YAVNEH STUDIES IN VA-EIRA H. Lee Michaelson

The sedrah Va-eira opens with God’s reply to Moses’ complaint that the Jews have not been set free to leave Egypt as a result of Moses’ fulfillment of his mission to Pharoah; on the contrary, Pharaoh has made more severe the oppression of the Jewish slaves as a result of Moses’ demand that the Jews be freed. God replies by reiterating his promise of freedom. At first blush, Moses’ objection has not been answered. Although God now reassures Moses that the liberation of the Jews from Egypt will eventually be accomplished, we do not find, on the surface, any explanation for the delay - much less for the aggravated oppression of the Jewish slaves, during the interim period. Moses, however, accepts this answer and raises no more objections to his mission except those of his own inability to speak before Pharaoh. Apparently, beneath the surface, the promise of liberation now repeated to Moses in the beginning of Va-eira contains something which was not contained in God’s original promise made at Moses’ first prophetic appointment, something which could not have been fulfilled immediately or without increased hardship to the Jews.

We do indeed find that the freedom promised in Va-eira extends beyond the freedom promised in Shemot. In Shemot, God has promised Moses that the Jews will be set free to leave Egypt and to serve God without physical restrictions imposed by Pharaoh In Va-eira God promises more than physical freedom God promises, ‘I will take you out from under the oppressions of the Egyptians and I will save you from their slavery. I will acquire you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments; I will take you for myself as a people and be your judge, and you shall know that it is I, God your Judge, Who has taken you out from under the oppressions of the Egyptians.” After the promise to free the Jews from the oppressions of Egyptian bondage, there is another promise, “I will save you from their slavery.” This second promise cannot refer to physical liberation; that is included in the first promise. This second promise refers to liberation from mental attitudes of slavishness which has become ingrained in the minds of the Jews. The Jews should no longer seek a master; they should think independently. They should not feel grateful to any lenient dictator; they should demand freedom as a human right bestowed by God. This change in the attitude of the Jews is necessary for them to be acquired by God as His own — to be fashioned into a people and to be made cognizant of their indebtedness to God, and only to God, for their status as a free people.

Liberation from mental slavishness comes after liberation from physical slavery. It requires the education of forty years of teaching by God’s foremost prophet and of experience of direct dependence on God alone. Many times the Jews fail the course and ask to return to Egypt. No method of physical liberation can guarantee success in mental liberation, but some methods are doomed to failure. If the Jews looked to Pharaoh as an enlightened ruler who had generously liberated them, then they would be forever obligated to Egyptian slavery - not to physical slavery, but to mental slavery to the Egyptian system. Free compliance by Pharaoh to Moses’ demand that the Jews be freed immediately would have painted for the Jews a picture of Pharaoh as their rightful master and benevolent liberator. Even if God demonstrated a miraculous plague and Pharaoh, in order to save himself, conceded defeat and released the Jews, the Jews would see only a struggle between two masters and a victory for God, not Divine condemnation of the system of slavery. In order for the Jews to learn the injustice of slavery they would have to hear Pharaoh’s confession, “God is right, and I and my people are wrong.” Pharaoh himself had to realize and to confess the immorality of slavery.

Moses now understands why the redemption from Egypt cannot occur immediately, but Moses still does not understand how the redemption will ultimately occur. After all, Moses argues, if the Jews, the victims of persecution, are so habituated to oppressive slavery that it impairs their understanding of Moses’ message of freedom, how will Pharaoh the oppressor understand? This argument God answers by explaining the proposed method of redemption. Pharaoh is to be afflicted with plagues which, he is to be warned, are to punish him for refusing to release the Jews. Meanwhile, God will harden Pharaoh’s heart. What does that mean? It does not mean that Pharaoh will be deprived of free choice; if he were deprived of free choice he could not be subject to any moral judgment. The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is rather a way of restoring a balance between alternatives in order to give Pharaoh free choice. A normal person, threatened by terrible plagues, would accede to releasing the Jews from bondage in order to save himself. The outstretched arm of Divine might would prevail, but the case of Divine right would remain unproved. God wanted to prove not only His ability but also His right to redeem the Jews, to acquire them as His own people. Therefore He had to harden, or strengthen, Pharaoh’s heart. He had to give Pharaoh the strength to ignore practical considerations, to face imminent danger to himself, to ignore his servants’ pleas for the protection of the Egyptians. Pharaoh had to be given the strength to defy all demonstration of Divine power until he could realize that his own life had been preserved by God for a purpose, to teach him a moral lesson of which he was to become an example for the world. Only when Pharaoh, of his own free will, repented could the Jews learn from his example to treasure freedom.
We can gain from the example of Pharaoh some insight into the Jewish concept of free choice. Free choice does not mean the freedom of man to follow his own instincts alone, uninfluenced by Providence. Free choice means maintenance of a balance of alternatives. When natural temptations compel a man to one decision, God provides a counterforce so that man has a truly free moral decision to make. A Jew could not resist his animal instincts and remain faithful to Torah umitzvot without the aid of a Divine instinct pushing him back unto the right path. The function of Jewish educators as agents of God is also to provide this balancing force. Jewish education cannot force compliance with Torah umitzvot; many graduates of yeshivot go astray. One who has no Jewish education is, however, forced - forced to follow his animal instincts, unaware of the alternative. Just as the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, which our critics see as deprivation of free choice, is in effect just the opposite - a restoration of free choice - so is Jewish education, which our opponents view as a form of coercion, in fact a necessary guarantee of freedom.