Parshas Va’eira: Chaos and Wonders

We live in a complex world. We live in a world that is full of the unexpected, the unexplained, and, sometimes, the unimaginable. And while you might be thinking of rare birds or hidden desert waterfalls, of glittery bioflorescent microorganisms or something as bizarre as the blob fish (which is pretty wonderously ugly), the world’s wonders are far more than those we see in nature. There are wonders in world events. There are wonders in human behavior. And there are wonders in the our personal spiritual worlds as well. 

This weeks’ pasha, Parshas Vayera, is all about wondesr. It records seven of the ten plagues that assailed Mitzrayim. The makkos were truly wondrous. Each one was rife with power and symbolism. And each one sounds terrifying to live through.

The Midrashim make it clear that none of the plagues effected the Israelites. According to tradition, the water in Jewish homes stayed water, and the Mitzrim had to buy clean water from their own slaves. Similarly, the frogs went into every home in Mitzrayim, but not into the homes of Bnei Yisrael. Nor were the Children of Israel covered in lice. 

It is interesting to note, however, that the protection of the Israelites from the impending devastation is not mentioned by Moshe to Pharoah until the fourth makka, the plague of swarms of insects, when Moshe says: “And I will separate on that day the land of Goshen, upon which My people stand, that there will be no swarm of insects there, in order that you know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth” (Shemos 8:18). 

Until the fourth plague, there was, perhaps, doubt among the Israelites as to what was going on in their world. After all, they had not lined up in support of Moshe. When Moshe and Aaron’s first attempt at talking to Pharoah failed, the Israelites’s lives were made more difficult. This certainly would not have fostered trust in their minds, so why would they believe that he would really be able to protect them. 

Imagine what it must have been like to be an Israelite during these 1st few plagues. Terrifying yet wondrous things were happening all around you. Yes, those beings afflicted were your tormenters, your taskmasters, and while it would have been wonderful to see them suffer, imagine the anxiety of waiting to see what effect this would all have on your life. 

Now add to the sudden chaos the fact that Pharoah’s necromancers were known to have powerful magic and that they had already demonstrated an ability to change water in to blood. They were also able to call up frogs from the Nile. This sort of magic was not foreign to them. Indeed, they even believed that they could create lice from dust; and it was only when they failed to do so that the threat of their abilities was truly muted (even though their blood and frogs were inconsequential compared to the actual makkos).

Mitzraym continued to descend into chaos, becoming a terrifying place. The Israelires were safe, but they could not have been unaffected. Many Israelites took Moshe’s path, but many did not. We know from tradition that only one fifth of Bnei Yisrael followed Moshe into the Wilderness. The other 80 percent did not, it seems, see or appreciate that Bnei Yisael stood apart. 

On Pesach we make declarations about “every generation.” This is reality. Every generation has to face times of strife and times of chaos. We do not live in a time of revealed miracles or miraculous plagues (Thank God) or unquestionable leaders. But the Jewish people now, as always, live on a path all of our own. When the chaos of the world seems overwhelming, look back at Mitzrayim. We aren’t promised a life without pain, a life withough fear, or a life without challenges, but we were promised, as a nation, that we would be set aside and protect. And so we are to this day. 

Shabbat Shalom

Whose Children Are They?

 There is a famous story about Breuria, the wife of Rabbi Meir, and how she told her husband that their sons had died of a plague. Having waited for Shabbat to end, she asked him a shaila (question) about a man who had asked her to hold on to two precious items and whether she was required to return them when the man asked for them back. She then showed him his sons. When he started crying, she said: “The Lord gave, the Lord took.” There is a poignant message here: Like everything in our lives and in the world, nothing is ours; It is all Hashem’s. But this story also evokes an emotional reaction. It creates a desire to grab one’s children and hold them tight because we don’t like to think of our children as anything but ours.

Thinking of a parent’s natural sense of ownership of their children offers us, perhaps, a new perspective on the narrative of Yaakov and Yosef in Bereishis 48. Yoseph comes to Yaakov’s sickbed, and Yaakov tells his son about the bracha he received from Hashem. Yaakov then tells Yoseph that the two sons that were born to him in Egypt, Ephraim and Manashe, “shall be mine like Reuvain and Shimon” (Bereishis 48:5). Obviously. this does not mean that Yaakov wished to raise Yoseph’s sons, especially as they were already grown. He was, nevertheless, laying claim to them.

As Yoseph makes no response, and Yaakov continues on to speak of the death and burial of Rachel, we have no basis to consider Yoseph’s reaction to this. Most of us, indeed, assume that Yoseph simply accepted his father’s words.

But maybe Yoseph’s response was not so simple. It is interesting to note the dialogue that follows shortly after Yaakov’s speech, when Ephraim and Menashe enter. Yaakov asks, “Who are these?” Yoseph responds, “They are my sons, who G-d gave me here” (48:8-9).

It is a weird juxtaposition. Is it repetitious or conflicting? If Yaakov and Yoseph were just talking about Ephraim and Menashe, why didn’t Yaakov recognize them?

Perhaps by his questioning their identity, Yaakov was testing Yoseph. Perhaps he wanted to gauge whether Yoseph had truly understood what he had just said, to see if Yoseph can accept Ephraim and Menashe’s change in status. And Yoseph’s response is that of a parent: These are mine.

Yaakov never again, in the parsha, refers to them as his. He refers to them only as Yoseph’s. He brings them close and gives them a special bracha. He saw how great the filial bond was and, as a father who had lost his son for so many years, did not need to restate what was already a fact.

After he gave them the bracha, however, Yaakov (as Yisrael) said to Yoseph, "Behold, I am going to die, and God will be with you, and He will return you to the land of your forefathers. And I have given you one portion over your brothers…” (48:22). Yaakov has completed the mission he set out on at the beginning of the conversation, but he has done it more subtly. Ephraim and Menashe have received a blessing equal to that of Yaakov’s sons while Yoseph has not felt displaced.

It is easy to think of Ephraim and Menashe as “minor characters,” meaning they are similar to the majority of the 12 shvatim in that we learn very little of them as individuals. (This is in contrast to certain shvatim like Yehuda or Reuvain.) But why, one wonders, was their elevation in status so important to Yaakov?

The answer might be in Bereishis 48:7, “As for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died to me in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was still a stretch of land to come to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.” Yaakov says this just before he asks who Ephraim and Menashe are. It seems out of place coming after Yaakov’s telling Yoseph that his sons shall be as if Yaakov’s sons. However, we know that there is great significance placed on the number of children of each of Yaakov’s wives. By splitting Yoseph into Ephraim and Menashe, the descendants of Rachel now have three allotments, an increase over the two of Bilha and the two of Zilpa.

In “taking” Yoseph’s sons, Yaakov has strengthened him for the future.

Bereishis 48 is a perek that seems straightforward, and yet it is full of subtle shifts and important nuances. One of the intriguing aspects of Sefer Bereishis is that it is the history of a family, and it is anything but a simple and smooth history. One could state that the term family has many definitions, many layers. One of those, of course, is that family is the people to whom one shall always belong.