Vaerah:technology

This is the week of the CES, the consumer technology show in Las Vegas. The current publc competition of technologies.

The stated goal in Vaerah is to demonstrate the superior power at the disposal of the Hebrews  and to show that the forces available to Egypt  cannot stand up to them.  The demonstrations progress from the transformation of water to blood and a proliferation of frogs, both  tricks that the Egyptian technicians can reproduce  [but they cannot remove the problems generated by Moshe and Aaron]. The third plague,  lice,  is beyond  the Egyptian technical abilities. They give up.

Our world is miraculaculous relative to that of out ancestors. We can fly though the air and even into outer space, we carrry access to  the world's  knowledge in our pockets, we cen portray anything imaginable on a screen and microphone.  It is now, theoretically, possible to create lice from DNA.

The power of Gd is not a sufficient basis for belief. Now that humans can destroy the world, the raw power competition is over. 

The miracles after lice have a quality of selectivity.  The Hebrews are exempt from the wild beasts an the pestilence. They are on the right side. They have the advantage of allegiance.  Is it all about  being born into the right group?  This is not an appealing model to the modern.

The last plague, killer hail, has an important aspect fo heeding the warnings. Everyone was given the option of heeding the warning ...or not. Those that did not protecet their servants and livestock lost them.  But there are so many warnings! pesticides, carbon, sugar, influenza...

The story of power is not the point, it leads to the point.  Liberation requires faith that  the cause will prevail. In a sense, the obstinancy of Pharoah is also a lesson. People can tolerate superior forces for as long as they need to.  

The names of Gd used in parsha reflect  qualities.  E is power.  The Egyptians , the masters, may respect power.  Some are restrained from following evil orders, or heed the warning to take shelter from the impending hail because they recognize the power of the Hebrew ( or Universal) Gd. The ultimately victorious name, Y, derives form the verb "to be."
  It implies a respect for eternity, the past  as model , the present as a time of action and the futureas a time of hope.