Exodus, 6:2-9:35

Portion Summary

In the portion, VaEra (And I Appeared), the Creator appears before Moses and promises to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt to the land of Canaan. Moses turns to the children of Israel, but they do not listen “out of impatience and out of hard work” (Exodus 6:9).

The Creator instructs Moses to turn to Pharaoh and ask him to let the children of Israel go out of Egypt. Moses fears that he will not succeed in his mission and asks the Creator for a sign. The Creator tells Moses that he will be as God to Pharaoh, while Aaron will be the prophet who does the actual speaking. The Creator will harden Pharaoh’s heart and shower plenty of signs and tokens over Egypt. The Creator gives Moses and Aaron a staff, and when Moses casts the staff to the ground, it becomes a snake.

When Moses and Aaron come to Pharaoh, Moses is eighty years old and Aaron is eighty-three. There are many magicians and soothsayers around Pharaoh. When Moses and Aaron arrive, they throw down the staff, and it becomes a snake. Pharaoh’s magicians do the same and their staffs also turn to snakes, but Moses’ snake swallows the magicians’ snakes.

Despite that display, Pharaoh remains defiant and the ten plagues of Egypt begin. This portion mentions seven of the plagues: blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, and hail. After each plague, Pharaoh goes back on his word and refuses to let the children of Israel go.

Commentary

While this depiction is graphic, it actually conveys the interior of the Torah, the true law that instructs us how to get out of the Egypt within us. The Torah does not tell us to leave one physical place in favor of another, but rather how we can free ourselves of our egos.

The portion is for those of us who work hard and discover that we are in Egypt. It also deals with our desire to not be in Egypt—the ego, the essence of evil. Therefore, we must escape from there while arguing with our egos. We cannot tolerate the ego in this situation, fearing it might bury or kill us, so we rise above it and begin to part from it.

There are two forces in us. The first is the ego, which is Pharaoh and all of Egypt. The other is a “protruding” point called “the point in the heart.” All our desires that are in Egypt and are fed by it while there is a “famine in the land of Canaan” (Genesis, 42:6) create an internal struggle in us. This is the war from which we seek to escape, to rise above the ego with all our desires. In fact, only Moses, the point in the heart, escapes and rises above the ego, fleeing from Egypt to Jethro and to all that there is in Midian.

After forty years, during which we grow stronger in Midian working on enhancing the force of Moses, the Creator appears to us in the burning bush. Through our inner voice, we hear and comprehend that we must return, fight against the ego, and get out of it, or we will not be able to attain spirituality.

Spirituality is attained only by correcting our desires, by correcting our intentions from aiming to receive—the egoistic form—to aiming to give, to loving others. We have to achieve the rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the great rule of the Torah. The point in the heart, the Moses in us, feels it is time to do this. The voice of the Creator is telling us to begin working with our egoistic desires by facing up to Pharaoh.

In this state, we are completely bewildered. It is very difficult for us to stand up to our basic nature, and the world is literally showing us how impossible it is to do so. It seems that wherever we turn, we are surrounded by our egos. These are Pharaoh’s soothsayers, his sages, beginning to discover how unrealistic is the spiritual path of rising above our egos and achieving love of others. Indeed, where do we find love of others in the world? Does anyone support this?

The Israel in us is a very weak force, and although it seems we can do anything through our spirituality, we can also do it—and even more “successfully”—through the forces of the ego.

Sometimes we prove to ourselves that we rise through the group we are building, through the good and right environment we are in. Just as Pharaoh agreed to let the children of Israel go, but changed his mind and captured them, we also go through ups and downs that prevent us from exiting our egos.

We experience seven blows that cleanse and correct us. These are the ZAT of the degree, the seven bottom Sefirot—Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut—corresponding to the seven plagues of Egypt: blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, and hail.

The last three plagues are like the GAR of the degree; the first three belong to the Rosh (head), not to the Guf (body) of the degree. Those who go through them become liberated.

In our inner work, we face tough struggles and scrutinies between the ego and the point in the heart. These draw us toward freedom, bestowal, and through what Baal HaSulam calls in the essays, Arvut (“Mutual Guarantee”) and Matan Torah (“The Giving of the Torah”), “from the love of man to the love of God.” This is how we emerge from our nature into the nature of the Creator.

There are only two forces in existence: the force of bestowal and the force of reception. We are immersed in the force of reception, which puts us to death, makes our lives bitter and limited, and shortens them until we have no idea what our lives are intended to be.

Spirituality provides an answer to questions regarding the suffering in our world. We come to spirituality because of the questions: “What is the meaning of my life?” “What is life for?” In spirituality, we constantly scrutinize these questions and through them emerge to the eternal and enlightened world. We do that despite the ego’s grip on us that does not let go and pulls us “by our feet” back in, not letting us escape.

Kabbalah books discuss these struggles at length. This is our inner work, the reason why we study its wisdom. The light that reforms that we obtain helps us through the plagues, from one plague to the next, from below upward, toward even greater blows. The more we advance, the harder the work and the tougher the blows.

Although we feel how the evil force in us is destroying us, keeping us on the animal level, we cannot rid ourselves of it. Finally, we come to a state where we know that unless we flee now, with the help of the upper force, we will remain in the ego because we cannot escape by ourselves. The Creator deliberately makes it difficult for us, as it is written, “Come on to Pharaoh” (Exodus 7:26) “for I have hardened his heart” (Exodus 10:1).

The Creator purposely hardens Pharaoh’s heart, our egos—the heart with all of our desires—so we would need His strength, so we would increasingly feel how we need Him and how we cling to Him, so He will deliver us from Egypt.

As said above, there are only two forces in reality: the bad force, Pharaoh, and the Creator’s positive force, and we must choose to which of them we will cling. Through the war between the forces, we learn that we have no alternative but to achieve Dvekut (adhesion) through the force of the Creator. This is how we exit Egypt.

Right from the start, we see that Moses went to the people of Israel and told them that the Creator had appeared before him, and this is why he was suggesting that they come out of Egypt. But the people refused; they did not want to listen.

Their refusal may strike us as odd because it would seem reasonable that the people of Israel should want to get out of Egypt. However, we should remember that this is the people of Israel in exile, under Pharaoh’s rule. Had the people of Israel been in Canaan, matters would have been quite different.

But in Canaan there were problems, too. There were quarrels and hunger because the will to receive was growing and could not be used anymore. This is why it was said that there was “hunger” there. Therefore, to use the desire, the people of Israel had to go down to Egypt, since only by adding the ego could they come out of Egypt with the qualities of Israel in them, the Yashar El (straight to God).

We must come out with the egoistic desire we previously had, and with which we discover the spiritual world. We have nothing but our natural essence. Following the ruin, the shattering, the sin of the Tree of Knowledge and the other sins, our nature was completely ruined. It was completely shattered, much like the world today, which is gradually discovering the crisis we are in. This was the beginning of the egoistic system that lies between us.

The children of Israel had to go down to Egypt to revive their souls. Yet, for now they are still as Joseph, as the children of Israel. They lived detached from egoistic desires until they began to mingle with the ego. It is specifically those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah—who do what is written in the essays and follow the advice of Kabbalists in order to discover the spiritual world—who feel increasingly lower, as they strive to ascend. This state is called “the children of Israel in Egypt.”

The children of Israel had to be in Egypt for four hundred years, as Abraham was told. The four hundred years are four degrees from the root—one, two, three, four—or Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey. We also must be in exile in order to reveal the entire Kli (vessel) and achieve redemption with it in a corrected Kli. In other words, all our souls will connect and discover in that connection the upper light, the Creator. This is how the soul unites with the upper force, with the light; this is the complete redemption.

First, we must mingle with our four levels of Aviut (will to receive, egoism). We spent only 210 years in Egypt, so there are additional exiles after Egypt until the measure of four hundred years is full. Currently, we are standing at the conclusion of that period.

We must go down to Egypt and absorb these four hundred degrees, which are like four hundred shekels of silver, the price at which the Cave of Machpelah was sold. This is a special measure of our egos, which Pharaoh symbolizes in a broken manner in the corrected soul. In the end, we bring out these Kelim (vessels) from Egypt because we come out with great substance, correct them, and discover in them the land of Israel.

Questions and Answers

Why does the Creator want us out of Egypt, on the one hand, and then harden Pharaoh’s heart, making it more difficult for the children of Israel to leave?

When people come to study Kabbalah, they arrive with a great desire to learn, then realize how difficult it is and do not succeed. They begin to “fall asleep.” Their egos grow, they yield to it, and sink down into it. They cannot understand that what has happened to them is that they entered Egypt. We need to keep working, even when we are drowning in the ego; we must not to stay in it.

There are also those who detach themselves from corrections and from the wisdom of Kabbalah altogether. They flow with life and may even adopt new habits. But if they continue and go through the great shattering, the inner blows, until they feel they must get out of Egypt, as it is written, “And the children of Israel sighed from the work” (Exodus, 2:23), and yell for the upper force to pull them out, they will be pulled out.

The wisdom of Kabbalah deals with facts, with natural laws. Yet the children of Israel are shown tokens, such as a staff that turns into a snake. Does that symbolize something supernatural?

It is an inner state we often experience. The staff becoming a snake represents incidents where spirituality and perfection appear before us. We feel that when we truly understand and attain something of the quality of bestowal, we are ready to connect with others and be with them in mind and heart, “as one man with one heart.” Then, soon afterward comes the descent, like a black cloud descending on a person. In much the same way, the staff and the snake alternate.

Can it be said that one’s attitude toward spirituality is called a “staff” or a “snake”?

Yes, and we are tossed between them.

How did Egypt’s magicians do the same as Moses with their staffs?

Our egos create these things to show us who is right. In the story of Ester, when they did not know who was right, they had to decide above reason. The same applies to us. We do not want to leave Egypt for our gain, but we also do not want to stay in Egypt for our gain. That is, it comes neither from the side of reception nor from the side of bestowal.

Everyone would like to connect to spirituality and attain the spiritual world and thus have everything. However, we are made to understand that in both reception and bestowal we will receive no personal gain in our egos. When we advance, like the magicians of Egypt, we advance toward the Klipa (shell/peel) into bestowing in order to receive, to take for ourselves the next world, too. But bestowal means that we rise above any reward whatsoever.

What does it mean that Moses’ and Aaron’s snake swallows the snakes of the Egyptian magicians?

It means that in the end we have to go with faith above reason. This is called a “staff,” and with it our importance of bestowal increases instead of decreasing, making us descend to the vessels of reception.

Do we all experience these blows, each of us, even now?

The Torah speaks of everything that happens to those studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. The crisis that the world is in today is preparing us to understand that we have no alternatives; we must advance.

Except for the children of Israel, the world will not advance according to the steps we learn in the Torah. The world advances by joining the children of Israel, as it is written, “And the peoples shall take them, and bring them to their place; and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord” (Isaiah, 14:2). The whole world will need to support it.

What do we need to do in order to leave Egypt now?

The Torah tells us that until as we have suffered all the blows, we will not cry out so loud that the Creator will save us. When that happens, the upper force, the light that reforms, will influence us so strongly that we will be able to detach from the ego.

From The Zohar: I Will Bring, I Will Deliver, I Will Redeem, I Will Take

The Creator wished to first tell them the most beautiful—the exodus from Egypt. The most beautiful of all is, “And I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you a God.” But He told them this afterwards. At the time, there was nothing more beautiful for them than exiting because they thought that they would never come out of their slavery, since they saw that all the prisoners among them were tied by magic ties that they could never exit. This is why they were first told what they favored most.

Zohar for All, VaEra (And I Appeared), items 52-3

It is the work of the Creator. We are not the ones doing the work, and it is not the work that the Creator does when correcting us. Rather, it is the work that the Creator does “behind the scenes.” It is “the back of the neck.” That is, hardening Pharaoh’s heart is the work that the Creator does so we will need Him.

Is this when we want to go out of Egypt?

This is when we want to go out of Egypt, and it is also when we define that exit correctly. If you ask an ordinary person, “Why are you praying?” “What is redemption?” “What or who is the Messiah?” you will hear many answers. We all have our own messiahs. But here, we are talking about a person who needs to attain a state of Messiah. This brings one into love of others, a state of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” the rule that includes all of us, since we must all be mutually contained in it, in mutual guarantee.

This is why mutual guarantee is so important to us; it is as exodus from Egypt, as redemption. As long as there is no mutual guarantee, there will be no redemption. This is why we all need to work to make it happen, and to explain to everyone that the closer we come to this ideal, the greater our chances of exiting Egypt soon.