Portion 14 Va-Era 6:2-9:95
6:3 “In Genesis, the name [El Shaddai] is most often tied to promises of human fertility (see 17:1); a possibly related Hebrew word means ‘breasts.’” – Everett Fox. God, by using the name YHWH, is emphasizing to Moses that God is liberating the Israelites not because they are descended from Jacob but because they are oppressed. Everett Fox’s translation “by my name YHWH I was not known to them [the patriarchs],” I believe captures the intention of the Torah better than the NJPS “I did not make myself known to them by my name YHWH.” In Genesis God is continuously telling and testing the patriarchs that the covenant is for spiritual and moral progeny. But after momentarily seeing this truth, the patriarchs always revert back to equating God’s covenantal promise with God’s blessing of fertility. It is hard to recognize that the demands of justice go well beyond caring for our biological kin and even harder to live it.
6:4 -6:8 God’s promise to rescue the Israelites is compared to earlier covenantal promises. Just as the prophets compare God’s promise to rescue Judah from impending Babylonian invasion (provided its leaders and people stay true to the covenant and focus on caring for the orphan, the stranger, and the widow instead of placing its faith in an idolatrous military alliance with Egypt) to the ancient story of God’s mighty arm bringing about the exodus from Egypt.
6:9 The Israelites do not believe Moses. Likewise most Jewish leaders today do not believe that God will be their warrior provided they uphold the covenantal promise to be a blessing and to leave cursing for God. Throughout the centuries, as Jews have experienced oppression and God did not act militarily, they have developed other ways of thinking about God that moved the warrior aspect of God into the distant future, but still retained, as an essential element, that the people should not take vengeance into their own hands. One example is the prophetic idea of the suffering servant, in which the suffering of the Jewish people, caused by their refusal to take vengeance into their own hands, contributes to the redemption of the world. Another is the related rabbinic idea of the female aspect of God that chooses to go into exile with the Jews to suffer alongside them.
The idea that refusing to take vengeance into our own hands is covenentaly required of us, used to be widely accepted amongst Orthodox Jews, and after WWI was gaining adherents among some “rational” Reform and Conservative Jews too, although in shallow secular form that melted into air with the coming of WWII. It was practically wiped out by the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel. Since 1948 a form of just war theory has been “normative” in Reform, Conservative, and Modern Orthodox Judaism. Chaim Potok’s wonderful novel “The Chosen” is a moving account of how these changes impacted the lives of two orthodox boys whose fathers take opposite sides in this religious debate. I believe that it should be possible to revive the pacifist interpretation of Judaism in a way acceptable to liberal Jews by incorporating insights of Gandhi and King into the Jewish biblical and rabbinic pacifist tradition. That is the purpose of this commentary.
6:11-6:13 God tells Moses to speak to Pharaoh. Moses objects to speaking to Pharaoh without the Israelites’ support. Perhaps “foreskinned lips” is Moses’s way of saying that his lone voice will be of no effect if not backed by the people. God agrees with Moses and instructs him and his brother Aaron, an elder of the Sons of Levi, in organizing skills to speak to both the Children of Israel and to Pharaoh.
7:3-7:4 God tells Moses that the plagues will harden Pharaoh’s heart and to expect backlash. The purpose of the plagues is to duplicate the effects of a war without the violent participation of the Israelites. Like war, the plaques inevitably cause the opponent to respond violently and deceitfully, and to resist surrender when given no opportunity to save face. The point of this story is to convince people, who just like us are devoted to war and violence, that God can fight our battles for us. The idea that there is a way to resolve conflict without war at all, is covered elsewhere in the Torah, particularly in Genesis.
7:5 The point is for the Children of Israel to learn that God is YHWH so that in the future they will rely on God for deliverance instead of taking vengeance into their own hands.
7:22 “Changing water into blood was easy for the magicians. For that is a well-known practice, to drown humankind in rivers of blood.” Itture Torah, Vol III, pp 66-67, quoted in Plaut.
8:9 Good leverage against an adversary requires the ability to turn it off when a settlement is possible.
8:19 Up until now the Israelites have suffered through the plagues with the Egyptians.
8:22 Israelites sacrifice for God by freeing themselves and others from slavery and oppression.
9:7 Why doesn’t Pharaoh confiscate the livestock of the Israelites and distribute it to the Egyptians whose livestock had died? Is it because he knows that the Egyptians realize that the only way to be free of the plagues is for Pharaoh to release the Israelites? Or are we to assume that the redistribution of livestock did occur because more are killed in the hail plague?
9:16 The purpose, as in 7:5, is reiterated.
9:20 Pharaoh’s courtiers are given the option of bringing their livestock and slaves inside to protect them from hail. Was there an attempt by Moses or Pharaoh to give other Egyptians a warning?
9:35 The portion ends with Pharaoh as stubborn as ever. The Torah tells us that Moses had emotionally prepared the Israelites for the length and hardships of the campaign and inoculated them to the certainty that Pharaoh would remain stubborn.
6:3 “In Genesis, the name [El Shaddai] is most often tied to promises of human fertility (see 17:1); a possibly related Hebrew word means ‘breasts.’” – Everett Fox. God, by using the name YHWH, is emphasizing to Moses that God is liberating the Israelites not because they are descended from Jacob but because they are oppressed. Everett Fox’s translation “by my name YHWH I was not known to them [the patriarchs],” I believe captures the intention of the Torah better than the NJPS “I did not make myself known to them by my name YHWH.” In Genesis God is continuously telling and testing the patriarchs that the covenant is for spiritual and moral progeny. But after momentarily seeing this truth, the patriarchs always revert back to equating God’s covenantal promise with God’s blessing of fertility. It is hard to recognize that the demands of justice go well beyond caring for our biological kin and even harder to live it.
6:4 -6:8 God’s promise to rescue the Israelites is compared to earlier covenantal promises. Just as the prophets compare God’s promise to rescue Judah from impending Babylonian invasion (provided its leaders and people stay true to the covenant and focus on caring for the orphan, the stranger, and the widow instead of placing its faith in an idolatrous military alliance with Egypt) to the ancient story of God’s mighty arm bringing about the exodus from Egypt.
6:9 The Israelites do not believe Moses. Likewise most Jewish leaders today do not believe that God will be their warrior provided they uphold the covenantal promise to be a blessing and to leave cursing for God. Throughout the centuries, as Jews have experienced oppression and God did not act militarily, they have developed other ways of thinking about God that moved the warrior aspect of God into the distant future, but still retained, as an essential element, that the people should not take vengeance into their own hands. One example is the prophetic idea of the suffering servant, in which the suffering of the Jewish people, caused by their refusal to take vengeance into their own hands, contributes to the redemption of the world. Another is the related rabbinic idea of the female aspect of God that chooses to go into exile with the Jews to suffer alongside them.
The idea that refusing to take vengeance into our own hands is covenentaly required of us, used to be widely accepted amongst Orthodox Jews, and after WWI was gaining adherents among some “rational” Reform and Conservative Jews too, although in shallow secular form that melted into air with the coming of WWII. It was practically wiped out by the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel. Since 1948 a form of just war theory has been “normative” in Reform, Conservative, and Modern Orthodox Judaism. Chaim Potok’s wonderful novel “The Chosen” is a moving account of how these changes impacted the lives of two orthodox boys whose fathers take opposite sides in this religious debate. I believe that it should be possible to revive the pacifist interpretation of Judaism in a way acceptable to liberal Jews by incorporating insights of Gandhi and King into the Jewish biblical and rabbinic pacifist tradition. That is the purpose of this commentary.
6:11-6:13 God tells Moses to speak to Pharaoh. Moses objects to speaking to Pharaoh without the Israelites’ support. Perhaps “foreskinned lips” is Moses’s way of saying that his lone voice will be of no effect if not backed by the people. God agrees with Moses and instructs him and his brother Aaron, an elder of the Sons of Levi, in organizing skills to speak to both the Children of Israel and to Pharaoh.
7:3-7:4 God tells Moses that the plagues will harden Pharaoh’s heart and to expect backlash. The purpose of the plagues is to duplicate the effects of a war without the violent participation of the Israelites. Like war, the plaques inevitably cause the opponent to respond violently and deceitfully, and to resist surrender when given no opportunity to save face. The point of this story is to convince people, who just like us are devoted to war and violence, that God can fight our battles for us. The idea that there is a way to resolve conflict without war at all, is covered elsewhere in the Torah, particularly in Genesis.
7:5 The point is for the Children of Israel to learn that God is YHWH so that in the future they will rely on God for deliverance instead of taking vengeance into their own hands.
7:22 “Changing water into blood was easy for the magicians. For that is a well-known practice, to drown humankind in rivers of blood.” Itture Torah, Vol III, pp 66-67, quoted in Plaut.
8:9 Good leverage against an adversary requires the ability to turn it off when a settlement is possible.
8:19 Up until now the Israelites have suffered through the plagues with the Egyptians.
8:22 Israelites sacrifice for God by freeing themselves and others from slavery and oppression.
9:7 Why doesn’t Pharaoh confiscate the livestock of the Israelites and distribute it to the Egyptians whose livestock had died? Is it because he knows that the Egyptians realize that the only way to be free of the plagues is for Pharaoh to release the Israelites? Or are we to assume that the redistribution of livestock did occur because more are killed in the hail plague?
9:16 The purpose, as in 7:5, is reiterated.
9:20 Pharaoh’s courtiers are given the option of bringing their livestock and slaves inside to protect them from hail. Was there an attempt by Moses or Pharaoh to give other Egyptians a warning?
9:35 The portion ends with Pharaoh as stubborn as ever. The Torah tells us that Moses had emotionally prepared the Israelites for the length and hardships of the campaign and inoculated them to the certainty that Pharaoh would remain stubborn.
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