Two complex mechanisms are revealed to us in Parashat Vaera. The first being the heart of Pharaoh.
I was a guest about a year ago at the Boca Raton Congregation in Florida. There, Rabbi Efrem Goldberg drew conclusions about our hearts from Pharaoh’s heart: “How stupid can one be?” he asked the hundreds of worshipers on Shabbat morning. “Pharaoh sees that all the water turns to blood. He suffers greatly from the plagues of frogs and lice. Why does he not do the right thing and liberate the Children of Israel already? Why is he so stubborn? After all, all the signs indicate what he needs to do. The Torah is not only describing Pharaoh, but us—Am Yisrael. Within each of us a little Pharaoh is hiding who knows exactly what he should be doing but doesn’t do it. Our Sages taught that the greatest distance in the world is the distance between the mind and the heart. The distance between what the head wants to do and the actual application. We know we want to invest more in relationships, children, education, kindness, prayer. We do not need to be convinced, we just need to start doing it already. Every year the Torah sends us such a reminder.”
But it’s not just Pharaoh, it’s us too. And this is the second mechanism revealed in the parsha: Can an amazing message reach directly to us, and we just won’t hear it? Moshe Rabbeinu addresses the people of Israel in the parsha with wonderful news: The Exodus is about to begin! They have been waiting for years, and lo and behold, now it’s happening. The reaction of Bnei Yisrael, however, is discouraging: “They would not listen to Moshe, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.”
How can this be? Can a person become so preoccupied and busy that he does not notice that an opportunity has arisen for him to go out to freedom? Can the “urgent” overcome and defeat the “important”?
The answer is that this is what unfortunately happened to some of our ancestors. The physical bondage becomes a bondage that is also spiritual. In Mesilat Yesharim, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto writes that we should all be very careful that this does not happen to us as well: “This is one of the cunning strategies of the evil inclination, to relentlessly burden people’s hearts with his service so as to leave them no room to reflect and consider which road they are taking.” We may miss redemption if we do not leave ourselves space in life for such good news if we are not attentive and free enough.
I wish we could absorb these two lessons.
Sivan Rahav Meir is the World Mizrachi scholar-in-residence and an Israeli journalist and lecturer.
