Questions for the Shabbat Table: Vaera
A printable study booklet: one question per page, the Rav’s answer, its source, and a lesson to discuss as a family.
Parashat Vaera opens with an interlude: instead of the plagues the narrative had announced, G-d answers Moshe, who has just asked Him why He mistreats this people and why He sent him. This lecture takes that question seriously and treats it as the question of why there is suffering, asked not by a rebel but by the future liberator himself. The answer it draws out is not an explanation but a shift of perspective: we do not look for the reason behind each thing, we look for its purpose, and that purpose always passes through a husk. The lecture then follows what the text promises — knowledge, freedom, the land — and why the people do not listen.
Rav Raphaël Benizri first recalls what he had said about Moshe’s personality: forty years in Pharaoh’s palace, at the heart of the great Egyptian civilization, then forty years with Yitro, who knew every secondary creed, and finally the return to his brothers — without knowing, at first, which ones he belonged to. This hesitation is not his alone, and it is the buried ancestral root that awakens, if not in the man himself, then at least in his descendants.
The discussion is built around the divine Names, the difference between a gift and an inheritance, and the four — then five — stages of liberation recalled by the cups of Pesach. It ends with the harsher labor imposed by Pharaoh, with Aharon’s role as spokesman, and with the list of the heads of the Levite families that interrupts the narrative.
What this lecture teaches
The treatment inflicted in Egypt is not foreign to us, and that is what makes the question unavoidable. We have lived through it all along our history, and that is the proof that it truly took place there. It raises the question of why, and this question is not asked from the outside: it is asked by Moshe himself. It comes at the moment when he has suffered his first failure and is under attack from the elite Pharaoh had appointed to oversee the people — an elite that blames him for having intensified the persecution and asks him to stop speaking of liberation.
The people had believed at first, and what follows is despair. When Moshe came to tell them that the G-d of their fathers had revealed Himself to him and that he came in His name to bring them out, the people gave him their full trust and all the credit he needed. But the process does not come to fruition, and the leaders themselves revolt. Moshe then stands before G-d: why do You deal so harshly with this people, and why did You send me? Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, the people’s situation has grown worse, and You have not delivered Your people.
The answer is first a promise, and then an interruption of the narrative. Moshe is told not to grow impatient: now he will see what will be done to Pharaoh, and with a mighty hand Pharaoh will drive them out of his land. At this point we would expect to witness the plagues striking. Instead comes this interlude: “I am the Eternal; I appeared to Avraham, to Yitzchak and to Yaakov as El Shaddai, but by My Name I did not make Myself known to them.” Then follow the upholding of the covenant, the cry that has been heard, the remembrance of the covenant with the patriarchs, and then the verbs of deliverance — and the phrase that is their purpose: and you shall know that I am the Eternal.
Moshe reports this, and they do not listen. The text says that they would not hear him, out of shortness of spirit — out of impatience — and because of the labor that had never stopped tearing down all their faith. These are the verses the lecture sets out to understand, and with them the answer given to Moshe’s revolt and to his wish to fathom G-d’s intention in these persecutions. And the answer he receives is that the patriarchs never asked a question. The land had been promised to them, and yet Avraham had to pay dearly for a plot of ground in which to bury his wife; Yitzchak had to struggle to obtain wells of water to irrigate his fields; Yaakov had to buy the ground on which to pitch his tents and gain a right to the soil. Not once did they ask why. Their faith was a matter of premonition: an adherence through their very being rather than through the intellect.
That kind of faith is familiar to us, and it is respected without being the ideal. It happens that we hold on to the tradition of our fathers in a mainly emotional way: we continue what they taught us, without seeking to go deeper or to know. That is respected, but the ideal remains knowledge. And that is precisely what is announced here: I will reveal Myself in such a way that they seek to know Me. You will no longer have merely a feeling of G-d’s existence that crumbles and decays with time; you will integrate it at the level of your mind.
But there is a limit, and that limit is built into the structure itself. There are things the human mind will never be able to decode, because the moment you claim to know G-d, it would mean that you master Him and dominate Him — and a G-d you master through your knowledge is no longer G-d. What does remain is the sense of belonging to a higher order, a supreme order.
The Name we place on our doors is not the Name of inner knowledge. It is Shaddai that appears on the mezuzah, not the Tetragrammaton, and it says: it is I who set limits to the expansion of My creation. Those who believe in Him are invited not to scatter themselves across space nor to try to contain Him within it, since it is He who contains space; what He asks is to be grasped in time — in the time He shares with them, in their existence. Knowledge through the other Name will therefore be inner rather than outer: we must not seek G-d outside ourselves, but within. The mezuzah thus marks the limit of space, within which our behavior may vary, so long as we remain consistent with ourselves.
He did not reveal Himself in the same way to each one, because there is not just one path. Each of the patriarchs received according to the value he had cultivated. One can serve each according to his own mission, his own voice, his own sensibility, and even in fulfilling the laws each does so in his own way, according to his possibilities and his abilities. There is no competition in this realm; there is only the task of achieving the best in the path one has chosen.
It is trials that give light its outline, as black outlines white. Night outlines day; the darkness of history is what gives the light its contour, and it is by wanting to come out of it that one finds the way out. What allows us to hold on is knowing that it has an end and that nothing is gratuitous — that nothing, in the end, disrupts the growth of the fruit. For the tree is planted for a fruit that cannot be seen in its trunk. It must spread its branches on every side and first put out its bark; and the more the bark hardens and grows, the more the fruit is able to be nourished without being touched by any germ or disturbed in its existence. Man is in the image of this tree. The fruit he can bear is therefore not obtained by constantly questioning the reason for each thing, but by seeking the purpose of all things — and that purpose passes through a husk.
Rashi notes that the verse specifies “the fathers,” and that word is not superfluous. A father who devotes himself to his child never stops to ask what possessed him to bring that child into the world, and he does not do it in order to exploit the child’s strength later on: this child is the father’s project, and the father is ready for every sacrifice. Bringing a child into the world, providing for his education and seeing him through to a good end is not easy, and most often we remain halfway — but we are sure there is a continuity. The patriarchs shouldered this burden even though they had been promised wonders and enjoyed none of it: what satisfaction did Avraham have, what satisfaction Yitzchak, what satisfaction Yaakov? The first lesson, then, is that Israel must always look back — not at what is happening to it now, but at how its fathers conducted themselves.
What comes to fruition here is not, in the first place, religious. The exodus from Egypt and the journey toward the land bring to the world the notion of freedom: allowing man to take on his own responsibilities in full independence, and to be able to fight for that freedom so that all of humanity may benefit from it. For as long as any nation has not chosen this freedom, ours will remain under threat. We must first attain it; then will come the Torah, the land, the Temple — all of that will come once this stage has been crossed.
The liberation unfolds in four stages, which are the four cups. I will tear you away from the labors of Egypt; I will deliver you from their subjugation, that is, from their intellectual and moral grip on you; and when I have torn Egypt out of you — this physical, intellectual and moral subjugation — then I will adopt you as a people. There remains the fifth cup, over which there is an open discussion, and which corresponds to the promise of the land.
The land is promised with a word that speaks of betrothal rather than inheritance. The objection is simple: a promise stretched out over time is not enough; we were driven out of the land, and we want something that remains entirely acquired, whereas the land is acquired only conditionally. The word used is not that of ordinary inheritance, and it can be read as the word for betrothal — and the love that animates a betrothal is more intense than that of the marriage itself, because it is a love in waiting. One can only hope that it lasts once the union is consummated.
A gift must be deserved, an inheritance need not — and we bless for the gift. We do not bless the One who made us inherit the Torah but the One who gave it to us, and we speak of the giving of the Torah: for a gift is given only to someone we appreciate, cherish and want to keep, and when we have misgivings about the friend we had chosen, we stop giving him gifts. An inheritance, by contrast, need not be deserved: a child inherits from his parents whether he is worthy or not, unless they have disinherited him. Now it happens that we are not on the level of being G-d’s partner in His work, and that we do not deserve what He has given us; then we claim the title of heir, this trust received by descent. The word, moreover, appears twice in the Torah, once for the giving of the Torah and once for the giving of the land: it will belong to you whether you are there or not, because the decision to give it has been made.
Another version makes the fifth cup the knowledge of G-d. It is no longer the land, but that uncertain knowledge which we cannot manage to grasp and which remains problematic in difficult times — Moshe himself asked to be made to know His ways. We cannot always fathom the purpose of each thing. But knowing that one is in communication with Someone in what one aspires to changes everything, even in the worst of prisons. The sages compared this to a prisoner serving his sentence with the awareness that he will be freed one day, because others are waging the same struggle without having voiced it, and he will end up finding them.
A transgression committed while aiming at the mitzvah is counted as part of the mitzvah. Two circumcisions are due, one on Shabbat, the other on Sunday; if on Shabbat one circumcised the child whose day was Sunday, one has desecrated Shabbat. The sages say that since the original intention was not to transgress, the act is considered not a transgression but a component of the fulfillment. So it is in life: on our path toward truth and repentance our intention is pure, but dark forces prevented us from acting consciously — and that deviation counts as a component of the purpose we were seeking. That is how, in teshuvah (repentance), even sins become merits: it is the purpose that ratifies the whole.
If Pharaoh makes the labor harder, it is because the idea had already taken hold. His reaction does not mean that he underestimated Moshe’s intervention: the trust the people had placed in him showed that the idea, still in embryonic form, had already won their hearts and could now only ripen. That is the meaning of the reproach addressed to the people, that they are slack: you are ripening this idea of freedom in the depths of yourselves. At that moment the opposing forces tighten their grip to make us forget this idea that is springing up, this movement of liberation of the moral conscience. And it is within the hardening bark that the fruit can ripen soundly: it is through the hardening of the conditions that Pharaoh will end up saying that G-d is the righteous one and that he and his people are the guilty ones. It was only a flash, but he said it, and in the end he acknowledged that existence.
Moshe could not find the words, and that is why Aharon was needed. He stammered, he was “of uncircumcised lips,” because everything is accomplished through the word: if the person you are speaking to does not understand you, he rejects your teaching wholesale. Aharon has the ability to come down to the people’s level and speak to them. And if the text goes on with the list of the heads of the fathers’ houses — that of the sons of Levi — without giving the twelve heads of the tribes, it is because what happens in Egypt continues the story of the twelve tribes and that of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov: it is neither a break nor a rupture; it is the sequel. In it we find the kingship of Yehudah with Elisheva and Nachshon, who throws himself into the water to open the way; the sons of Korach, who will revolt; Nadav and Avihu, who will bring a strange fire; Elazar son of Aharon, who married a daughter of Yitro; and Pinchas, the extremist. All of them are part of this people, because the liberation from Egypt is that of all the components of the people and of all those of humanity — and that is why the spokesman is Aharon, who loves peace and pursues it, and who draws people close to the spirit of the Torah.
Full transcript of the lecture
The treatment inflicted on the Jewish people is not foreign to us; unfortunately we have lived through it all along our history, and that is the proof that it existed in Egypt. Of course, this raises the question of why. And this question is asked by Moshe himself, the future liberator of Israel. In our last lecture we dwelt on what this personality was: forged in Pharaoh’s palace, at the very heart of the great Egyptian civilization, for forty years; then with Yitro, the grand master of every secondary creed — that is how we will define here avodah zarah, foreign worship, idolatry in a sense. Forty years there, and then a return, at the command of HaKadosh Baruch Hu (the Holy One, blessed be He), to his brothers.
At first, in fact, he did not know which brothers he belonged to — his Egyptian brothers or his Jewish brothers. It is a question we too may sometimes ask ourselves throughout the positions we take; and in the end it is this ancestral root, buried within us, that awakens — if not in us directly, then through our descendants. And that is what happens in Egypt. Only, who will withstand so many persecutions, so many misfortunes? Moshe, after raising many objections to carrying out his mission, finally resolves to undertake it and suffers his first failure; he comes under attack from that whole elite which Pharaoh himself had appointed to oversee the entire Jewish people. And this elite wants to tell Moshe: all you are doing is intensifying the persecution against us — stop talking about this liberation.
So a wave of despair sweeps over the Jewish people — this people which at first had put its faith in him, when Moshe came to announce that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the G-d of their fathers, had revealed Himself to him and that he came in His name to bring them out of Egypt. The people gave him all its trust, all the credit he needed. But afterward, as the process did not come to fruition, even the leaders revolted, and Moshe stood before G-d and said: “Lamah hare’otah la’am hazeh — why do You deal so harshly with this people? And why did You send me?” For ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, the people’s situation has only grown worse, and You have not delivered Your people.
Then G-d answers: do not grow impatient; now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a mighty hand he will let them go, and with a mighty hand he will drive them out of his land. Then begins the parashah we are going to comment on. For there is something like an interruption. We should have witnessed the continuation of events — namely that the plagues would now begin, one after another, to strike Pharaoh so as to force him to part with the Jewish people. But before that comes this interlude. The Eternal spoke to Moshe and said to him: “I am the Eternal, and I appeared to Avraham, to Yitzchak and to Yaakov as El Shaddai” — for now I translate it as “G-d Almighty” — “ushmi Hashem lo noda’ti lahem: but by My Name, Hashem, I did not make Myself known to them. And I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their sojournings in which they sojourned. And I also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, for the torments the Egyptians made them suffer, and I remembered My covenant” with the patriarchs. “Therefore say to the children of Israel: I am the Eternal, who brought them out from under the forced labor of Egypt; I will deliver them from their forced labor; I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great wonders; I will take you to Me as a people, and I will be your G-d. Vida’tem ki ani Hashem Elokeichem hamotzi etchem — and you shall know that I am the Eternal your G-d, who brings you out.”
Look: the purpose is vida’tem, “you shall know.” “And I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Avraham, to Yitzchak and to Yaakov, and I will give it to you as morashah, as a heritage.” Moshe reported this to the children of Israel, and the text tells us: velo shame’u el Moshe — they did not listen to Moshe, they did not want to hear him — mikotzer ru’ach, out of shortness of spirit, out of impatience, and of course because of the labor that had never stopped tearing down all their faith. We stop here; these are the verses we will try to understand: G-d’s answer to Moshe’s revolt, to this wish of Moshe’s to fathom G-d’s intention in the persecutions He imposes on the children of Israel. He says to him: you know, this attitude does you no credit. It does you no credit — why? Because I already revealed Myself to the patriarchs, and not once did they ask Me a question.
I promised them the land, and yet when Avraham had to buy a plot of ground to bury his wife, he had to pay a high price for it, even though the land had been promised to him. Yitzchak too was forced to struggle to have wells of water to irrigate his own fields, even though the land had been promised to him. Yaakov found no place to pitch his tents; he too had to buy the ground to have a right to the soil. Yet not once did they ask Me a question. Their faith was a matter of premonition; one might say it was an adherence to G-d through their very being rather than through the intellect. This happens to us today, when we hold on to the tradition of our fathers, of our ancestors: it is more emotional. We continue what they taught us, but we do not seek to go deeper, we do not seek to know.
Hashem says to him: I respect that. But why only respect it? Because, of course, the ideal is knowledge. Today I am going to reveal Myself to the children of Israel in such a way that they seek to know Me: vida’tem ki ani Hashem. At last you will no longer have merely this feeling of G-d’s existence that goes on crumbling and decaying with time; you will also integrate it at the level of your mind. And that is the difference in va’era el Avraham el Yitzchak ve’el Yaakov. I revealed Myself to Avraham, to Yitzchak and to Yaakov, and they sensed it through all of My creation; they sensed My knowledge, My existence. Now I want to answer your expectation, which is to know My ways. Very well — but know that there is a limit to the human mind. There are things you will not be able to decode, because the moment you claim to know G-d, it means that you yourself master Him, that you yourself dominate Him — and then He is no longer G-d. A G-d you master through your knowledge is no longer G-d.
But know that this sense of belonging to a higher order, a supreme order, is what makes, and will always make, a person a partner of G-d. Ani Hashem — “I am Hashem” — and not El Shaddai. Shaddai is the Name we place on our doors: on our mezuzot only the Name Shaddai appears, not that of Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei. Why? Because Shaddai means: “Ani hu she’amarti le’olami dai — it is I who said to My world, ‘Enough'”; it is I who set limits to the expansion of My creation, to the infinity of My creation. But I do invite those who believe in Me not to scatter themselves across space, not to try to contain Me within space — space is contained by Me. I want them to grasp Me in time, in the time I share with them, in their existence. And so the knowledge of the Eternal, of Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, will be an inner knowledge rather than an outer one. We must not seek G-d outside ourselves; we must seek Him within ourselves. So the mezuzah on our doors tells us: take note — here there are limits we must set in space. Even if our behavior changes here and there, we must of course remain consistent with ourselves, with our values; but we must know that beyond these ways of being there is a knowledge, that of Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei — of Being by definition. Full stop. I revealed Myself to the patriarchs, each according to the very value he had cultivated — that is to say, there is not just one way of serving. One can serve Him each according to his own mission, each according to his own voice, each according to his own sensibility; even in fulfilling G-d’s laws, each does so in his own way, according to his possibilities, according to his abilities.
There is no competition in this realm; each one sought to achieve the best in the path he had chosen, and that is the path warmly recommended to anyone who wishes to approach the knowledge of Being. He must know that it dwells in the very depths of himself. And in the same way, it is black that outlines white, evening that outlines day, night that outlines day. We must know that it is trials that give light its outline. And if one does not [go through] this halo of darkness in history to the point of wanting to come out of it — through what, in fact, will we find the way out? Through the awareness that it has an end, that nothing is gratuitous, that in the end nothing disrupts the growth of the fruit. Let me explain — I went too fast there. When we look at a tree, we do not see its purpose, we do not see its fruit. And yet this tree was planted only for the fruit it will bear; but in its trunk, we do not see it.
This tree must spread its branches on every side; it must first put out its bark. And the more the bark hardens and grows, the more the fruit is able to be nourished without being touched by any germ or disturbed in its existence. And man is in the image of this tree: ki ha’adam etz hasadeh, “for man is a tree of the field.” Consequently, the fruit a man can bear does not come from constantly questioning the reason for each thing, but from seeking the purpose of all things. For there is a purpose. And this purpose passes through a klipah, a husk. We will develop this in a moment. But you must know that I remain attached, I remain faithful, to this conduct of the patriarchs, to this relationship I developed with them.
Why? An important teaching. Rashi on va’era: “Va’era el ha’avot” — “I appeared to the fathers.” When He says “I appeared,” it is as though He were explaining something to me: I revealed Myself to the avot, to the patriarchs. But then He specifies: Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. Why do I need to know that they are the avot, that they are the fathers? Why? Because a father, when he devotes himself to his child — does he at any moment ask himself, “What possessed me to bring this child into the world?” In the end, does he do it with the aim of exploiting this child’s strength, or what the child will provide him later on? No. This child is the father’s project, and the father is ready for every sacrifice for his child.
He knows he is exposing himself to many trials. It is not easy, raising children: bringing a child into the world, providing for his education and seeing him through to a good end. It is not easy. And, well, we always remain halfway, sometimes — most of the time we remain halfway. But in spite of everything, we are sure there is a continuity. Yet our patriarchs shouldered this burden of parenthood, even though they had been promised the moon and the stars. They themselves enjoyed nothing. They were given promise upon promise — but what did they have in their lives? Avraham, what satisfaction did he have? Yitzchak, what satisfaction did he have? Yaakov, the same. So, the first lesson: Israel must always look back — not at what is happening to it now, but at how its fathers conducted themselves. And so, in spite of everything, here there is a coming to fruition of what the fathers invested. And this coming to fruition — take note — is not, in the first place, of a religious order. You know, the exodus from Egypt and its direction toward the land of Israel first bring to the world the notion of freedom, of liberation: of allowing man to take on his own responsibilities in full independence, and to be able to fight for this freedom so that all of humanity may benefit from it. For as long as any nation has not chosen this freedom, ours will remain under threat. And it is important that we first attain this freedom; afterward there will be the Torah, there will be the land of Israel, there will be the Temple — all of that will come, all of that will come once this stage, the liberation of the Jewish people, has been crossed. And it unfolds, moreover, in four stages. What are these four stages? They are the four stages that correspond to the four cups of wine we drink on the night of the Seder, with which we accompany the Haggadah. It is “vehotzeti etchem” — I will tear you away from the labors of Egypt; “vehitzalti etchem me’avodatam” — from subjugation to their intellectual grip on you; “vega’alti” — from their moral grip. And when I have torn Egypt out of you — that is, your subjugation to this Egypt, physical, intellectual and moral alike — then I will adopt you as a people.
The fifth stage is veheveti. You know that there is a whole open discussion about the fifth cup of wine, and some say that it is attached to “I will bring you to the promised land.” They say: well, but […] — is this not a promise that stretches out over time? We were driven out of the land. Yet we want something that remains entirely acquired, whereas the land is acquired only to a certain extent — conditionally. Where do we find this idea? “I will give it to you as a heritage”: [the sages] tell us, read not morashah but me’orasah, “betrothed” — that is, the betrothal. And of course the love that animates a betrothal is still far, far more intense than that of the marriage itself, because it is awaited: it is a love in waiting. And may this love indeed last throughout the union once it is consummated, throughout the relationship once it can be consummated.
Now, what we bless is not the One who made us inherit the Torah, but the One who gave us the Torah. We call it Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah. The giving of the Torah: when one gives a gift, one gives it only to someone one appreciates, cherishes, wants to keep; so this gift is deserved. But when we have misgivings about the friend we had, in a sense, chosen, we stop looking after him, we stop giving him gifts. That is not the case with morashah, with yerushah, inheritance: it does not need to be deserved; it passes in a direct line. Whether the child is worthy or not, he inherits from his parents, unless his parents have disinherited him.
In any case, according to the law, the father may have worked all his life while the son has done nothing, wanting only to enjoy his father’s property and even to live the dolce vita. And there he is, squandering his parents’ money. So it happens that we are not on the level of being G-d’s partner in His work, and that we do not deserve this Torah He has given us; then we claim the title of yoresh, of heir. Today we carry within us this trust received by descent, by inheritance, and we lay claim to it. It is the same for the land of Israel, because the term morashah appears twice in the Torah: once for the giving of the Torah, and once for the giving of the land of Israel.
“I will give it to you as a heritage”: this refers to the promised land. It will belong to you whether you are there or not, because I have decided to give it to you. And of one who gives, it is said that he gives with generosity, with affection, with consideration. Now here, we said, there is a coming to fruition of what HaKadosh Baruch Hu promised the ancestors: the children will inherit — they will inherit the land, they will have the Torah. But there is another version proposed to us for the fifth cup. The fifth cup is not for the land; the fifth cup is above all the knowledge of G-d — this knowledge of G-d which is uncertain, which we cannot actually manage to grasp, and which therefore remains problematic in difficult moments. In difficult moments even Moshe asked HaKadosh Baruch Hu: “Hodi’eni na et derachecha — make Your ways known to me.” We cannot always fathom the purpose of each thing, because when we try to fathom the purpose […]; however many constraints we may face, the fact of knowing that I am in communication with Someone in what I aspire to, in what I desire, means that even in the worst of prisons, I know that one day or another I will get out. Our sages compared this to a prisoner serving his sentence — but this prisoner serves his sentence with the awareness that one day or another he will be freed, because there are others who are waging the same struggle as he is, but who inwardly have not voiced it. One day or another he will find them. We are not speaking, of course, of punishment for offenses actually committed; we are speaking of offenses of intention. You know, there are offenses of intention that are not subject to sin offerings.
The sages give an example — well, it can be applied elsewhere. Two circumcisions are to be performed on two children. One is to take place on Shabbat, and the second child is to have his circumcision on Sunday. What happens if on Shabbat one circumcised the child whose circumcision was only on Sunday — one desecrated Shabbat to circumcise him? Is this considered a sin for which a sin offering must be brought? And our sages said: since the original intention was not to commit this transgression of the law, it is not considered a transgression of the law; it is considered a component of the fulfillment of the mitzvah — as though, in order to fulfill the mitzvah, one had passed through an unintentional transgression.
Well, this happens in life, our sages say. It happens that on our path toward truth, toward repentance, our intention is pure, but dark forces within us held us back and we did not do things consciously; our aim, rather, was to achieve repentance or to perform a good deed. And so this deviation we made along the way is considered a component of the purpose I was seeking. That is why in teshuvah (repentance) there is a principle: even when we pass through intentional sins, they become merits, because it is the purpose that ratifies the whole. So let us come back to the exodus from Egypt. We are told that Pharaoh imposed additional labor on the people as soon as Moshe spoke of liberation.
At first the people believed; Pharaoh reacted. But when Pharaoh reacted, it was not that he underestimated Moshe’s intervention. The faith the people had placed in Moshe meant that the idea, in embryonic form, had already won their hearts; now it could only ripen little by little, and one would have to wait for it to reach maturity. That is why, as Pharaoh said, “nirpim atem nirpim” — they say to the people: “You have grown slack, you have let yourselves go in your work.” That is to say: you are now already ripening this idea of freedom in the depths of yourselves. And at that moment the opposing forces tighten their grip to force us to forget this idea that is springing up within us — this movement of repentance, this movement of liberation of our moral conscience, this will to attain the knowledge of G-d. If we pursue it little by little, we will see that within the hardening bark the fruit will be able to ripen soundly.
Well, that is the message HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives Moshe when he asks Him, “Lamah hare’otah — why have You gone on mistreating this people, hurting this people?” He tells him: you will see — for it is beyad chazakah: it is through the hardening of these conditions that Pharaoh himself will end up saying, “Hashem hatzaddik va’ani ve’ammi haresha’im” — it is G-d who is righteous, and I and my people are the wicked. It was a flash for him, but he said it; and afterward he says […], he acknowledges the existence of G-d. Now this existence, this knowledge of G-d, must not remain our own possession; just like the movement of liberation, we must share it with everyone. But that does not happen overnight.
Moshe stammered: aral sefatayim. Why aral sefatayim, “of uncircumcised lips”? He could not find the words — for everything is accomplished through the Word. And with this Word, if you are dealing with someone who does not understand you, then indeed he will not accept your teaching; he will reject it wholesale. So whom did he need? He needed Aharon. Aharon will be your spokesman; Aharon has this ability to come down to the people’s level, to speak to them. Now, you know, there is a passage that comes immediately afterward to tell us — and one wonders what it is doing there — and here I will stop: “These are the heads of their fathers’ houses,” the sons of Levi, the sons of Levi according to their generations.
But in that case, we should be given the whole list of the twelve heads of the tribes. Why did it stop here? […] What happens in Egypt is the continuation of the story of the twelve tribes, of what happened with Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. It is not a break, it is not a rupture; it is the sequel. So the story continues this way, quite naturally. But within this story there is […] the kingship of Yehudah, with Elisheva and Nachshon — Nachshon who throws himself into the water to open the way for the people and who bears the emblem of kingship. There are the sons of Korach, who will want to revolt against Moshe.
There are Nadav and Avihu, who will bring a strange fire into the sanctuary. There is also Elazar son of Aharon, who married a daughter of Yitro. There is Pinchas, this kana’i (zealot), this extremist. All of these will be part of the Jewish people, because the liberation from Egypt is the liberation not only of all the components of the entire Jewish people, but also of all the components of humanity. And that is why it is not Moshe who will be the spokesman, but Aharon, who is ohev shalom verodef shalom — who loves peace and pursues peace — umekarvan laTorah, who draws people close to the spirit of the Torah. And if I stop here…
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