Art by Yitzchok Schmukler
A WEEKLY TORAH THOUGHT FROM RABBI MORDY
Anyone cold yet? Perhaps a bit tired of this never-ending winter chill? This week’s Parsha – Va’era – is chock full of lessons. It contains the beginning of the Ten Plagues of Egypt and the beginning of the end of slavery. It always seems like it was G-d testing a variety of tortures against these slave drivers, sort of throwing things against the wall to see what would stick; His intention was to “encourage” the Egyptian people to change their minds – Pharaoh in particular – and let the Jewish people go. But why? What is this really about? There must be more to the story; we go through and discuss these plagues at the Seder on Passover every year. These can’t just be random acts of chaos. And they’re not. We find that each plague served as a lesson, certainly to the Egyptians but to the Jewish people too. Before they could be redeemed, the Jewish people needed to learn lessons that would allow them to truly be free in body and mind. One plague that teaches an interesting lesson is the plague of hail, the final plague mentioned in this week’s Parsha. We find that these were some serious hailstones of ice but that they contained something inside—a flame of fire. Why? Why the need to add to the havoc that this hail was creating? You guessed it. A lesson. G-d was showing that we may encounter an icy situation or, more to the point, an icy person. We ourselves may feel like that icy personality, unable to be passionate about what we know we should be passionate about. We may feel frozen over or encounter someone else who is. Realize, G-d is teaching us, that inside every icy persona lies a fire. The passion is there. There may be ice and it may appear difficult to chisel it through, but deep down there is a flame that needs to be nurtured. We all have the desire deep down to do the right thing. To perform acts of goodness and kindness, thereby making the world a better place. Our job is to chip away at that ice and to allow the inner light to shine—on personal, communal, and global levels. May we all continue to nurture that flame, and then, just as the Jewish people were redeemed thanks to their tenacity, we too can go out of whatever limitations may constrain us. And hey, you know this snow will be all gone by May for sure! Good Shabbos!