VAERA 1990

In the Torah portion Vaera we learn about the plagues which came upon Egypt because Pharaoh did not want to send the Jewish people out to sacrifice for three days.  We learn that Moshe and Aaron announced the plagues before Pharaoh and then they do some sort of act that initiates the plague; for example, striking with the rod in the Nile so it turns into blood, or taking some soot from the furnace and throwing it up into the air before the outbreak of boils, etc.  Obviously, Moshe and Aaron's act did not constitute the plague because even if they threw many handfuls of soot into the air, it could not from these few handfuls trans late itself into boils on all the people of Egypt.  They had just initiated the project and then G-d saw it through.  It was G-d Who brought the plagues, just like G-d bids us all the time to start an action, to initiate an action and if the action is according to His will and is something He wants He will make sure that it succeeds, that G-d has promised us all that all we have to do is try to do the right thing, and He will, if this conforms with His desires and His will make sure that it will succeed.  We are never just to sit back and wait for G-d to take the initiative.  We are to start and then G-d said He will help us finish the job.

This Torah portion begins by telling us how Moshe and Aaron were in a very depressed state.  The Jewish people had turned on them and said, "Since you came things have gotten worse.  Things have not gotten better.  You have made us stink in the eyes of Pharaoh.  We no longer have straw to make the bricks."  They vented al I their anger on Moshe and Aaron.  Moshe was very, very discouraged and asked G-d why He had sent him.

Also, I wonder why it is that Pharaoh would not send the Jewish people to sacrifice for three days.  If he would have done so, then the Jewish people would still probably be in Egypt.  Why wasn't it that he would not accede to this modest request?  It seems to me that how Moshe got out of his oppression and why Pharaoh wouldn't send the Jewish people out for three days is hinted at in the very first sentence in this Torah portion, where it says, "And G-d spoke to Moshe and He said, t I am the Lord'."  The first part of the sentence uses the name for G-d, Eloheem, and, of course, that is that aspect of G-d which has to do with natural law.  We all know that we are G-d's partner in creation and G-d has created an imperfect world and wants us to help Him perfect this world.  When the name Eloheem is uses this refers to G-d Who is the author of natural order, G-d Who created gravity, G-d Who created all the other natural forces and laws, and that what we are to do is we are to use these G-d-given laws in order to help perfect this world, but this aspect of G-d is not that aspect of G-d which has a close relationship with man.  In other words, if a man Jumps off a cliff he is going to be smashed whether he is a religious man or not a religious man.  If you violate the natural law you can expect to suffer the consequences.  We do not believe in relying on a miracle.  It is true that natural law is not as rigid as we once thought.  It is true that there are many parameters within natural law, like the weather in January in Houston can be anywhere from 10° to 100°, and within this parameter G-d can choose the most effective way to help us in our cause.  For example, that the waters in the English Channel should be quiet for 5 days in November is unheard of, but, yet, it is not impossible and it was because the waters were calm at Dunkirk that the English army was saved and Hitler was eventually defeated.  

G-d can intervene in history without seeming to intervene in history.  That aspect of Eloheem is that aspect of G-d which scientists are acquainted with, the natural order of the universe.  When G-d spoke to Moshe He first talked with the G-d of the natural order, and when he ended the sentence he said to him, "Anee Adonoi – I am the Yud Kay Vav Kay," the name of G-d which we cannot pronounce, but that is the name of G-d which occurs in the second chapter of Genes is, which talks about G-d as He relates to man, the personal G-d, the G-d who is cognizant of man and of his foibles.  The Elokim stands for the G-d of nature or the G-d of history, which is an impersonal force.  Of course, the word Eloheem in Hebrew also means "judges" because judges are supposed to judge impersonally without taking cognizance of the individual, just apply the law the way the law states.  G-d, in that particular aspect of His being, is believed in by many, many people, who say that this is the first cause and that G-d created the forces of history but you have to get in line with the forces of history.  

That, of course, is the basis of communism.  If you get in line with the forces of history you are going to be elevated and have success, but if you oppose the laws of history you are going to be defeated and crushed.  Communism, of course, believes in this type of a G-d that they call the forces of history, and they believe that individual man praying to this force is like praying to gravity.  It does not good whatsoever, and, therefore, they denigrate all religion because this type of a G-d can have no type of a personal relationship with mankind.  Communism has failed, and we all know that it has failed because this idea is not really holy and in accord with human nature and human intuition, even human reason.  We know that communism has failed to make good on its promises to lead to a superior economic way of life for its people.  However, we should also be cautious because al though communism's ideas failed the Russian army is still in eastern Europe and could still put down the new republics and their new ideas if it wanted to exercise its power, just as it is now putting down the popular front in Azerbaijan.  In fact, there are some people who say that the Russians really fomented the ethnic strife by releasing certain Azerbaijani criminals to attack Armenians and then they will arrest them and shoot them, but, meanwhile, they have created a pretext in which they can enter Azerbaijan and put down the popular front.  Communism's postulation of a force that you must get into harmony with is the Eloheem, but that is maybe true, but there is another aspect of G-d, too, and that aspect is the Yud Kay Vav Kay, G-d Who is concerned about each of us and relates to us and our problems.  He will help us.  We can pray to him, and it does good to pray to G-d.  It helps to pray to G-d.  The reason why most Jews do not believe in G-d or believe in a personal G-d today is because they do not believe it does any good to pray to Him.  G-d can't hear you anyway.  G-d is gone on vacation to Miami.  He may have created the world, but He is no longer available to us.  That is not, of course, true according to the traditional position.  G-d always listens to our prayers.  He does not always answer them the way we want because sometimes He may say no.  In fact, someone came to me the other day and said, "Rabbi, you are a fake and your shul is a fake."  I asked what was the matter and he said, "Well, I paid you $18 to make a mishebairach for my cousin and he died anyway."  Religion is not magic.  We cannot force G-d to do what we want Him to do, but we do know that prayers help.  In fact, there was a study made in an intensive care unit and they found that those people for whom others prayed actually recovered better than those who did not.  G-d has His own way of looking at things.  This is just a statistic.  It does not apply to the individual case anyway, but we do know that prayer helps.  We do know that prayer helps us in our personal problems.  Many times we have to make decisions and we do not have all the facts.  We pray to G-d that we will make the right decision because we do not always know all the ramifications of our decision and what the consequences will be of making certain decisions.  Yud Kay Vav Kay stands for that aspect of G-d which is personal to each of us.

We also learn in the next sentence where it says, "And I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob with the name El Shadad, but by My name Yud Kay Vav Kay I was not known to them."  The rabbis tell us that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fathers, had three different ways that they approached G-d.  Of course, the word Ovos in Hebrew can also mean "want," that they wanted G-d to be part of their lives so He was part of their lives.  Abraham looked at G-d and found G-d through nature.  He studied nature like in modern science today and he found G-d because there is so much harmony and beauty in nature it is impossible to say that this was not created by a being.  It is impossible that this is just a chance occurrence.  There are too many coincidences.  There is too much beauty.  When you put nature under a microscope it gets more beautiful.  When you put manmade creations under a microscope you see all the jagged edges.  Now how G-d created it is immaterial.  He may have used the theory of evolution.  In fact, the Kabala says that is the best way of explaining how G-d created the universe, but it was not just a chance occurrence.  If it was a chance occurrence, what are people so upset about if we blow ourselves up or about the environment?  What difference does it make?  It is just a chance occurrence, so what difference does it make?  We do not believe that.  We believe that G-d' s majesty is found in the universe He created for a purpose, and He wants us to help Him perfect nature.

Yitzchak found G-d through personal experience.  We all believe that we can feel G-d intuitively.  They took a survey of the people in the United States and found that 25% of them had a personal experience of G-d.  A few years ago a young lady came to me and said, "I have to become a Christian."  I asked why, and she said, "Because I had a personal experience of G-d and we Jews do not believe in that."  I said, "What do you mean we don't believe in that?  Who were the prophets?  Weren't they Jews?  They testified to their personal experience."

Finally we have Jacob who experienced G-d in history through the events in his family, through the events of his personal life.  He felt G-d' s presence.  He could see it unfolding before him, that G-d' s ways are mysterious but somehow they always work to preserve Jews and Judaism, that G-d is there.  G-d was telling Moshe now that he was different than the Ovos.  They only experienced G-d one way, but he could experience G-d always.  Moshe said the Jewish people deserve to be free.  It is immoral.  Slavery is immoral.  He tried to invoke the Eloheem concept.  G-d said that is not sufficient.  I also want you to attach Adonoi, the Yud Kay Vav Kay, and that can be done because you are going to experience all My might in nature with the plagues and personal experience, by My appearing to you and feeling My presence, and in history, too, by the great historical event of the exodus from Egypt.

That, of course, is why we say afterwards that G-d said, "And I heard the cry of the sons of Israel which Egypt is oppressing them and I will remember My treaty and, therefore, say to the sons of Israel, 'I am G-d and I will bring you out from under the burdens of Egypt and I will save you from their work'."  The rabbis ask, what does it mean "burdens of Egypt"?  He should say, "I will bring you out from the work of Egypt, from the slavery of Egypt."  They explain that the word "Seevos" means the same thing in modern Hebrew, Sabla Nut, which means "tolerance."  The Jewish people at that time tolerated their slavery.  They thought that that was the way things had to be, that they were not free in their minds, and He was telling Moshe Rabbeinu, "That is why the Jewish people are short with you.  That's why the Jewish people have accosted you, because they look at their slavery and they feel that they deserve it."  That is, of course, why Pharaoh would not let the Jewish people leave Egypt even to sacrifice for three days, because he knew that once they were mentally free, once they could no longer tolerate slavery in their mind, he would never have them once again as slaves.  G-d was telling Moshe that the Jewish people were going to fundamentally change because they were going to experience G-d in three different ways simultaneously and they would not be able to tolerate slavery anymore.  It is like in our day, too, when we realized that we could no longer tolerate Galut, and the Jewish people collectively created the State of Israel, that many times the worst thing that could happen to a person is that he believes that he should be persecuted.  He believes that he deserves it.  How many times has it happened that an abused woman has finally been able to get a divorce from her husband.  We help her and everything else, and then she marries the same kind of a man because she has no positive self-image of herself.  The same happens to many men who do the same thing.  How many abused children become abusing parents because they have such a rotten self-image of themselves and they can only lash out at their children?  In order for the s laves to be free they firs t had to be free mentally.  They had to remove from them the toleration of slavery.  They had to realize how bad it was, and they had to realize that they had to mobilize themselves in all their efforts to free themselves from it.  And then G-d said, "I will free you from your work."  First comes the mental freeing from slavery and then comes the physical freeing from slavery.  Then He uses a third word.  It says, "And I will redeem you with an outstretched hand but with many judgments."  "Goalti" in Hebrew al so has another meaning.  It can also mean "to pollute".  G-d said, "When I take you out from Egypt I am going to redeem you.  You are going to have your freedom, but I have to couple that with the Lakakeeshna - and I will take you to Me for a nation.  I do not want your freedom to turn out to be just a case of you changing places with your oppressors.  I am taking to you a nation.  You have to remember when you are free that you do not act the way the other nations act, that you will remember always that you were a slave in Egypt, and you will treat the orphan correctly and you will treat the helpless correctly and you will treat the widow correctly."  Finally He said, "And I will bring you to the land which I rose My hand to give it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."  G-d is telling us, too, that in order for us to be free we have to have a positive image of ourselves, and then we will immediately work to free ourselves from the burdens, and we should also then remember to treat others justly and rightly at the same time when we get our freedom, and that we should then be able to create a society which is just and moral and directed towards those values which we know are G-d-given.

That's why in the seder we have four cups of wine to remind us of the four ways that G-d took us out of Egypt.  We have the fifth cup for Elijah to remind us also about the last stage, which is the redemption of Jewish people and bringing them all to the land of Israel.  We live in exciting times.  The Russian Jews are coming out.  They no longer can stand the Galut in Russia.  Something happened in the last few months.  A few months ago they did not want to leave, and now they want to leave because there is great instability in Russia.  They are coming 1,000 a day.  Five thousand Jews are lining up in front of the Israeli legation to get visas.  El Al is sending in flights and pulling out Jews as fast as we can.  This is a great opportunity for us, a great opportunity to make sure that people can be safe because they no longer can stomach Russia.  They no longer want to put up with the degradation.  They no longer want to put up with this second class citizenship.  They do not want to put up anymore with the persecution.  There has been a big change in their mind.  Pharaoh knew that he could not send the Jewish people to sacrifice to G-d even for three days because if he would their mind would be different.  They would be free in their mind, and once they were free in their mind they would become free in their body as well.  Let's always remember this.  Let's always remember to have a positive attitude, a positive self-image.  If we have a positive self-image we will be able to overcome all the problems that beset us.  Without this positive self-image we will not be able to overcome anything no matter what our talents and no matter even what our courage is, because we must feel positive that we are deserving of freedom and that we are deserving to give our children freedom and that we are deserving to live in dignity and with self-respect.  If we do not feel that inside then it can never be made a reality outside.

I am reminded of the story they tell about two people who attended the May Day parade in Moscow, the parade in which Russia always shows off its most ferocious weapons.  This May Day parade was different.  At the head of the parade were four hundred economics professors, economists.  One friend looked at the other and said, "I do not understand why in this parade we have 400 economists leading it."  The other friend said, "That's easy, because they are the most destructive force we have in Russia today."  Economics may be bringing down Russia, but it is the hand of G-d which is al lowing our people to become free.  Let's not lose this opportunity.  G-d has revealed Himself many ways to us.  Let us all help Him make this Ge'ula, this redemption, in our modern day life a reality.  Let's all do our share, and let's always have a positive image of ourselves.  Amen.