Va'erah: Persuasion

Gd speaks to Moses to persuade him to confront Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt. The Pharoah is threatened and stricken with plagues to persuade him to let the Hebrew people celebrate their three-day holiday in the desert. Moses gains confidence. Pharaoh stands his ground.

Of course Pharaoh dismisses the demands presented to him. Granting them would weaken his authority and authority is his life. He could have allowed the holiday out of kindness, but that does not seem to be his position. He is the taskmaster of taskmasters, and the make-work must go on. The demand for vacation time is met with an increase in the demands upon the people. He is a model for future despots.

Do we expect Pharoah and his advisors to suddenly give up their beliefs because they are confronted with a greater truth? Gd does not. The oppressed will be heard only when they show their power, their ability to vex the entitled. Hence, the plagues.

The plagues have symbolic meaning. The water of the Nile turns to blood. The river regurgitates the blood of the Hebrew male infants drowned in it. The frogs are just everywhere – like the enslaved Hebrews. It would be a relief for the Egyptians if this people, held in such low esteem, would just leave for a while. Pharaoh gets it, he agrees to let them leave… but it does not happen. Time drags on.

The magicians, the nature-engineers, of Egypt are able to reproduce the first two plagues. Why would they want to? If these necromancers wanted to help the situation, they would remove the plagues, not reproduce them. Moses shows his power and the power of Gd by removing the plagues … at an appointed time. Moses tries to become Pharaoh’s ally. He asks Pharaoh when to remove the frogs so that the announcement can come from the government, and it happens as instructed. This is a great act of negotiation. But Pharoah does not keep his side of the agreement.

The lice are detested things that are ubiquitous, similar to the frogs, but more irritating, more everywhere. The Hebrews make the Egyptians’ skin crawl. Let them out . Not so fast.

The exact meaning of the next plague, arov, is not entirely clear, but it has something to do with invasion. It may mean swarms of insects, echoing the same idea as frogs and lice. Alternatively, it means invading wild animals of various kinds. This catastrophe warrants a concession. Pharaoh offers a holiday, and reluctantly even allows exit from the land. This time, Moshe informs Pharaoh when the plague will end. He does not help Pharaoh maintain the illusion of power.



Delay in fulfillment results in an animal epidemic, a zoonosis. This time, Gd distinguishes between the Hebrew animals and the Egyptian. Suddenly, being Hebrew has become an advantage! The Jews are getting rich from the misfortune of the people who really belong in Egypt. This is the start of another great tradition.

Now that the Hebrews have been differentiated with respect to the plagues, it is easy to identify them as the source of pox, the plague of boils. Holding the Jews, the eternal foreigner, responsible for epidemics lasted for thousands of years. Did they invent COVID for their profit?

The deadly hail is an all-inclusive test. Those that believe the prediction can save themselves and their possessions by going indoors. For some, this may have meant following the instruction of Moses over the threats of a master. Perhaps the exercise of freedom must precede liberation.

The Egyptians do not want to disrupt their pleasant status quo. Life has been good for (some of) them (especially the more powerful and wealthy). It is inconvenient to believe in an invisible power that is trying to change things. Is it really necessary? There is so much to lose. Ultimately, by clinging to the past, they lose so much more. This is a lesson. Perhaps that is why Gd wanted to deliver the full platter of plagues before the Hebrews leave.

Is this story costly for the Jews? It is a textual source for the perception that Jews bring misfortune. They poison the wells (with blood?), they get into everything ( like the frogs), make the skin crawl ( lice), they come in swarms from their most recent refuge, they bring disease to cattle and profit from it and they bring the pox. Since the Exodus, and certainly since the destruction and exile from Israel and Judea, Jews have lived in fear. Much of that fear comes from the trepidation of their hosts. It is a cycle of fear grounded in this text.



When the meteorologist predicts hail, stay inside.