Everyone has heard the phrase “seeing is believing.” It’s a cliché to be sure, but one that is used in our everyday vernacular. People often feel as though tangible proof is the only way to truly believe in something—so if they don’t see it, its not really there.
As rabbinical, education, and cantorial students, we have a lot of work. We are in class every day, absorbing information, learning about tashloom dageshes and second temple history, and what the words to the Amidah mean when translated. It is easy to get caught up in the daily grind, to lose sight both physically and spiritually of what is truly important. How many times this year have we lost sight that we are living in Jerusalem, that we are steps away from an ancient city that is at the root of our people-hood and history? How many times this year have we lost sight of why we came here—why we decided to dedicate our lives to becoming Jewish professionals? How many times this year have we lost faith—in ourselves, or in each other?
In Parshat Va’eira, the Jews are caught up in their daily grind of being slaves in Egypt (maybe). The Jews were building pyramids (maybe), and were totally enveloped in their present reality.
When God decided to free the Jews from slavery, God contracted Moses to deliver the message.
“Therefore say to the Israelites in my name, “I am God. I will take you away from your slavery in Egypt and free you from their slavery. I will liberate you with an outstretched arm, and with great acts of judgment.” But it wasn’t that easy. The Jews didn’t really want to listen to Moses. It wasn’t that they didn’t care or didn’t want to be liberated from their slavery, they just didn’t see how it could be done. The parsha says that when Moses spoke to the children of Israel, they did not listen to him “because of their shortness of breath and because of their hard labor.” Rashi writes that they did not accept consolation; they were “despaired completely of ever being redeemed.” They had lost sight of salvation, of any hope of being free. But more than that, they had lost their faith. And so, to get the attention of the Jews, God mixed things up a bit. Rather than swooping in and magically erasing the pain and suffering of the years of slavery, God chose a two fold course of action: free the Jews, and remind them and Pharoah of the power of God. Moses’ staff turns into a snake, the Nile water turns to blood, frogs infested the area, there was a lice problem, beasts, snakes and scorpions plagued the Egyptian people, the cattle died, and there were boils and hail. And that’s just what happened in this portion!
However, the parsha never says what the Israelites felt about all of this. God made sure that only the Egyptians were affected by the plagues, and the Israelites were safe.
But in the end, it almost doesn’t matter if the Israelites physically saw the plagues happening or not. If the Israelites didn’t have a faith based on more than they could physically see, and didn’t truly believe that God caused the lice and the frogs and the darkness, they wouldn’t really see it anyway.
I may see the walls of the Old City from our classrooms, I may see the work that I am doing and understand fundamentally where I will be going, but if I don’t believe in the power of those things, if I don’t have faith, then our work loses some of its meaning. Shmuel Goldin, author of “Unlocking The Torah Texts,” writes about this parsha, and how the transition from slavery to freedom was so difficult for the Jews that even after that generation was freed, they never really left Egypt behind. Only their children, who never knew slavery, were able to live in the land of Israel. Perhaps the Israelites, despite all the plagues and the signs from God, never really believed, never really had faith. They may have seen what was happening to them, but because of their difficult past, it was hard for them to believe in the present or future.
We are halfway done with our year here. The concerns that we had at the beginning, the trials and tribulations of the past are in the past. We don’t have miraculous plagues to help us renew our faith, so we have to do it ourselves in order to move forward. It doesn’t have to be faith in God, it could be faith in ourselves, in each other, in this community. Only then, can we truly believe in what we see.
