VAERA 1981

This Torah portion, Vaera, deals with the plagues.  It deals with Pharoah's hard heartedness.  Pharoah did not want to let the Jewish people go.  Pharoah could not understand what was the matter with keeping the Jews as slaves.  He had a certain world view and to him that view was right.  

One of the main themes of this Torah portion is how does a person change?  How does a person finally realize that many of the assumptions he has made in life are wrong, and that he has to rethink his position?  In life we have two different types of people.  There are those who do the wrong thing but they know they are doing the wrong thing.  They do not pretend they are doing the right thing.  They just cannot help themselves.  There are others who believe that the evil they do is right.  These people are very dangerous.  They are very dangerous because they are willing to sacrifice for their beliefs even though their beliefs are evil.  Hitler was such a person.  He was not corrupt.  He had many personal good traits but he was terribly evil.  

In the Torah potion Vaera we have recounted how Moses and Aron appeared before Pharoah and threw down Moses' staff.  The staff turns into a serpent.  The magicians, too, are able to duplicate this feat.  Their staffs, too, turn into serpents.  Aron's staff then swallows their staffs.  In this incident the serpent in Hebrew is referred to as Saneen.  Earlier at Mount Sinai when G-d chooses Moshe for His mission to free the Jewish people G-d gave Moses signs.  One of the signs that he was to give to the Jewish people was that when he threw his staff down it would turn into a serpent, only the word Nochosh is used.  Nochosh in Hebrew means not only snake but it also means to guess.  It stands for the assumptions we make in life.  Moses was to show the Jewish people that the staffs they relied on, that many of the things they believed were 100% true were only guesses, were only assumptions.  He was able to do this.  He was able to show the Jewish people that they did not need to be slaves.  When he came before Pharoah the staff turned into a Saneen not a Nochosh.  Pharoah could only see that the staffs he relied on were givens.  They were not to be questioned.  They were the way the world was supposed to be.  He could not see that his beliefs were only guesses.  He believed they were part of the laws of nature.  The Jewish people had learned that the difference between exile, Golus, and Geulah, redemption, was only the letter Aleph.  If they would be united as one they could overcome.  Pharoah's world had to be shattered before he would realize that his world view was only an assumption not part of the natural order.  In life we make many assumptions.  One of the basic assumptions that Judaism makes is that life is preferable to death.  Pharoah by his stubbornness was choosing death not life.  

Many times in life it is important that we review our assumptions so that they do not lead to death instead of life.  Many times we Jews have failed to review our assumptions and have suffered.  We have learned one thing from our exile experience and that is that we should not be the only dissenting voice.  If we are then we are in for trouble.  However, because we support others' rights to speak it does not mean that we agree with them.  For example, we may agree that homosexuals have the right to put their view forward but we certainly cannot agree that there is a proper alternate life style.  Many times we have identified ourselves with different liberal causes when really all we wanted to do was allow other voices to be heard.  We should remember this and allow all voices to be heard remembering that identifying with a position is not the same thing.  We should not assume that everything that comes down from the liberal establishment is either good or in our interests.  This applies to all aspects of life.  The Rabbis explain that when it says G-d hardened Pharoah's heart it does not mean that He took away his free will.  It means that He gave Pharoah the capacity to withstand the suffering.  He was not to change his mind because he was suffering, but he was to change his mind because hw was wrong.  Many times we do suffer needlessly because we do not recognize that conditions have changed.  

There are people I know who have scrimped and saved because they have always done it even though now they could afford to take it easy.  Many times institutions take stands which may have been right 20 years ago but which now lead to needless controversy.  I remember I had a relative who was very poor.  She saved her pennies, though, and played the stock market.  She became a multimillionaire.  However, she could never spend a penny on herself, and she eventually left all her wealth to relatives she despised.  We all must reexamine our assumptions every once in a while to make sure we do not needlessly suffer or needlessly do the wrong thing.  

There is a story Sam Levenson tells about a young woman who came from a poor family who one day found that her baby had swallowed an aspirin.  She quickly called her mother and said, "Mother, Mother, what should it do?"  Her mother said, "It's easy.  Give him a headache."  Unfortunately this is what many people do.  They give themselves headaches because they fail to review their assumptions.