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January 23, 2004/Tevet 29 5764, Vol. 56, No. 18
Portion confirms God's power
Torah study
RABBI NEIL GILLMAN
Va'era/Exodus 6:2-9:35
One implicit and two explicit theological issues pervade this week's portion.
First, a note on last week's Torah portion break. Sh'mot did not end with the last verse of Exodus chapter five, which convention might have dictated, but rather with the first verse of chapter six. The division of the biblical text into chapters was done by Christians, but the portion breaks was the work of the rabbis, and they never, never end a portion on a down note. The last verse of chapter five, verse 23, is Moses' despairing accusation that God has not redeemed Israel from bondage. God forbid that we should live for an entire week with that complaint ringing in our ears. Exodus 6:1, in contrast, conveys God's promise to redeem.
The two explicit issues are first, the mysterious reference to God's two names in the first verses of the portion, and second, God's depriving Pharaoh of his freedom by "hardening his heart."
The conventional interpretation is that God did not deprive Pharaoh of his freedom until he had hardened his heart on his own. God uses our natural inclinations for God's own purposes. But this case is precisely the exception that proves the rule. There is no more powerful demonstration of the fact that God created all of us with the freedom to choose to do good or ill than that in this singular case, God had to intervene decisively to deprive one human being of that freedom.
Why, in this case, did God deprive Pharaoh of his freedom? To demonstrate God's power to redeem.
I am not excessively troubled by the mysterious reference to God's two names at the very beginning of the portion. First, God has many names throughout the Torah, and second, God's supposedly "new" four-letter name has appeared many times prior to this. Also if this name was previously unknown to the Israelites, its appearance now would scarcely promote the credibility of God's promises to redeem, which is precisely the point of God's promise to Moses.
Here, then, the conventional interpretation is probably as close as we can get to deciphering this enigmatic statement. What is "new" now is a previously unknown manifestation of God's power to redeem on a massive scale. Until now, God's functioning in history has been restricted to an extended family. But early in Exodus, a new entity enters the scene, Am B'nai Yisrael. "The Israelite people" now becomes the locus of God's activity. This new manifestation of God's redemptive power demands a new face of God and with this new face comes a new name.
Finally, the implicit issue that pervades the entire portion. Why the Egyptian bondage? Why the suffering? Why was this necessary?
The closest the Torah comes to providing an answer to this question is its numerous references to the fact that because Israel has known oppression, it must never itself become an oppressor.
But there is an additional answer. The experience of bondage was required to demonstrate God's power to redeem. God does many things: God creates, God reveals, and God redeems. Each of these manifestations of God's power finds its paradigmatic expression in the Bible.
What is most noteworthy about God's redemption of our ancestors from Egypt is that in the later tradition, it becomes the guarantee for God's eventual redemption from all of the oppressions imposed upon us in history. That is why this portion begins not with Moses' cry of despair, but with God's promise of redemption.
Rabbi Neil Gillman is professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
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