Parshas Vaera
Patient and Personal
Moshe is overcome with disappointment that somehow God has not acted as
predictably and swiftly as Moshe thought he would in the process of
redeeming Israel from Egyptian bondage. His complaint to God that "You
have not saved Your people" and that the situation has worsened instead
of improving is an understandable one. Yet, even though the facts seem
to bear out the correctness of Moshe's words, the Lord, so to speak, is
disappointed in Moshe's statements and attitude. God longs for the
attitude and faith of the Patriarchs: Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov who,
when faced with disappointments, tests and reverses, never wavered or
complained to Him about His as yet unfulfilled heavenly promises and
commitments. That is the meaning, the Rabbis teach us, of the fact that
God appeared to them in a less personal "Name" than he did when
revealing Himself to Moshe.
It is precisely because Moshe achieved the level of "knowing" God
through His ineffable and the most "personal" of God's names, so to
speak, that Moshe is more disappointed than were the Patriarchs and
allows himself to express that disappointment to the God that he feels
he apparently "knows" so well. It is the greatness and personal
closeness of Moshe, the greatest of all prophets, that paradoxically
engenders within Moshe this feeling of depression and disappointment at
the apparent delay in the implementation of God's promise to redeem
Israel from Egyptian bondage. We are always more frustrated and
disappointed by those that we think that we know best than we are by
those who appear more distant to us.
The Talmud teaches us that Moshe's statement to God and his words of
complaint would yet somehow cost him dearly. God told him that "Now you
will see" the defeat of Pharaoh and Egypt but you will not live to see
the entry of the people of Israel into the Land of Israel and the defeat
of the Canaanites and their thirty-one kings. God, so to speak, admires
patience. It is one of the attributes and virtues recorded about the
Almighty in His Torah. It is God's sense of patience, so to speak, that
allows for human life to exist as it does in front of us in our daily
world.
In the imitation of God's ways that is the core philosophy and way of
life of Judaism, patience is seen as a supreme virtue. Patience with
others, with one's own family members, with one's community and even
with God Himself, is an essential hallmark of Jewish thought and
attitude. If we review the lives of our Patriarchs we will readily see
how patient an undemanding they truly were. They never insisted on "now"
solutions and served God humbly in their unshakable belief in the
validity of God's commitments to them and their future generations. By
leading the Jewish people, Moshe will also learn the value of patience
and we will not again hear insistent demands from him for immediacy and
speed in the fulfillment of God's promises to Israel.
Shabat shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein
Text Copyright © 2006 by Rabbi Berel Wein and Torah.org
Visit www.rabbiwein.com for a complete selection of Rabbi Wein's books and tapes.
