✨🔍 Va'eira; Shabbos Mevarchim 2025

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Va'eira; Shabbos Mevarchim 2025

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Good Shabbos!

Neli

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Do You Know Who You Are?

4 minute read | Straightforward

In an era where our understanding of the universe is growing at an unprecedented pace, one area remains elusive.

In neuroscience and artificial intelligence, it has so far proven nearly impossible to explain why and how humans and other creatures have the subjective experience that we call consciousness. While some have historically suggested that this is equivalent to the concept of the soul, that’s just another label rather than any kind of explanation.

The philosopher John Locke suggested that consciousness is the continuous collective experience that forms your personal identity. This idea is useful because it is tangible and focuses more on psychology and our experiences rather than anything metaphysical. In other words, what makes you the same person over time is your ability to remember past experiences; or, to put it even simpler, your conscious identity of who you are is a function of where you’ve come from. This continuity of consciousness forms the essence of personal identity; the memories of your past funnel together to tie your present self to your past self.

For some time now, great thinkers have linked the concept of identity with memory and experience. Intuitively, then, the Baal Shem Tov teaches that exile means forgetting.

We know this when we see it; the infamous signature of dehumanization in the Holocaust was erasing people’s names and replacing them with serial numbers. Similarly, we can sadly recognize in cases of dementia that the person before us is experiencing a heartbreaking disconnect from the person that once was.

Exile means forgetting; it’s true of individuals, and it’s also true of nations and societies.

In an era where traditional narratives are often questioned, the loss of a common culture invites fragmentation and can often leave individuals with a sense of feeling adrift. Chaos soon follows when individuals or societies lose touch with the structures and stories that give their lives meaning and direction. In the context of immigrant families, the gradual fading of ancestral languages and traditions is predictable, and the third generation rarely speaks the language of their heritage. This phenomenon is not unique to any one culture; it accurately describes Jewish Americans as much as Korean Americans.

The notion of narrative identity is at the heart of how the Torah frames the Jewish People’s story in Egypt. In the depths of despair, they begin to lose their connection to the past. Our sages imagine a heavenly courtroom drama where the prosecutor questions the value of saving the Jewish People from the Egyptians – if they worship the same idols, what’s the difference? When the Torah describes God’s intervention with imagery of an outstretched arm, it suggests the Jewish People had fallen off a cliff and were saved at the very last moment from the point of no return, the cusp of total assimilation – מ”ט שערי טומאה.

Our sages teach how the Jewish People retained their language, clothing, and names. This teaching is sometimes characterized as praise that they didn’t integrate into the dominant culture and that they retained a connection to their past throughout their exile. But in fact, this teaching highlights the opposite, how they adopted literally everything else. When Moshe himself went to Midian, the locals called him the Egyptian fellow! The Jewish People had forgotten and lost so much that they couldn’t even listen to the man sent to save them; there could be no deeper exile.

But if exile means forgetting, then redemption means remembering; memory is intimately linked with redemption throughout the entire Exodus story, not just on a human level but also at the Divine level.

After the introduction to the setting of the enslavement in Egypt, the Torah describes how God is stirred by memory, specifically, memory of the ancestors – וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹקים אֶת־בְּרִיתוֹ אֶת־אַבְרָהָם אֶת־יִצְחָק וְאֶת־יַעֲקֹב.

When the Creator reveals Himself to Moshe, He introduces Himself as the God of his ancestors, establishing a continuity of Divine engagement with the Jewish people – אָנֹכִי אֱלֹקי אָבִיךָ אֱלֹקי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹקי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹקי יַעֲקֹב.

It’s also how the Creator instructs Moshe to identify Him to the Jewish People as well – ה־תֹאמַר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל ה אֱלֹקי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אֱלֹקי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹקי יִצְחָק אֱלֹקי יַעֲקֹב שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם זֶה־שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם וְזֶה זִכְרִי לְדֹר דֹּר.

We must remember that God is timeless; God cannot remember or forget. These are words we use when we talk about people; they are anthropomorphic metaphors. When we talk about remembering that someone was hurtful, we mean that the memory will prompt a different action or behavior than one might otherwise expect; God “remembers” in the sense that God acts differently than might reasonably be expected in response to something, in this case, the ancestors. For this reason, the Chizkuni suggests that this self-introduction as the God of our ancestors is the source of our daily prayer – אֱלקינוּ וֵאֱלֹקי אֲבותֵינוּ אֱלֹקי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹקי יִצְחָק וֵאֱלֹקי יַעֲקב.

Physical freedom was never enough; true liberation from slavery involved a reconnection with the Jewish People’s historical ancestral and spiritual roots. To revitalize the lost nation, to become the people they were meant to be, and to enter the promised land, they had to reforge their connection to the past. By recognizing the codewords of the past and the God of their ancestors, they would know that their time had finally come.

It’s why the Book of Exodus, or more properly, the Book of Names, begins by listing the names of those who journeyed to Egypt, anchoring the narrative in personal identities.

It’s why the Torah interrupts the story with an exposition of each family and the names of their descendants: the names of the sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the sons of Kohath, Amram, Yitzhar, Chevron, and Uzziel, and all the rest.

As R’ Hanoch of Alexander teaches, a key part of God’s command is remembering who you are and where you come from; remembering is the catalyst of redemption.

When we speak of our roots, it’s not an empty metaphor. They anchor and ground us; they orient us to where we are. Whatever culture or background, our traditions literally and metaphorically support us; if you want to make it to the promised land, knowing your past is the key to understanding your present and shaping your future.

Life is short, and we barely live before we die. Our narratives do more than recount history; they embed us in a continuum of collective wisdom, teaching us that we are part of a story much larger than our individual selves and that we can be so much more than we are. That’s why knowing your family and your people’s culture and history is so important.

The human connection to family, culture, heritage, tradition, and religion has always been sacred.

Our traditions tell us that we can have the courage to stand up to the existential and metaphysical challenges of life like the heroes of old who walked and talked with the Creator, who would argue and sometimes even win.

Do you know who you are?

You descend from those who wrestle angels and kill giants.

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Choreographed Futility

4 minute read | Straightforward

At the beginning of the Exodus story, God tasks Moshe with his great mission. Moshe initially resists, saying the Jewish People will not listen to him.

Although our sages criticize him for this, he demonstrates that he is highly attuned to his environment because, sure enough, that’s precisely what happens:

וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה כֵּן אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה מִקֹּצֶר רוּחַ וּמֵעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה – But when Moshe told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moshe, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage. (6:9)

Exactly as Moshe had predicted, they didn’t listen, and this theatre only caused Moshe and his exhausted people unnecessary aggravation, disappointment, and frustration. It’s hard to see this as anything other than choreographed futility – a colossal waste of time, energy, and effort on all counts from the outset.

This is consistent with a broader motif throughout the entire Torah, filled with so many aborted attempts, failed efforts, and wasted opportunities.

Generally speaking, it is usually worth giving something a go because you never know, but in this instance, everyone did know – they knew it wouldn’t work!

Moshe knew they wouldn’t listen. God knew they wouldn’t listen. Yet God sent Moshe anyway. Why would God bother sending Moshe on an exercise in futility?

The Sfas Emes teaches that there is no such thing as futility when trying to help people. This chapter of the story illustrates that there’s never one specific interaction that has an instantaneous magical breakthrough effect; the helper must persist. Words can take root even if they don’t immediately blossom and yield fruit; the lack of immediate and apparent results doesn’t mean the efforts are wasted.

The Netziv highlights how the Torah is replete with phases and stages that indicate gradual transformation; for example, there are five expressions of redemption, ten plagues, and each step of Dayeinu.

Remember that we are reading the Exodus story, the grandest redemption story in history to date, and this is how it starts. Moshe is frustrated, his people are hurting and spent, and he can’t get them to entertain the dream or notion that things could change for the better. Not even the most legendary redemption story has an instant turning point or pivotal moment; it starts like this – boring and painfully slow. Nothing happens! On Seder night, we celebrate the great miracles, but maybe we should read these few lines as well and remember what change looks like, not only in our daily lived experience but as attested to in the Torah’s own words.

The Chizkuni suggests that it’s not that they wouldn’t listen but that they couldn’t; they were structurally and systemically too traumatized to have the mental or physical capacity to hold on to hope. And even so, God sends Moshe to them with words that are not lost to the ether. Even if they can’t internalize the message, it is objectively important that they see Moshe trying to help them, that they hear the words, and accordingly, that we hear that interaction through the ages as well. There are times a person is so stuck that they don’t want to be saved, and still, you can’t abandon them.

Right after this unsuccessful effort to encourage his people, Moshe reports back to God, and God tells them straightforwardly that their mission is going ahead on schedule and as planned:

וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה לִפְנֵי ה’ לֵאמֹר הֵן בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא־שָׁמְעוּ אֵלַי וְאֵיךְ יִשְׁמָעֵנִי פַרְעֹה וַאֲנִי עֲרַל שְׂפָתָיִם. וַיְדַבֵּר ה’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל־אַהֲרֹן וַיְצַוֵּם אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאֶל־פַּרְעֹה מֶלֶךְ מִצְרָיִם לְהוֹצִיא אֶת־בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם – But Moshe appealed to God, saying, “The Israelites would not listen to me; how then should Pharaoh heed me, a man of impeded speech!” So God spoke to both Moshe and Ahron regarding the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt, instructing them to deliver the Israelites from the land of Egypt. (6:12,13)

But what follows this powerful reaffirmation of the mission isn’t a renewal or redoubling of efforts. The Torah interrupts this story mid-paragraph with a tangential breakdown of the heritage and lineage of the Jewish families in Egypt in exhaustive detail.

It’s unclear what this breakdown is doing in this story, but perhaps it ties into the notion of efforts not going to waste.

The Ishbitzer teaches that in the instant we choose to pray, before uttering a word, God is poised to listen, which is to say, God responds before we have reached out. In the physical world, Moshe tried to encourage the Jewish People, but they couldn’t hear him. But in the spiritual world, which is to say the world of the spirit, the Torah tells us who they were and where they came from, that they were descendants of Yisrael. Their identity could be a hook Moshe’s words latched on to in their intangible subconscious.

Moshe’s words weren’t futile because they didn’t exist in isolation; they pooled into a more extensive relationship full of interactions, and this was just one of many. They weren’t futile because change happens gradually, incrementally, and slowly. They weren’t futile because they still registered on a subconscious level. They weren’t futile because they were the Children of Israel, and he was going to save them and stand with them at Sinai. They weren’t futile because the people needed to see someone show them they were worth fighting for, and we must also recognize that.

We read about this ostensibly failed interaction, and it’s blindingly obvious that although the words might not have landed perfectly, these efforts were anything but futile.

Nothing ever happens in a day. In the words of Steve Jobs, most overnight successes take a really long time.

God sent Moshe to talk to people when everyone knew it wouldn’t change a thing, but this failed interaction goes on to form a part of a foundation that all future growth and progress can be built upon. It’s not wasted breath; it’s an investment in posterity.

Time and again, we expect ultimate salvation, a moment everything changes and turns around, and we get disappointed because the world doesn’t work like that. God very deliberately sends Moshe on a mission he already knows he cannot possibly succeed at, highlighting to Moshe and us that apparent failure and setbacks are not futile. God sends Moshe because humble beginnings and failed efforts are independently valuable, regardless of the outcome.

If you’ve clashed with someone in a relationship that matters to you, you know that you can’t fix things with a good one-liner. No single idea or thought will make them suddenly understand; no light bulb will turn on that changes everything. Reality is far more modest than that; each kind word and positive interaction is a deposit into an account balance that barely seems to grow at the start. It’s painfully slow, frustrating, and doesn’t look like progress; sometimes, it even looks like a step backward.

If you’re stuck in trouble and can’t hear a kind word, hold on. If you’re trying to help someone who won’t hear or see it, keep it up.

It wasn’t futile then; it’s not futile now.

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Trading Taskmasters

4 minute read | Advanced

On Seder night, we celebrate the Jewish People’s birth as a nation and liberation from slavery. The entire night explores the imperative value of freedom and teaches us that freedom is a mode of thinking under all circumstances; it is not handed to us; it is ours to claim only if we make that choice.

But are we really so free?

Quite arguably, did we not simply trade up for a better taskmaster, swapping service to Pharaoh for service to God?

The notion of swapping masters ignores a crucial distinction between negative liberty, the freedom from, and positive liberty, the freedom to. Negative liberty means freedom from restrictions placed on you by other people; positive liberty means freedom to control and direct your own life, to consciously make your own choices, create your own path and purpose, and shape your own identity in life.

People in retirement can do as they please, like an infinite vacation. But as many retirees and their families can confirm, lack of routine and structure is negative liberty; it doesn’t feel great for long, and people invariably become enslaved to someone or something, even habits and subconscious instincts, leading to addiction, boredom, depression, or laziness. That’s not being free; that’s called being lost.

Discipline and freedom only seem to sit on opposite ends of the spectrum; they are tightly connected, in fact. If you want freedom, the only way to get there is through discipline.

Everyone suffers from one of two pains; the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons. Counterintuitively, life gets harder when you try to make it easy. Exercising is hard, but never moving makes life harder. Uncomfortable conversations are hard, but avoiding every conflict is harder. Mastering your craft is hard, but having no skills is harder. Easy has a cost.

Freedom worthy of admiration and respect requires positive liberty, taking responsibility for yourself by committing to an idea or purpose, such as a diet and exercise regime for fitness and good health. However difficult or forced, making these choices is the highest expression of freedom, and you can only benefit in the long run.

The Midrash similarly suggests that not only can freedom be found in service to God, but it is also the only way to be truly free. When the Torah says that God carved the Ten Commandments, the Midrash suggests we alternatively read it as liberation through the Ten Commandments – חָרוּת עַל־הַלֻּחֹת / חֵרוּת עַל־הַלֻּחֹת. We earn freedom through the Torah’s framework by assuming responsibility for our lives and destiny. It’s an externally imposed responsibility, like Pharaoh, but the comparison stops there. The outcome of the Torah’s responsibility is the gift of positive liberty, freeing us from slavery to our worst inclinations, resulting in more compassionate, humane, and kind humans.

The God that rescued the Jewish People from Egypt was the same God that had sent them there in the first place. It’s not contrived salvation or engineered heroics because God is not gratuitously cruel. It wasn’t Egypt that held the Jews; it was God holding the Jews in Egypt, as foretold to Avraham, in response to Avraham’s question about how God could promise a destiny to his descendants if, at some point, they would inevitably deviate from Avraham’s example. The Maharal explains God’s answer to mean that the Egypt experience would permanently bind his descendants to the Creator regardless of their mistakes.

R’ Shlomo Farhi teaches that God doesn’t just save us from things that hurt us; however bitter the lesson might be to learn, the things that hurt us can also function as instruments of protecting us from something, providing pathways to positive liberty. The Jewish People left Egypt with the hard-won experience God had promised Avraham, and with that experience accumulated, the ordeal was complete – בִּרְכֻשׁ גָּדוֹל.

Yet the unspoken inverse of that notion is that if they’d had the experience all along, the ordeal would have been redundant and would never have happened. It was only because they had lost their way, forgetting who they were and where they had come from, that they suffered through centuries of slavery as a result. If they had stooped to pagan idolatry like anyone else, it only follows that they were vulnerable; the inescapable conclusion is that Pharaoh could have only ever have enslaved them so they could rediscover what they had lost! The hand that hurts is the same hand that serves to save – שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלוֹתֵנוּ, וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם. However disturbing this lesson is, it is simultaneously deeply comforting, suggesting that all our pain has deep meaning and significance.

We never swapped service to Pharaoh for service to God; because we aren’t slaves to God. God offers us positive liberty, the freedom to take control of our lives and realize our fundamental purpose in the universe. Accepting the responsibility of service to God may look forced, but we know we are the ultimate beneficiaries of our efforts because we can utilize our freedom to thrive, tapping into our highest and best selves and making our lives matter. God offers humans positive liberty and, through it, cosmic significance.

Our bodies feel pain in response to an injury; your nerves send millions of signals to your brain that something is wrong, hopefully prompting a reaction. Pain has a clearly defined purpose; the only incorrect response is to ignore it.

We shouldn’t ignore the pain in our national or personal life, but we possess the freedom and spirit to elevate and transform that pain into meaning and purpose. There is cosmic significance to our hurt. It matters.

The God who heals is the same God who hurts; hurt is a pathway to healing, and compassion can overcome severity – שְׂמֹאל דּוֹחָה וְיָמִין מְקָרֶבֶת.

We’re never glad for the hurt, but we are free to make it count.

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Living with Newness

4 minute read | Straightforward

One of the foundational skills children learn early on is how to read a clock.

What time is it?

It’s not simply a question of hours and minutes; there is something deeper to the question. If you know what time it is, you also know what to do. It’s morning, wake up and eat breakfast before school or work. It’s nighttime, time to wind down and go to sleep. The time of day, the time of year, the seasons, and the calendar all establish the boundaries and time frames upon which our world is built, with specific routines for morning, afternoon, evening, and night, summer, fall, winter, and spring.

Different cultures have established various systems and calendars to measure time. Today, most of the world uses the Gregorian calendar, a fixed calendar determined by how long the earth takes to make one complete orbit around the sun.

The Torah asks us to track time using the moon as a frame of reference; when people spot the new moon, they report it to the highest court, which declares the beginning of a new month – Rosh Chodesh. It’s not Rosh Chodesh because there’s a new moon, but because the Jewish leaders say so. It’s the very first commandment in the Torah, given to the Jewish People still enslaved in Egypt:

הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם לְחדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה – This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. (12:1)

There are many mitzvos, so one has to come first. But why is establishing the lunar calendar through Rosh Chodesh the first mitzvah, as opposed to any other?

The story of the birth of the Jewish People begins at a time of stuckness, with the Jewish People systematically subjugated and oppressed, powerless objects with no choice or control over their circumstances.

Although slavery is illegal in most of the world, it persists today. What’s more, slavery isn’t just an abstract legal status or even just a phenomenon that still occurs in some dark corner of the world; it’s also a state of mind, body, and soul that can happen to anyone. Thankfully, we don’t have much primary lived with the experience criminal aspect of actual human trafficking, but if you’ve ever felt helpless, powerless, or stuck, you have experienced an element of slavery.

When we internalize that forces of change exist and that we have the power to harness and steer them, the possibilities are limitless. This moment can be different to the moments that have come before; this newness is the beginning of all newness – הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם לְחדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה.

The Shem miShmuel explains that the power of the Exodus story is that its story of freedom on a national level offers us the opportunity to become free of the tendencies and troubles that hound us on a personal level. The sense of futility, powerlessness, and stuckness from being burnt out or overwhelmed is poison. With the power to change, hard times don’t need to be so scary anymore, and the world isn’t threatening; it can be full of exciting possibilities. It follows that the first mitzvah is the one that empowers us to change by giving us a symbol of change.

One preeminent historian has observed that the worst thing about history is that people try to correct the past. People try to save the past, which is impossible; you cannot go back to the past and save the people there or prevent past injuries. We only have the present circumstances and perhaps a hopeful look to the future.

But as much as stuckness can come from attachment to the past, R’ Nachman of Breslev teaches us to avoid dwelling too much on the future and focus on the present day and present moment. As R’ Hanoch Heinoch of Alexander teaches, we can attach ourselves to vitality by being present – וְאַתֶּם הַדְּבֵקִים ה’ אֱלֹקיכֶם חַיִּים כֻּלְּכֶם הַיּוֹם.

The Torah often speaks to us in terms of here and now – וְעַתָּה / הַיּוֹם. Our sages take these references to Teshuva, our capacity and power to change and repent – וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ כִּי אִם־לְיִרְאָה. Because in one day, everything can change – הַיּוֹם אִם־בְּקֹלוֹ תִשְׁמָעוּ. As R’ Baruch of Mezhibozh teaches, forget the past; right now, be a Jew – וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל! The Chafetz Chaim takes this to be a reference to introspection – וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ – what does this moment require?

It follows that our sages wisely guide us to seize every moment; if not now, when? As the Chiddushei Harim observes, every “now” has a different duty, calling for some new, renewed, or entirely other choice or deed. As R’ Ahron of Karlin points out, each moment has its resolution; each moment of existence is incomparably unique, never existing before in the history of Creation, and never to be repeated before becoming irretrievably lost forever.

As the Vilna Gaon points out, Moshe speaks in the present tense to offer us all the power to choose – רְאֵה אָנכִי נתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם הַיּוֹם בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה. Rashi quotes a Midrash that every day, we should perceive our experience of Judaism as brand new – הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ מְצַוְּךָ.

Even once a person has resolved to change, they can still be anchored by the weight of their wrongdoing. The Shinover Rav suggests that although the past can’t be undone, it can be creatively reinterpreted, in the way Yosef reframes a troubled past with his brothers to relieve them of their guilt – וְעַתָּה אַל־תֵּעָצְבוּ וְאַל־יִחַר בְּעֵינֵיכֶם כִּי־מְכַרְתֶּם אֹתִי הֵנָּה כִּי לְמִחְיָה שְׁלָחַנִי אֱלֹהִים לִפְנֵיכֶם. What happened then wasn’t so great, but that brought us to where we are, here and now, and you can only move forward from where you are!

The world tracks time using the sun; the Sfas Emes notes that the nations of world history rise and fall like the sun, lasting only when things are bright. The Jewish People track time using the moon, persisting in darkness, and even generating light among total blackness.

The very first mitzvah is the lunar calendar, the only calendar with a visual cue for changing times and a powerful symbol of change, a natural symbolic image of a spiritual reality. It’s not just an instruction to count the time but a commandment to rule over time and even natural phenomena. It is an instruction to live by and with the power of change and renewal. It is a mitzvah to live presently with this moment and make it count.

Every day, every week, and in truth, every moment, is brand new, brimming with freshness, vitality, and renewal.