continued failure.
Gd has made it clear that Moses is to go, but Moses basically says no way. Gd replies, “I will be with you.” Moses still says no way. I can imagine Moses asking, “who is this Gd?” And so, by way of further introduction, we read that Gd says “וַיֵּרָא (and I appeared)” to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Gd uses relationships to explain who Gd is.
I was recently in a group where people did not know each other well, and we were asked to introduce ourselves. I found myself doing the same thing: saying “I am a wife, I am a daughter, I am a sister, I am a friend.” Our self-understanding comes from interacting with others; we know ourselves in comparison to others.
What follows in the Torah seems like a weird interlude, as we are presented with a list of genealogies. But I think these genealogies serve the same purpose. Moses and Aaron are the grandsons of Kohath, one of the Hebrews who migrated to Egypt with Jacob. Their great grandfather is Levi, the third oldest son of Jacob. Moses and Aaron are seen via their relationships. Relationships are the most important part of living for most of us. They include our family relations while growing up, our teenage friends and early loves, our serious romances and marriage(s), our children and grandchildren, our close friends and colleagues, and so on. This is the heart of life – for better or for worse.
Moses does not see himself in his fullness, in his competence, but Gd does. We are who we are in relationships. We need each other. Our culture of hyper-individualism, where people see their life as an individual journey, also promotes a culture with a lot of detachment and fear. Relationship is the mirror in which we see ourselves as we are.
Be well,
Rabbi Debi
