21 Jan PARSHAS VAERA: LOOKING AT PART OF THE PICTURE

There is a direct
link between the
beginning of
Parshas Vaera and
the end of Parshas
Shemos. At the end
of Shemos, Moshe
Rabbeinu and Aharon finally appear in
front of Pharaoh. They present Hashem’s
demand “Send out My people that they
may celebrate for Me in the wilderness.”
[Shemos 5:1]
Pharaoh’s reaction is not only that he
will not send out the Jews, but that he is
determined to make their lives more
miserable. While in the past, Pharaoh
had provided the slaves with straw for
use to make the bricks, from now on,
they would need to keep up the same
quota of bricks while gathering their
own straw. Therefore, Moshe’s first visit
to Pharaoh’s palace seemed to be
counter-productive.
The people criticized Moshe and told
him in no uncertain terms that he made
matters worse. Moshe was taken aback
by this setback. He questioned G-d about
the efficacy of his mission. This is the
conclusion of Chapter 5, the end of
Parshas Shemos.
Chapter 6 begins: “Hashem said to
Moshe: ‘Now you will see what I shall
do to Pharoah, for through a strong hand
will he send them out, and through a
strong hand will he drive them from his
land.’” [Shemos 6:1]. According to
Chazal, the Almighty is upset with
Moshe Rabbeinu for blaming Him for
“making the situation worse”.
The Jewish people had an extremely
natural and understandable reaction. We
as human beings are bound by time and
space. Our perspective on life is
extremely narrow. We see the here and
now, and nothing beyond that. It is the
equivalent of going up to a beautiful
picture and getting so close to it that you
only get a skewed view of what the
picture is all about. The only way to
appreciate a picture is to stand back and
take it all in.
This is perhaps what the Talmud means
[Brochos 10a] when it makes a play on
words with the pasuk “There is no G-d
(Tzur — literally Rock) like our G-d”
(Ayn Tzur K’elokeinu) [Shmuel I 2:2]

and interprets, “There is no Artist
(Tzayar) like our G-d”. G-d is in the
midst of painting a mural, but not one
that goes from wall to wall, but rather a
mural that goes from the beginning of
time to the end of time. Often we are like
someone who goes up close to a small
section of the “mural” and tries to make
sense of what the “Artist” is seeking to
convey.
This is what happened with the Jews in
Egypt after Moshe’s first encounter with
Pharaoh upon his return to Egypt. The
hopes and spirit of Klal Yisrael were
raised, only to be dashed a short time
later. Not only did their situation not
improve – it got worse! They were
staring at a moment in time – a snapshot
– and they failed to see the larger picture.
In effect, the Jewish people were asking
that age-old most troubling question:
Why do the wicked prosper and the
righteous suffer? There is really no
complete earthly answer to the question,
but part of the answer is that we are just
looking at a moment in time and we fail
to see the whole picture. Therefore we
question.
The Medrash says that for man to try to
understand the ways of Divine
Providence is in the category of
becoming confused between “the
bandage and the misfortune”. Rabbi
Yehoshua Ben Levi points out that the
characteristic of the Almighty is not like
that of one who is flesh and blood: A
surgeon cuts with a scalpel, but he heals
with stitches and bandages and medicine.
The surgeon does not heal with the
instrument with which he cuts. The
Almighty, however, brings the cure with
the very instrument He uses to bring the
plague, as we find by Yosef: He was sold
into slavery because of his dreams (as
the brothers say: “Here comes the
dreamer”) and he was elevated to royalty
through dreams (by virtue of his being
able to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams).
If we would stop in the middle of the
story of the righteous Yosef, we would
come to the conclusion that dreams were
his downfall. But, as the Medrash points
out, because of dreams he came to rule
over Egypt. The seeming cause of the
problem was the greatest source of
healing.

Rav Simcha Zissel
Brody, the Rosh Yeshiva
of the Chevron Yeshiva,
zt”l, heard the following
thought from Rav
Moshe Mordechai
Epstein, the Slabodka
Rosh Yeshiva, zt”l:
Imagine what it was like
to live through the
Spanish Inquisition.
Imagine what it was like
to be a Jew on Tisha
B’Av in 1492. Spanish
Jews were given the
choice: Convert to Christianity or leave
the country penniless. Thousands and
thousands of Jews got up and left Spain
penniless rather than convert to
Christianity.
After all that the Jews did for Spanish
society (the Finance Minister gave a
large portion of his own money to
finance the Government of Ferdinand
and Isabella), what Spain did to the Jews
was a horrible injustice. What would the
Jews of that era be thinking? What would
you and I be thinking if we were Jews in
that era? We would be thinking: “Spain
is going to get it! The Almighty will pay
them back before our very eyes!”
Instead, on that very day — Tisha B’Av
1492 – Columbus set sail and came
across the greatest bonanza that any
country had discovered in the last 500
years! The discovery of the New World
and all the raw materials made Spain a
great, wealthy, and powerful country –
the superpower of the world in those
days! It was not until almost 100 years
later – beyond the lifetime of any of the
Jewish exiles – that the Spanish Armada
was defeated. The exiles never saw that.
They went to their graves thinking:
“This is Torah and this is her reward? Is
this the Justice of the Almighty that
Spain should hit this great windfall on
the very day they throw us out?”
Yet the irony is “that with which He
smites, He heals.” The irony is that the
country of Spain did for the Jewish
people one of the greatest favors that has
ever been done for them – they
discovered America! For 300 years,
more or less, Jews could come to
America. When there was no place to go
prior to and after the Holocaust, America

was the haven for thousands and
thousands of Jews. America was the
haven for thousands of Jews who left
Russia at the turn of the century, rather
than put up with the pogroms of Czarist
Russia. America saved a great portion of
Klal Yisrael.
Who did that? The Spanish Government
did it, acting as the instrument of the
Master of the World. But that took 400
years! From 1492 until the late 1800s
was four hundred years! Imagine going
to your grave thinking there is no justice
in this world, because nobody lives for
400 years.
This is the lesson of Hashgocha. There is
no Tzur [G-d] like our G-d. There is no
Tzayar [Artist] like our G-d. It is still a
work in progress. History is still being
written.
Klal Yisrael complained to Moshe
Rabbeinu: “You made the situation
worse! Now we need to suffer even
more!” They failed to realize the
increased suffering (making bricks
without straw) saved them 190 years of
decreed slavery. Rather than having to
be in Egypt for 400 years, they only had
to be there for 210 years. What a favor
that really turned out to be! But there are
many Jews who went to their graves
without ever realizing that because they
looked at the picture from up close and
they could not see the full span of history.
The lesson of Egypt and the lesson of
Spain and the lesson – one day, G-d
willing, we may begin to understand
what the Holocaust was all about – is
that this is the way the Almighty works.
We have to wait. It is very difficult for
us, especially when one suffers; but one
day, IY”H, everything will begin to
make sense.