The Parsha begins with Moshe’s reluctance to express himself, “Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips! And how will Paroh listen to me?" (Shemot 6:30). Is this driven by his insecurity, a fear of his words falling on deaf ears or… worse?
Moshe and Aharon approach Paroh. The plagues begin. The Egyptians start to feel the pressure of manipulating us ‘above ground’. They start digging tunnels. “All of Egypt dug around the river for water to drink because they could not drink from the waters of the river.” (Shemot 7:24)
“Paroh called for Moshe and Aharon, and he said, "Entreat Hashem that He remove the frogs from me and from my people, and I will send out the people… Paroh saw that there was relief, and he made his heart heavy and did not listen to them… Paroh called Moshe and Aharon, and he said, "Go sacrifice to your g-d in the land…Hashem did according to Moshe's word, and He removed the swarms of beasts from Paroh…Not one remained. Paroh made his heart heavy also this time and did not send out the nation…” (Shemot 8:4-28) Promises. Broken. Promises. Broken. Promises. Broken.
Broken. We know the story from then and we know the story now - deception and empty promises - the manipulation and single-minded hatred of our enemies.
Some say the seeds of this war were sown when this enemy took down our defences by talking with us about increased movement and opportunity for its people in our borders. And so, of course, we opened ourselves up - giving more jobs and more freedom of passage, more money. With optimism and naivety, we made ourselves vulnerable - seduced by the dream of co-existence and peaceful neighbours. Who would not want normal lives - dreams of living and working together - bringing joy, building, children, family, economy, diversity, opportunity, quality of life… a much better world?
But those words too were empty - sown with deception and hatred - coloured only with dark and broken promises. Words of hope covering up words of death.
The UN was established as a promise to the world that the Holocaust or anything like it would not happen again. The word ‘Genocide’ was formulated by a Jewish Polish lawyer, Rephael Lemkin, and adopted by the family of nations so that the atrocities caused to the Jewish People in the Holocaust would never happen again. Yet, evil is as cunning as it is dark - now taking the very institutions that promised to serve as protections for the Jewish People and accusing us of contravening them - when we’re in the act of defending ourselves against these very same horrific genocidal actions and intentions of our enemies.
How many promises between parents and children, between friends, between young husbands and wives - have been broken through the terror and desctruction of this war? Every eulogy breaks our hearts - so many broken promises and unfulfilled dreams.
But can these broken promises somehow bring us closer to the ultimate promise of the geulah shleima - a redemption from the oppression, hatred and atrocities that humans can do in this world?
Hashem has indeed written this script ahead of time - telling Moshe before he set out to Paro, “ But I will harden Paroh's heart, and I will multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.” (Shemot 7:3)
Through the oppression of Egypt, the Jewish People were refined and born into the next chapter of Matan Torah. Be’ezrat Hashem, we will soon have the hindsight to see the revolution of growth that was caused during these dark days and the platform of redemption that we will soon stand upon - albeit the pain right now is far too much to bear.
“And so that you shall teach your child and your child's child how I dealth with Egypt, and the signs that I set among them, and you shall know that I am Hashem." (Shemot 10:2)
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Dedicated l’ilui nishmot two precious alumni of my alma mater, Yeshivat Har Etzion, that fell this week - Yakir Yamin ben Yehoshua v’Chaya Hoxter and David ben Yair v’Sarah Schwartz HY”D.
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Dedicated to the safety of our chayalim, the return of our captives and a refuah shleima for all. Written with continued Tefillot for the safe return and refuah shleima of Daniel Shimon ben Sharon btoch sha'ar shvuyey Yisrael.
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