VAERA 1988

In the Torah portion Va'era we learn how Moshe and Aaron are "Schekula -- qual."  This means they are equivalent.  The rabbis say sometimes Aaron's name is mentioned first and sometimes Moshe' s name is mentioned first, and, because of this, Aaron and Moshe are equal.  How is it possible to say this?  After all, Aaron participated in the sin of the golden calf.  Moshe, on the other hand, was the one to whom G-d communicated at the burning bush.  It was to Moshe whom the Ten Commandments were given.  It was Moshe who was the leader of the Jewish people.  How was it possible that Moshe and Aaron could be "Shekula - equal"?  Other rabbis explain that "Shekula" does not actually mean "equal," but it means that they were interdependent.  The were complementary, that one was not better than the other, that both of them were needed.  Yes, in that sense it was true that Moshe and Aaron were equal.

Unfortunately, in life man times we fail to realize that when we are interdependent we are interdependent with other people, that we need them as much as they need us.  This was the position of Moshe and Aaron.  After all, Moshe never spent a day in slavery.  Moshe was raised in the court of Pharaoh.  After Moshe had to run away because he slew the Egyptian he lived as a free man in other countries.  According to the Medrash, he was even king of Ethiopia for 4 years.  Moshe never endured slavery.  Aaron, on the other hand, endured slavery.  Some people say that when it says that Moshe was a stutterer, it meant that he did not understand Hebrew well.  After all, he had not had the opportunity to speak Hebrew as Aaron had, that Moshe' s job was to go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh to let the people go while Aaron' s job was to comfort the Jewish people, to encourage them, and to have them make a stand.  After all, many Jews felt they should be slaves.  They felt it was right that they were slaves.  They had no conception of freedom.  Moshe's main job, according to many rabbis, was to get the Jewish people out of Egypt, and Aaron' s main job was to get Egypt out of the Jewish people.
You know when you attack any problem there are two realities which have to be faced.  One is you have to have a vision, a dream.  If you do not have a dream or vision then you will never be able to solve your problem.  On the other hand, you also have to have the means.  You have to know how to get from the reality to your dream.  Moshe had the dream.  Moshe had the vision, but it was Aaron who had the means, who was able to allow the people to go from the reality in which they were to accomplish the dream.  This we need in every enterprise we undertake.

We in the United States are very fortunate to have the kind of government we have and the opportunities we have.  That is because we have the structure, the means to allow us to reach our dreams, the dream of freedom.  Are the people of Mexico or Nicaragua or El Salvador or Honduras as good as we are?  Don't they have the same talents?  Don't they have the same color blood?  Yes, they do.  They are good people, but their society has not been structured in order to allow them to reach the dreams that we here in America can reach.  They have the same dreams, but their society has not been structured so that they are able to achieve these dreams.  Their government is not structured the right way.  Their economic system is not structured the right way.  This is true throughout the world where many tyrannies exist.  The people there have the dreams, but they do not know how to get from the reality to the dreams.  This is something we all have to learn.  We all have to learn that it is not just dreams that are important.  We also have to set up structures in order to implement the dreams.  We can see this in the family in America today.  The family in America today is dying.  The family in America today is exploding because it is structured wrong.  Everything is placed on the nuclear family.  In America today we cannot persist the way we have in the past because the society f itself, is basically anti-family.  You cannot structure a society the way we have and expect the family to endure.  That is why we are having the difficulty we are having.  Literally, we have to put a mechitzah besides other women who are not our wives, who are not married to us.  Unless we do that there will be so much running around that society r itself, will crumble.  That is, of course, one of the reasons why we had a mechitzah in the synagogue.  People cannot run around.  They cannot be swingers and expect their families to endure.  Also, we cannot promulgate and push alternative life styles.  Already, according to one prominent doctor in Houston, one third of the men he treats are homosexuals.  How can you have family if you have this type of a situation?  This applies in other areas as well.

That is why we learn that when G-d took out the Jewish people He used different words to take them out.  It first says, "I will remove your burdens from you."  What does that mean?  That means that the Jewish people would realize that they had burdens.  They would realize they needed a better way of life, that they had to have other dreams.  Then it says, "And I will save you from your burdens."  Then you have to have the means to accomplish your dreams.  We see in the riots on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip that we, too, have to allow the Arabs to fulfill their dreams also.  Everyone knows my view that we should have annexed the Arab territories.  The world howls when we annex territories.  Then we should give them full citizenship like we did the Israeli Arabs.  You can structure the Israel government in a federal ,system like we have here in the United States.  After all, Texas, with 13 million people, has two senators, and Wyoming, with 300,000 people, has two senators.  We could arrange a system where we would not lose control of the country, and we would not because we are still the majority.  Who says there would not be aliyah?  If the Jewish people want Israel they will make aliyah.  We should not depend upon the Arabs to make peace with us.  We have Arabs within our own borders.  We should treat them like the Israeli Arabs were treated.  For 19 years they were under military rule, and in 1966 they were made full citizens with full rights.  We should do the same thing with the Arabs on the West Bank, too.  If they do not want to accept it, then it is their problem, but we have to set up a structure whereby they can benefit politically from the realities of their dreams.  This is what we must always do.  We must always try to achieve our dreams through setting up the reality.

I am reminded of the story about an airplane manufacturer who made airplanes whose wings were always cracking, and he did could not understand how to prevent it.  An Israeli engineer came and said if he put holes where they were cracked it would not happen, and, sure enough, it didn't happen.  He asked the engineer why and the engineer replied, "Well, the paper towels in Israel never tear along the holes."  Of course, what we have to do, too, is set up structures so that our dreams never tear, so that our dreams can be realized.  There are two parts to every society.  There are the dreams of the society and the means to achieve these dreams.  Moshe gave us the dreams, and Aaron gave us the means.  They are both important.  They really are equivalent.  Let us hope that we will always utilize the proper means to achieve our dreams because, unless we do, our dreams are useless.