VaEira

Here's an early parsha post.

Moshe's kal Vachomer in this week's parsha deserves a close look. He says that if the people didn't listen then surely Paroh won't listen. The hole here is that the Torah gives the reason for why the people didn't listen; they were too burdened to hear the message that Moshe brought. It doesn't follow from here that Paroh wouldn't listen. The reason of the work fatigue didn't apply to him. Where is the logic in this Kal Vachomer?

Phil Chernofsky* offered an explanation of this Kal Vachomer. If the reason why the people didn't listen was the work, then there is no logical reason to say that if the people didn't listen it follows that Paroh wouldn't be attentive either weight of the work. However, Moshe was left on his own to decide why the people didn't listen. Apparently his thinking turned inwards. As Moshe saw it the people didn't listen because of the way he spoke. If he couldn't successfully communicate to his brothers of course he questioned how would he get through to Paroh.

Moshe was starting out on the job and it wasn’t going smoothly. He could have said it wasn't working because of the people. That he didn't blame the people, but looked towards himself first speaks volumes about Moshe’s integrity.

I think of this idea sometimes. Who should I look at when something goes less well than I'd hoped. Is it a bad class? A bad principal? A bad hair day? Or could there be something about me at play.

The words of Nechama Leibowitz ring in my ears. The pasuk that says that the Jews came to Marah and couldn't drink the water. Nechama stressed the words, " Ki Marim HEIM", and quoted the midrash which says that it was their own bitterness which made it impossible to drink the water rather than the bitterness of the water itself. Nechama expanded on this approach in her inimitable style: "Zeh HaMorim, Vezeh HaHorim, VeZeh HaYeshivah...Ulai Zeh Atah?...KI MARIM HEIIIIM!!!"

This thought relates to a question that keeps coming back in these early Shmot parshiot. To what extent did Moshe work on himself? It is to our benefit to learn from Moshe as an example of self reflection. What does it means to be a person? Many people stretch out and suffer from never looking in. Others isolate themselves and look in at the expense of living in the world. Balance is the answer.

A frustrated single person once approached Leo Buscaglia saying, "I'm so depressed that I'm not married. I'm miserable, frustrated, angry and distraught." The person asked Leo if he knew anyone for her. He replied, "As soon as I find someone looking for someone depressed, miserable, and angry I'll send them your way."

Leo Buscaglia writes in Living, Loving, and Learning that he's tired of people blaming their parents for their problems. People always say that my parents did this or my parents did that, and that's why I'm messed up. Leo asks incredulously, "do you know what your parents did? - They did the best they could!"

What Moshe did is inspiring because it is so hard to do. He looked in rather than out as he traveled the road to becoming who he was meant to be. It's so much easier to retreat to what family therapist Joel Bergman calls victim paradise.

I hope and pray for success in sweetening my own bitterness, and taking responsible control of my life to the fullest degree possible.

* 1948 -
Educational Director of Seymour J. Abrams Orthodox Union Jerusalem World Center, editor of Torah Tidbits, best teacher I ever had.

Zei Gezunt,
Good Shabbos