[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Practical Parsha Podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohon, and I hope you are well.
[00:00:08] This week's parsha is Parshas Vaaira, and it's jam packed. But before we begin, as always, the usual spiel. If you have any questions, comments, would like to say hello. I really mean it. Send me an email, Rabbi Shlomo Kon koh
[email protected].
[00:00:27] i'd love to hear from you.
[00:00:29] This week's parsha is Parshas Va'. Ira. Just to give a quick overview of the weekly Torah portion. The parsha begins with Hashem with G D reassuring Moshe Rabbeinu. And in fact, the parsha is a little bit of a continuation from last week's Parsha.
[00:00:50] And in last week's Torah portion, Moshe Rabbeinu sort of complains to Hashem, uh, he complains to God, why did you do this to me? Why did you send me to Paro? And now after I go to Paro, after I go to him and tell him that you said that you should go free, he makes the work harder.
[00:01:13] Why have you made this bad situation?
[00:01:16] And Parshas Vairus starts off with a stronger wording that, you know, Moshe, in a sense, is getting rebuked by Hashem, right? Hashem is speaking to him harshly, right? Vayadaber, Elokim, El Moshe. Right?
[00:01:33] The name of God, which denotes strict justice, is used in the first verse of the Parsha.
[00:01:40] Now, the Parsha goes on, and Hashem reassures Moshe Rabbeinu that the Jewish people will be taken out of M. Mitzrayim. And he gives over to him the four expressions of redemption that, you know, signify the redemption from Egypt.
[00:02:00] Moshe still is hesitating.
[00:02:04] He demurs, but Hashem, uh, gives him, you know, the instruction to go to Paro and to take the Jewish people out of Mitzrayim. And this actually happens two times. Moshe's, you know, not so confident. He's not going forward with this until Hashem, uh, tells him how he's going to take out the Jewish people with an outstretched hand, with miracles, and bring them out of Mitzrayim.
[00:02:40] And that's how the Parsha begins. And actually, in fact, Moshe Rabbeinu goes with his brother Aaron.
[00:02:46] They go to Paro, they tell him to let my people go.
[00:02:51] And Paro refuses.
[00:02:54] And in this week's Parsha begins, the plagues on the Egyptians, right? We know there's 10 plagues this week's. Parsha. There's seven of them. We where each time Moshe and Aaron go to Paro, they give him a warning to let the people go. Jewish people go.
[00:03:12] Paro refuses.
[00:03:14] And then Hashem strikes the Egyptians, first with blood, then with a plague of frogs.
[00:03:22] The third plague is a plague of lice. The fourth plague is beasts.
[00:03:28] The fifth plague is this epidemic that affects all the animals.
[00:03:34] The sixth is boils, and the seventh is hail. And after each one of these plagues, Paro summons Moshe Rabbeinu to stop the plague to Davin that it should end.
[00:03:50] And he even agrees at a certain point, once the plagues start, you know, picking up, he agrees to let the Jewish people out of Mitzrayim. But as soon as the plague is over, he changes his mind and makes them stay.
[00:04:05] This happens throughout each one of the seven plagues. It starts, the Egyptian gets afflicted, stops.
[00:04:13] And we actually see in this week's Parasha there's this hardening of Paro's heart that Hashem hardens the heart of Paro.
[00:04:24] And we're going to discuss a little bit what that means, how Hashem sort of hardened his heart, took away his choice. Does that mean that. What does that mean? Did he lose his free will?
[00:04:35] Wanted to talk about that a little bit today.
[00:04:38] So the first idea I want to talk about was this idea of Hashem hardening the heart of Paro.
[00:04:46] That Hashem, it says, even before the plagues begin, Hashem is telling Moshe Rabbeinu that he's going to go to Paro.
[00:04:55] And Hashem describes to Moshe Rabbeinu how he's going to take the Jews out of Egypt.
[00:05:04] And the verses read as follows.
[00:05:07] But I shall harden Pharaoh's heart, and I shall multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.
[00:05:13] Pharaoh will not heed you. And I shall put my hand upon Egypt, and I shall take you out, my legions, my people, the children of Israel, from the land of Egypt with great judgments.
[00:05:23] And Egypt shall know that I am Hashem when I stretch out my hand over Egypt, and I shall take the children of Israel out from among them.
[00:05:32] But we see here a very important point, that when Hashem is describing to Moshe Rabbeinu, to Moses about taking the Jewish nation out of Mitsrayim, out of Egypt, he's saying, I'm going to harden Paro's heart. I'm going to make him stubborn. I'm going to make him refuse, you know, your request to take the Jews out of Mitzrayim.
[00:05:58] Now, the fundamental question that's asked here by the commentaries is, we know what, you know, one of our core beliefs is that every person has free will.
[00:06:14] We all have the ability to make choices for good or for bad. And every day we follow through with those decisions, whether, hopefully, it's for the good, but it's up to us to make those decisions.
[00:06:30] Now, obviously, the question that's asked many times, a famous question, one of the most famous questions, and I don't want to get into it too much right now because it's a little bit separate, is how could Hashem, um, know what you're going to do at the same time, give you free will? That's a famous question, right? If God knows everything we're going to do.
[00:06:52] But how does that, you know, how does that fit with my ability to make decisions, good or bad? And there are many answers we can get into.
[00:07:01] And, you know, I don't want to go into it right now, but the point is, is that we all have free will.
[00:07:08] And that's, you know, that's our job in this world, to make decisions, hopefully for good over bad.
[00:07:15] So the question here is, how is it fear that Hashem, uh, that God took away the free will of Pharaoh.
[00:07:26] He hardened his heart, and he's saying he's going to do that.
[00:07:31] And from that point on, there was no turning back for him. Right at that point on, he was going to refuse Moshe Rabbeinu until finally, until the tenth plague, where he sent the Jewish nation out of Mitsrayim, out of Egypt.
[00:07:46] What's going on over here?
[00:07:48] There are many different answers that address this question, but maybe today's episode, we'll look at a few of them to try to get a little clarity.
[00:07:57] So the first one I want to bring down is the Rambam Maimonides.
[00:08:04] Maimonides explains that Paro was only punished for the first five plagues. Meaning God only hardened the heart of Paro at the fifth plague.
[00:08:23] Right. He said he's going to do it in the beginning, but it didn't happen until after the fifth plague.
[00:08:31] So it comes out that Paro had free choice.
[00:08:37] The free choice he made for the first five makos.
[00:08:43] He decided to not let the Jewish people go.
[00:08:46] And the Paro and the Egyptians subsequently were punished for their wrong decision of keeping the Jews enslaved in Egypt.
[00:08:57] So it comes out that Paro had a choice.
[00:09:01] And after the fifth plague, he lost that ability to make that decision.
[00:09:08] He lost that ability to, you know, to have a choice at that point.
[00:09:14] And the Reason that's so is the reason that he lost his free choice.
[00:09:20] So that Hashem would show the world that Paro and the Egyptians, they were being punished for the first five where they had the choice.
[00:09:32] So in essence, according to Maimonides, justice was being served. God hardened the heart of Pharaoh so that at this point and on from when the point he hardened his heart from, from the time that he took away that free choice, he was punishing him, justice was being served to the Egyptians.
[00:09:52] But this answer is not fully answered, because the question still remains that if the. If Hashem hardened the heart of Paro to punish him for the first five plagues, so why did Moshe go to Paro from.
[00:10:10] For the next five plays from six to 10, if it was preordained already that the Pharaoh would not let them go, why did he approach him to let the people go? And the answer the Rambam gives, Maimonides explains, is that to teach us about the concept of Teshuvah, of returning, that if Hashem withholds the ability to do teshuvah from a person, then they will not be able to do Teshuvah. They will not be able to return. It is. And if they don't have that ability to do Teshuvah, so then they will pass on because of prior sins that they have. So this it comes out that Hashem, uh, was demonstrating to the world.
[00:10:58] That is, only by his ability of giving us a chance to do teshuvah, of. Of returning, are we able to accomplish that?
[00:11:08] Are we able to repent?
[00:11:10] But if Hashem withholds that ability from us, so then we will pass on, just like the Mitzrim did. That's one answer.
[00:11:20] Another answer which is given is the Ramban Nachmanides.
[00:11:25] Nachmanides explains that that Hashem gave Paro an opportunity to do Teshuvah. He gave him the opportunity before he hardened his heart, right? Like I mentioned before the first five plagues, Paro could have made a decision to let the Jewish people go.
[00:11:45] But he refused. He refused once, he refused twice, he refused five times.
[00:11:53] And the Ramban explains that what we see from this is that after a certain point, Hashem takes away the ability for a person to do Teshuvah.
[00:12:06] That Paro had that chance.
[00:12:09] He was given numerous opportunities to change his ways, to have remorse, but he refused each and every time.
[00:12:19] And once it came to a point where he refused too many times, Hashem took away that ability to come back.
[00:12:29] And I think what comes out from this is that, you know, when you think about free choice, Free choice can only be a choice if there are consequences to that choice, right? So we think of, you know, Hashem is a merciful God. He is a forgiving God, right? But we have to actually do the action, to have that remorse, to change our ways. But it doesn't go forever, right? And I think for Paro, even the commentaries explained that, even for him doesn't mean that it was totally closed off his avenue of returning, right? It means that he lost that special siya' ata deshmay, that special help from heaven of being able to change, being able to return. There's a certain help we get when we want to be better, when we want to change.
[00:13:23] And when it says that Hashem hardened his heart doesn't mean that it was totally closed.
[00:13:29] It means that it was much harder for him to do that, Meaning he still had that choice, but it was much harder. He didn't get that Tziyata deshmaye, that heavenly help to change his ways. And just to develop this idea a little bit more, Rashi and the Seporno, explain on this Ramban, this line of thought, that even though Hashem hardened the heart of Paro, right?
[00:13:56] What does that mean? It doesn't mean that he took away his free choice in the sense that he forced him to do the sin of not letting the Jewish people go.
[00:14:06] It doesn't mean that Hashem, uh, didn't force Paro to do his wicked actions, but rather, he was like a person who was given a painkiller. Even if a person has a painkiller, right? The painkiller doesn't remove, um, the sickness, it just masks the pain.
[00:14:31] And while the person has that painkiller going, the doctor tells him, don't do heavy labor, don't strain yourself, or else you'll be paying for that even more afterwards. But the person doesn't listen, and he does it anyways, right?
[00:14:48] So is the doctor. Did the doctor force him to do that heavy labor, right? Even. Because right now he feels fine.
[00:14:56] He feels like nothing's bothering him. So he could do whatever he needs to do, but he didn't listen.
[00:15:01] He does the, uh, moving, he lifts the heavy furniture.
[00:15:05] Did the doctor force him to do that?
[00:15:07] No.
[00:15:08] So similarly with Paro, during the last five plagues, the hardening of Paro's heart was like that painkiller, but he was still able to make that rational decision to let the Jewish people go or not.
[00:15:23] It was only because he wasn't feeling the pain. He was able to handle it because Aishem had hardened his heart. And only at the 10th plague was he able to come to the realization that he wanted to send the Jewish people free. Because he realized the greatness of Hashem.
[00:15:42] That's what it means.
[00:15:44] Hashem was maksha as Lev Paro. He hardened his heart, right?
[00:15:50] He took away. He gave him this ability to withstand that, that. That pain. Meaning to say, is he.
[00:15:58] He forced Paro to come to a recognition of Hashem's, uh, greatness purely because of what happened, not because of the painful situation that his people were going through.
[00:16:12] Because every time he wanted to let them go wasn't because he had remorse and he wanted to change his ways. It was because he wanted the situation to change, to go away.
[00:16:24] Only after Hashem, uh, hardened his heart and they went through 10 plagues was Paro able to come to the recognition that Hashem was running the shots. And he let the Jewish people go.
[00:16:37] Second idea I want to share with you today is a beautiful sephasemes that I heard and actually looked up myself.
[00:16:44] And I would like to give it over this week's parasha.
[00:16:48] So we know that this week's parasha is a connection to last week's Parsha. Hashem tells Moshe Rabbeinu to go to Paro. He goes to Paro, and the situation gets worse. And the Jewish people complain to Moshe Rabbeinu, why did you make it worse for us?
[00:17:05] And Hashem starts off Vaera by rebuking Moshe Rabbeinu, by giving him using the name of Hashem, that denotes strict judgment. Rashi M comments on this, that it was a little bit of a rebuke to Moshe Rabbeinu for how he spoke about the Jewish people.
[00:17:27] Why did you make it bad?
[00:17:31] Moshe was complaining to Hashem, Why did you make it worse for the Jewish people?
[00:17:36] And Hashem was telling him, no, I'm going to take them out with a strong hand, right? I am the God of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. I will take them out of Mitzrayim. And actually, further in this week's Parasha, we see that Moshe Rabbeinu comes to the Jewish people and tells them about this. The prophecy that Hashem is going to take him out of Mitsrayim. And what does the Torah tell us?
[00:18:00] They couldn't listen to Moshe. They didn't listen to him because of the hard. The, um, from their shortness of breath and hard, you know, backbreaking labor. They weren't able to hear Moshe. They weren't able to believe him because of the situation that they were in.
[00:18:17] Now there's a fascinating gemara Talmud states in Shabbos says as follows. Amresh lakeish reish lachish said hachoishe biksherem laika begufa. One who suspects innocent people of misdeeds is punished by being stricken in his body.
[00:18:34] Dixiv vehen loyaminuli. For it's written, but behold, they will not believe me.
[00:18:46] Now. It was revealed before the Holy One, blessed is he that the Israelites would believe in the prophecy of Moshe. Right Amelo. So Hashem said, God said to Moshe, hain ma minim b' ne ma minim. They the Jewish people, the Israelites are believers, the children of believers, the ata ein soifcha lahamimin. While you will ultimately fail to believe. And the Gemara explains what that means. What Hashem's response to Moshe Rabbeinu was.
[00:19:18] Um, what does it mean? The Jewish people are believers? It says they believe as it says and the people believed.
[00:19:29] And the children of believers, what does it mean that their maminim Bne maminim, the children of believers, as it's written regarding their forefather Avram. And he believed in Hashem ata ain seif khalaham. But you, Moshe Rabbeinu ultimately will fail to believe. What does that mean?
[00:19:47] As it's stated in regard in reference to Moshe Rabbeinu and Aaron, because you do not believe in me. When it's when Moshe Rabbeinu struck the rock, right? He didn't the reason why he was punished and ultimately not able to enter into the land of Israel, because that's what it says in the verses over there, that you didn't have faith in me. And the question we can ask on this Gemara is that Moshe Rabbeinu, he comes to the Jewish people.
[00:20:16] And we see very clearly from last week's Parsha and from this week's Parsha that the Jewish people are not believing Moshe. Right. We see what they're saying. What did they say? In last week's Parsha, the Jewish people complained to him, why have you done this? This week's Parsha, they can't listen to him because of the hard back breaking labor. They can't even envision that it's going to be true.
[00:20:43] So why is it that Moshe Rabbeinu is considered, he's being choshed bicherim, that he's looking at innocent people, he's being suspect of the Jewish people, that they don't have the belief in Hashem Right? Is it so off?
[00:21:01] What did he do so wrong?
[00:21:04] And the answer that the Tsfasamis explains to us is that based on the Gemaras, the Gemara says that the Jewish people intrinsically are maminim. They're believers, Bnei ma', meanim, the children of believers.
[00:21:21] What Hashem was telling Moshe Rabbeinu is that just like you have an obligation to believe in Hashem, full stop, so too you have an obligation to believe in B' Nai Yisrael, to believe in the Jewish people. Because. Because they're maminim, bini maminim. They're believers, the children of believers, that even if they say at a moment, you've made it worse for us, what are you doing? They can't hear you because of the work. It's only for that moment. But really, they believe because each and every Yid, each and every Jew, is a child of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Um, and that.
[00:22:03] That doesn't. That's not something which allows for a person to not have that belief in Hashem, to not have that emunah, that faith, to not have that trust in Hashem. So even if a person says they don't believe, they do.
[00:22:22] And that's what the message.
[00:22:24] That's why Moshe Rabbeinu is getting rebuked here a little bit, because it was his responsibility to believe in Bnei Yisroel, that they were going to listen to him, that they're going to listen to the word of Hashem, because it's something which is, uh, a given.
[00:22:41] It's ah, a given. And I think maybe if you look in the verses in the beginning of Parshas Ve' Ira, it says, um, It says, I appear to Avram, to Isaac and to Jacob as Kel Shakai, but with my name Hashem, I did not make myself known to them. Right. There's a reference here to Avram, Yitzchak and Yaakov, that Moshe Rabbeinu was being reminded that the Jewish people are descendants of these pillars of Emunah, pillars of faith, of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. So no matter if on the surface they're saying one thing, but as soon as you wipe away that dirt, the shine is there.
[00:23:27] And I think this is a very important idea we see from this week's Parsha. When it comes to us looking at our fellow Jew and for us, as people, believing in others as well, Number one, we have to recognize that each and Every one of us are children of Abraham.
[00:23:51] And there is a certain embedded belief inside of every Yid, inside of every Jew.
[00:23:58] And maybe at times it's not seen, whether it be in ourselves or in others. We look at ourselves and say, who am I? You know, what am I doing? We have to recognize that all we have to do is wipe away the dirt and we'll shine. Because we're all descendants of Avrahamitzhok and Yaakov. We have that spiritual DNA within ourselves to reconnect to that. That's something that's there. It's a fact. Just like you have the physical DNA, you have that spiritual DNA. I think that's a very important point to remember. Secondly, I think it's this idea in the Parsha gives us a very important insight into believing in other people. Right? Moshe Rabbeinu was punished based on this Gemara. He was punished because he did not believe in the Jewish people.
[00:24:51] He did not believe in them. And because of that, he had the sin happened of hitting the rock. And that's why he was not able to lead the Jewish nation into the land of Israel. I think it's very important for us to remember the importance of believing in other people.
[00:25:06] And what we need to do for ourselves is that Hashem believes in us.
[00:25:12] So shouldn't we believe in ourselves? Right? Believing in ourselves of what we could do. Not to be haughty and be arrogant, but rather to build people up to tell them what they could become, to give them over that feeling of who they really are and who they can be. I think that's a very powerful idea we see from this week's Parasha. So with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. Hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomokon Kohenmail.com have a great day.
