Parashat Va’eira  

Confronting the Truth

In psychotherapy, the therapist sometimes knows exactly what’s wrong with the person, but cannot say anything about it until the person is ready to hear it.

In human relations, be it with a spouse, a child, a friend, there are certain vulnerabilities they may have which we mustn’t expose lest we shake the very foundations on which they live and exist.

The Tosephta states that a person is forbidden from mentioning to a convert or a baal teshuva, remember when you were not as you are now. There are certain vulnerabilities we have which we must not expose or else our whole framework for our self-esteem and confidence is shattered.

In a recent edition of the OU Journal, a psychologist suggested that the reason many orthodox shuls have an excess of talking during services is that the congregants are afraid that if they face the prayer book face to face, they may actually have to confront the issue of prayer. Do they truly believe in G-d? Do they actually believe in the efficacy of prayer? Do they really have something in their heart they wish to share with G-d? Confronting these difficult issues might expose the emptiness of their religious experience and the chaos that underlies their religious personalities. Rather than confront such a reality, many people opt to talk during services. Of course I refer not to those in this synagogue, because I would say decorum is pretty good here.

In this week’s parasha, we encounter again and again the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Each year we are struck by Pharaoh’s amazing ability to deny the reality of the plagues and G-d’s existence and power. However, as we look more carefully at Pharaoh, and more honestly, we begin to see ourselves.  The first obstacle in recognizing G-d is that it undermines my very independence, my sense of myself as a free, separate entity, in charged of my destiny.

The Kabbalists speak of the bread of shame. At times in our lives, we deserve nothing and we get everything.  When we contemplate what G-d graces us with, and all that we owe to G-d, we realize that we owe little of our success or happiness to ourselves, and do owe everything to G-d. Such a realization is so disabling that to truly consider this truth is to invite on ourselves a  sense of shame and sadness.

For Pharaoh to admit that “the L-d is righteous and I and my people are wicked”, as he does at the end of our portion, is to turn his whole world upside down.  Moses is exposing Pharaoh as a lie. He is not the ruler of the Nile. He is not G-d. He cannot control all the weather and the crops and the cattle. He is not the one he makes himself out to be. He in short is a fraud.  It reminds me of the last scene from the wizard of Oz in which Oz is totally exposed.         

This is something that not only the hardhearted Pharaoh has trouble admitting. Every human being, at times, lives in denial of the reality of his or her true place in the universe. How often do we thank G-d for our good health, as if it were something we had coming to us or controlled? When a loved one or we ourselves are ill, we expose the roots of our good health, which is G-d.

Especially at a young age, we live in denial of the finite nature of life. We figure we can eat and drink and be merry for life and youth will go on forever. To consider the truth about life and its finite nature boggles the mind, disables us. So we live in denial.

Our sense of embarrassment before G-d stems, as we said, from our overwhelming debt to G-d and also from our own recognition that we ourselves often fall short of even our own human mark.  WE are not as wise as even we could be. Not as good as we can be. Not as productive as we could be.

If Pharaoh represents denial, then Israel, the Jewish people represent recognition that G-d is G-d. As our portion opens with G-d’s 4-part promise to save the Jewish people, G-d says, he will take us out, he will save us, he will redeem us, and he will take us to him as a people, and He shall be to us a G-d.

We are supposed to be the people who live before G-d with no sense of denial.  As the plagues befell the Egyptians, it was not only Pharaoh who learned that G-d rules over all the elements. The Israelites too came to learn once and for all times that G-d is the source of all of creation.

What does it mean not to live in denial of G-d? Firstly, it means living with a sense of thanks. Secondly, it means living with prayer, recognizing G-d as the source of all hope. Thirdly, it means recognizing that we are in fact slaves. We are slaves of G-d. As long as we do our part, we are not ashamed. We do what our master asks and this makes us worthy servants. We didn’t just ask “shalach et ami,” let my people go. We asked, Shalach ami veyaavduni. Let my people go and worship me, be my avadim, my servants, my slaves. It is a total illusion that you, Pharaoh, control these people. I am the only one who can claim their total allegiance, never a human, who in turn is obliged to me as well.

On this Shabbos Vaera, we should try to stop living in denial, to start living more thankfully, more prayerfully, and in full recognition of our devotion and absolute submission to G-d. As we live in recognition of these realities, we will feel proud to be a servant of G-d, and we will not be ashamed. As we say in the daily blessings before the Shema, place in our hearts to understand to learn, to teach, to observe all the precepts of thy Torah so that we shall not be ashamed forever more. Lemaan lo nevosh velo nikalem le-olam vaed…