Perceptions, Parashas VaAira, Issue #2081 - By Rabbi Pinchas Winston
HE LED FOR one term. But when he refused to turn against the Jews, they got rid of him and forced him from office. But when he decided he liked being king more, he accepted the role and made the lives of the Jews a living hell. The ally had become the enemy.
Sound familiar? Donald Trump? Perhaps one day. But in the meantime, it had certainly been Pharaoh back in the time of this week’s parsha, and it begs the question, how does such a “180” occur?
Then, there is the part about Moshe Rabbeinu. I cringed after reading the end of last week’s parsha again, which spilled over into this week’s. I mean, can you imagine how Moshe felt when his good news turned into the worst news, and his attempt to free his people further enslaved them? It was completely demoralizing, and he took that out on God at the end of last week.
Adding tons more salt to the wound was having to face the enemy and their cronies on the way out. They laughed at the Jewish leader while celebrating their great “victory” over him, his God, and his people. Also, sound familiar? The Palestinians and their allies? Yes, but also Moshe Rabbeinu and the Arabs of his time.
And yet, unbeknownst to everyone was that not only was God in charge the entire time, but He was making it all happen. And not only was God making it happen, but He was making it occur in consonance with the overall plan of Creation. And not only were the events in consonance with the purpose of Creation, but they were the ideal path to fulfill it…from GOD’S perspective.
That was easy to see while it was only God and Moshe on Mt. Sinai discussing the upcoming redemption from Egypt. There were references to Pharaoh, but miles away, he was only “two-dimensional,” like a fictional character in a book. On Mt. Sinai, Moshe could not hear the cracks of whips or the screams of people being beaten. And there certainly wasn’t any social media to distract and mislead him about what was happening.
It’s a completely different reality once you enter the world in which it is happening. Sensory overload. We need to understand. We want to maintain control. We want a happy ending and at minimal cost to us. There is intelligence out there, but it is also mixed with tremendous ignorance and, in many cases, complete stupidity. Egos are everywhere, greatly clouding history.
Now, more than ever, it is hard to know the facts about anything. Once upon a time, the news was a way to do that but has since become so unreliable. Social media is in the hands of good and bad people, and it is not always so easy to tell who is who. I have been shocked by things people have told me that they buy into because of something they “learned” from one social media or another.
This, coupled with the fact that people don’t think as clearly as they once did, makes for a very confused society and very warped opinions. The fears that William Bennett, the Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan, had about the direction of the American mind have since come true, and then some. The intellectual descent seems unstoppable, though the amount of knowledge available to the average person is unprecedented.
The Gemora predicted all of this over 1500 years ago. How did it know so long ago what would happen at the End of Days when it was impossible to even know what would exist at this time? Did they just project the trend of their time? Or, also being the greatest kabbalists of their time who knew so much about God’s plan for Creation, they knew what that plan would require, somewhat, to get to the Messianic Period.
It is one of the most important lessons of the Exodus. Amazingly, though we read these parshios every year and celebrate redemption from Egypt every Pesach, we overlook the most important message necessary to spiritually survive, and in some cases, even physically survive, Jewish history. That message? Only God knows the full plan of history and, therefore, He is the only One Who can know what history needs at any given moment in time to fulfill it.
For this reason, sometimes what God does might make sense to us, and oftentimes does not make sense to us at all. When Iyov questioned God’s actions, He responded by pointing out that Iyov’s judgment was based only upon what he knew of God and history. And that was based upon what God allowed him to know, which was only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction, etc., of what he needed to know to understand how what was confusing in the short run was completely logical in the long run.
And by long run, we don’t mean a year from now, or even a millennium from now. We won’t see the full extent of God’s master plan until much later in the World to Come. By then history will have been what it was meant to be since Day One, and everything in between will fall perfectly into place like pieces of a large puzzle.
In the meantime, we learn Torah to guide us and perform mitzvos to help us stay on track during the confusing part of history. God gave them to us with the full knowledge of His plan in mind and that, together with Divine course corrections when they are necessary, helps us to participate in the fulfillment of Creation even while lacking a sufficient understanding of where all of this is heading, and why.
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Rabbi Pinchas Winston
Shabbat Shalom
