Va’era – I Appeared
Shemot ( Exodus) 6:2 – 9:35
Essay from The Glimpses of the Torah. Psychological Analysis of Human Behaviour in the Torah.
Inna Rogatchi (C), 2020 – 2026
With Art by Michael Rogatchi (C)
Throughout parsha Va’era ( I Appeared), the process of strengthening the people of Israel gets into accelerating speed, both in action and psychologically. It was happening due to Moses and Aaron’s ( or in the beginning of the process, it was rather Aaron and Moses) persistent effort to demand the right for their – and the Creator’s chosen people – to leave the slavery and to live on their own.
The process was accelerated at several levels: in Moses and Aaron’s brave and courageous confrontation with the Pharaoh, in hardening more and more the negative determination of the Pharaoh, in the Jewish people’s self-recognition on the way.
The parsha also tells about the series of wonders in the way of the plagues, which had been all set in a steady rhythm: there has been a 24-day break in between all ten plagues, with each of the plagues continuing for 7 days. A simple math from this tells us that the process of the Jewish people’s beginning of self-determination did not happen overnight, but it took in its pre-decisive stage almost a year, counting the ten months of the process of the plagues plus some time before it started, when Aaron and Moses did come to meet the Pharaoh repeatedly for several times yet before his stubborn behaviour and shifting, lying decision-making has prompted the plaques to start.
From a wealth of profound, interesting and deep commentaries on Va’era, one always intrigues me in particular. “Why did not Pharaoh send Moses and Aaron away for once and good, why did not he forbid them to re-appear any longer, still meeting them on the banks of the Nile? Why did he allow them to come for so long yet before the plaques have started ? “ – asked himself the great rabbi Yoseph Soloveitchik, who did love Moses , of all Torah personalities, explicitly, and always treated him as if he was his close and beloved relative. Indeed, why?
Rabbi Soloveitchik himself explains that there has been an inner, sub-conscious fear inside the Pharaoh of the things great and incomprehensible for him and the Egyptian culture and system of values. That he felt something powerful transpiring in Moses and Aaron’s repeating appearances, as if they indeed had some power behind them that prompted them in their bold and repeating actions. The power that the Pharaoh might feel but could not explain it to himself, nor would he ever be able to recognise it, even to himself. That inner fear of an unknown, and a sense of a mighty force as a source of it, might explain the Pharaoh agreeing to seeing Moses and Aaron repeatedly.
I also think that throughout his face-off with Moses and Aaron the Pharaoh was guided by his inner instincts which are not always necessarily translatable into some clearly formulated conclusions. He was driven in that outstanding confrontation by his sub-consciousness, possibly not quite formulated instinctive fear when a dark force is rebuked by the forces of good which are uncrackable in their determination. Such confrontation sets a sense of puzzlement and an inner upheaval, even among the most despotic personalities which often happened to be banal cowards.
Yet before the plagues, and they did contribute in the most convincing way to the feeling of self-determination of Jewish people ( the Creator is with us, the High Force is helping, supporting and protecting us, we can do it, we can get ourselves out the house of bondage), there was the important formula of four steps towards redemption, which the Creator has commuted to Moses directly. As the plagues, the fortitude of those four steps towards redemption of both the entire nation and every individual who was convinced of necessity to live in freedom, have accelerated in their strength, from Taking Out of Egypt, following by Delivering ( oneself) from enslavement, also metaphorically, to Redeeming and finally to acquiring, or self-determine themself as the chosen by the Creator people.
Our people still keep this important tradition of self-assurance and celebrate it every Pesach ( Passover). These four stages of redemption in our modern-day practices correlate with four glasses of wine which we are ceremonially drinking during the Pesach Seder.
During all the centuries that went on from the moment of Jewish people leaving Egypt, quite a serious part of anti-Semitic attitude as a phenomenon had and still has to do with this key term of the chosen people. To explain it is actually simple: envyness has always been a mighty drive force for awful things. As it is part of human nature, there is hardly anything that can be done with it. Lucky are those, of any ethnicity, who do not have it, being brought up correctly by their families in a proper humane mode. But at least, one can understand the reasons and to act accordingly.
In the parsha Va’era, those two fundamental terms, the chosen people and the Promised Land are prominent marks, with the latter appearing for the first time for the large audience. Those two terms, both are reasons for that never-dying envyness towards Jews, has also played an instrumental role in the process of self-determination about which the parsha Va’era is, essentially. And both terms, in fact, are much more than terms, they are concepts.
The concept of the chosen people , misunderstood and misinterpreted, taken only as a face value, in the phrase’s direct wording, has aggravated the ever existing anti-Semitism, especially among uneducated masses, to a serious degree .
It also has become the subject of never-ending philosophical search at any time. The Jewish response and authentic understanding of this primary concept can be found in the commitment of all our patriarchs and heroes of our people who never doubted our purpose in this world. Such understanding is very graphic when looking at the trials of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samson, and some others who all have had their own individual immense dramatic trials, some of which had brought them to the edge, but each time and each of those great people and true leaders has made the correct , from the point of view of the survival of Jewish people choice.
Chosen for survival via immense trials we are, indeed. And we are following the steps of our forefathers in our understanding of the world and our role in it in every generation.
The concept of the Promised Land is introduced in this clear way in this parsha Va’era , too. This concept which was a dream and the Promise for such a long time, and for so many generations, has proved to be nothing short of a miracle. To keep an idea in mind afresh for centuries and generations, to make it to be realised against absolutely all odds, to be able to defend it during so many repeated mortal attacks for so many years, has no precedent in human history. To fulfil that concept which determined for our people the main condition for life, a sovereign place, even a miracle which is a mighty asset was not enough. It was fulfilled by the mightiest instrument: a human’s belief.
* * *
Parsha Va’era also brings key members of the Moses family to us. Additionally to his parents, it is his brother Aaron and Aaron’s wife Elisheba.
Aaron, who was Moses’s older brother, was his trusted supporter assigned to this position by the Creator himself. He, who unlike Moses, spent his life ( he was 83 when the brothers started to act demanding the release of the Jewish people from the stubborn Pharaoh ,with Moses being 80 ) with his parents and family and was deeply enrooted into the Jewish practices and belief ( with their father Amram is understood to be the head of the Sanhedrin at the time, the highest Jewish authority ), was well versed and also confident and calm, due to his knowledge and deeply enrooted understanding and practices. We know such kinds of people in every Jewish community. They are the backbone of it.
With his thoughtfulness and calm, Aaron was the beloved authority among the Jews, and being a confident although deeply modest person, he was immensely important both as the supporter of his brother Moses, and as an authority among the Jewish people in his own right. It was Aaron’s staff that absorbed all the staves of all sorcerers of the Paharoh’s household in an important demonstration of prevailing the good over evil. It was Aaron who did proclaim the first three of the ten plagues that started the show of the Creator’s might in his demonstrative defense of his people in Egypt to the apoplexity of the Pharaoh’s court. There is also a telling development concerning the plagues and its multiply effect: after the plaques, Moses’s stuttering was cured once and for ever.
It was Aaron who has become the original predecessor of all Kohanim, and it is an essentially important fact in entire Jewish history, till this day. In Michael’s large oil painting from his Zion Waltz series, Aaron is featured in his capacity as Kohanim’s predecessor. This portrait differs substantially from Michael’s early wonderful portrait of Aaron, in the diptych depicting the two brothers, Moses and Aaron. This Aaron from the Zion Waltz, which was created twenty years after the first Michael’s depiction of Aaron, is seen by the artist in an emphatically symbolic way underlining the message of devotion. Contrary to the previous portrait which was a sharp contrast between a dark palette and Aaron’s inner light exemplified by the Creator, this portrait as if brings to us a warm and all-sunny breathing of a desert, it as if breathes the Promised Land itself, and it projects all the kohanim who will descend from that extra-ordinary man, in generations.
Aaron has such a deep and assuring personality in him that it shines from the Torah and all other sources that mentioned him. He is one of the nicest and universally loved Torah main characters, without a doubt.
And importantly, his wife, Elisheba, also was a very special woman. I am thinking about her often, although she is barely mentioned in the Torah. We know from the Talmudic sources that she was the daughter of Aminadav, whose lineage comes to Peretz and thus to Judah. Hers definitely was a special family, as her brother Nachshon is known to be a very brave person who was not afraid to step into the sea on the way from Egypt, and was the first one who did it in such a bravery that the sea did part, and the people, many of whom were genuinely afraid to step in, followed Nashchon, who is also known as the Prince of Judah.
We do not know much about Elisheba, but the thighs which we do know about that wonderful woman are worthy and special. She believed to be born in Goshen, and according to some sources, she together with Moses’s mother Yochebed could be the one of the courageous midwives about whom the Torah speaks without naming them, who were saving Jewish children during their birth under the draconian Pharaoh’s laws. And amazingly, she is the only personality in the entire Torah whose Yahrzeit is mentioned there. This is a colossal and incredibly meaningful merit, indeed.
In Michael’s portrait of Elisheba, the presence of a kind and thoughtful woman is created in a very gentle, suggestive way, and her concentrated look reflects both her goodness and also her look inside herself, her own personal focus on things beautiful and deeply meaningful. Roses in this unusual portrait refers to a high symbolism of a rose in Jewish tradition, projecting not only its mighty beauty, and not only many of its hidden messages in the unique construction of a rose’s petals, but also, importantly, ability and determination to defend itself.
In the Torah and all our primary Jewish sources, a principle of parallelism is one of the most essential ones. It is applicable towards personalities as well. With regard to Aaron in Moses, the Jewish major sources are referring to a possible parallel between them and another special pair of brothers, to Abraham and his brother Haran. With regard to Elisheba, the same sources are mentioning Batsheba who will become King David’s wife.
These parallels are both interesting and meaningful. They are bringing an intellectual message and laying down the foundation for interesting analysis and more profound reading of history. But yet more importantly, to me, they are sending a very re-assuring and warming up spiritual message: nothing disappears. Our souls, their parts, sometimes larger ones, sometimes smaller ones, up to the sparks, are living, migrating into the newly appeared in this world human beings, never occasionally so, caring with them the most precious continuation of a soul’s life, which simply does not stop or vanish. This is an essential message in Judaism.