The Long View: Redemption Through Setbacks

This piece was first posted on Hanassi Highlights, 15 January 2026.

If the opening of Parshat Va’era feels strangely familiar, it is not by coincidence. Once again, Hashem appears to Moshe with the words “Ani Hashem.” Once again, Moshe hesitates, describing himself as arel sefatayim, unable to speak. Once again, Aharon is appointed to stand at his side. The scene echoes almost word for word the encounter at the burning bush in last week’s parsha.

The Torah does not repeat itself without purpose. What, then, has changed?

Between the two conversations lies Moshe’s first failed attempt at redemption. Sent by Hashem to Pharaoh, Moshe demands freedom for Bnei Yisrael—and the result is devastating. Not only are the people not released; their suffering intensifies. Straw is removed, the workload increases, and despair deepens. Moshe turns back to Hashem in anguish: “Lama hare’ota la’am hazeh?” – Why have You made things worse for this people?

At that moment, it would have been natural to conclude that the mission had failed. That redemption had been attempted—and rejected. But Parshat Va’era opens by telling us otherwise. Hashem sends Moshe back. Not with a new plan, but with the same mission. The message is subtle yet profound: a setback is not the end of the story. What looks like failure may be part of a longer process, invisible in the moment but essential in retrospect. Chazal even suggest that the intensification of the labour contributed to shortening the exile. What felt like regression was, in truth, a step forward.

Sefer Shemot, like Sefer Bereishit before it, establishes a pattern. Just as the experiences of our Avot became a template for future generations, the first redemption from Egypt becomes the model for all redemptions that follow—complex, uneven, and unfolding in stages.

That insight speaks powerfully to our own moment. We live with profound emotional complexity: joy at moments of light alongside fear, grief, and uncertainty. The Torah does not ask us to deny that tension. On the contrary, it teaches us to hold it honestly. To give thanks for what has been achieved, even as we continue to pray for what is still incomplete.

This idea is reflected in the four expressions of redemption at the beginning of our parsha—the source of the four cups of wine at the Seder. The Yerushalmi understands them not as four poetic phrases, but as four distinct redemptive stages, each deserving gratitude in its own right, even as the process remains incomplete.

Parshat Vaera reminds us that redemption is not a single dramatic moment, but a journey. “Atah tireh,” Hashem tells Moshe—you will yet see. There is a larger plan, a broader horizon, and a story still unfolding. Our task is to remain steadfast, grateful, faithful and confident that, just as we were redeemed once, we will be redeemed fully again.

Shabbat Shalom!

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Torah and the Land: A Heritage That Cannot Be Divided

The Torah and Eretz Yisrael were given in a single utterance. They are not parallel gifts, nor independent pillars of Jewish life, but two expressions of one indivisible covenant. Jewish destiny is unintelligible without either one, and incomplete when they are separated. Our member Rabbi Paul Bloom explains how this is so.

The Torah describes itself as a morashah:

תּוֹרָה צִוָּה לָנוּ מֹשֶׁה מוֹרָשָׁה קְהִלַּת יַעֲקֹב

 “Moshe commanded us the Torah, an inheritance— a heritage—of the congregation of Yaakov.” (Devarim 33:4).

And the Land of Israel is described in precisely the same terms:

וְנָתַתִּי אֹתָהּ לָכֶם מוֹרָשָׁה

 “I will give it to you as a heritage.” (Shemot 6:8).

This shared language is not stylistic coincidence. It is a deliberate equivalence.The same word—morashah. This is not coincidence. It is a gezerah shavah of destiny. Torah and Eretz Yisrael are bound by the same word because they are bound by the same essence.

Inheritance, Not Argument

When the Torah is called a morashah, it tells us something fundamental about how we relate to it. Our commitment to Torah does not rest on philosophical proofs or intellectual constructions. Such arguments, however sophisticated, can always be challenged or dismantled. Instead, Torah is ours because we received it—because more than two million Jews stood at Sinai and heard the Divine voice, and that experience was transmitted faithfully from generation to generation.

Inheritance does not need proof. It only needs continuity. The same is true of Eretz Yisrael. Our claim to the Land does not ultimately rest on conquest, diplomacy, or historical accident. Anything acquired by force can be undone by force. Anything established by agreement can be revoked by agreement. Only inheritance is beyond dispute.

The Torah itself serves as our deed of ownership. It testifies that the Creator of the world gave the Land to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, to be passed down eternally to their descendants. This is not a political claim; it is a covenantal one.

There is, however, a condition embedded in inheritance. A heritage can only be received by heirs who remain loyal to it. When descendants walk in the ways of their forefathers, the inheritance flows naturally to them. When they abandon those ways, the inheritance becomes inaccessible, even if they physically possess it. Torah and Land rise together—and they falter together.

Heritage, Not Property

A further distinction sharpens this idea: the difference between yerushah (inheritance) and morashah (heritage). An inheritance can be used, invested, squandered, or discarded at will. A heritage, by contrast, must be preserved intact and transmitted faithfully.

Torah is not ours to reshape according to fashion, reinterpret at convenience, or neglect when uncomfortable. We are guardians, not owners. The same is true of Eretz Yisrael. It is not a disposable asset or a negotiable abstraction. It is a sacred trust, given so that Jewish life can unfold fully and faithfully upon it.

Fire and Ice: Mak’at Barad

This unity of Torah, Land, and Divine sovereignty finds a striking expression in the plague of barad, the seventh plague in Egypt. The Torah describes it in extraordinary terms:

וַיְהִי בָּרָד וְאֵשׁ מִתְלַקַּחַת בְּתוֹךְ הַבָּרָד

 “There was hail, with fire blazing בתוך the hail.”  (Shemot 9:24).

This was not merely an unusually violent storm. It was a fundamental suspension of the laws of nature. Fire and water—elements that naturally extinguish one another—coexisted within a single phenomenon. Unlike other plagues, which could be rationalized as extreme but natural events, barad shattered the very framework through which nature is understood.

For this reason, barad is described as a culmination of the plagues. For the first time, Pharaoh fully acknowledges the moral and theological truth before him. He sees, however briefly, that nature itself is subject to a higher will.

Chazal identify this harmony of opposites as a hallmark of Divine action, echoing the words we recite daily:

עֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם בִּמְרוֹמָיו

 “He makes peace in His heights.”

Peace between fire and water. Peace between forces that cannot coexist—unless commanded to do so by their Creator.

Education, Not Only Punishment

Again and again, the Torah explains that the plagues were sent “so that Egypt will know that I am Hashem.” This emphasis is striking. If the goal were merely to free Israel, countless simpler methods were available. The plagues were not only punitive; they were pedagogical.

The Exodus was meant to educate—not only Israel, but humanity. It was the foundational revelation of Divine mastery over history and nature, a template upon which all future redemption would be built. Even though Egypt ultimately perished, the process itself had to carry within it the possibility of recognition and transformation.

Fear and Indifference

During the plague of barad, Egyptian society fractures for the first time. Some fear the word of Hashem and bring their livestock indoors. Others ignore the warning and suffer devastating loss. The Torah does not describe the latter as defiant or ideological. It portrays them as indifferent.

Indifference is more dangerous than opposition. It requires no argument and no courage—only disengagement. Those who do not care will follow anything, submit to anything, and ultimately stand for nothing. Comfort breeds apathy, and apathy paralyzes moral choice.

The Narrow Path

Chazal describe the human condition as a narrow path, flanked by fire on one side and ice on the other. Fire represents unrestrained passion and desire; ice represents apathy and spiritual numbness. Both destroy. One burns, the other freezes.

The message of barad is not destruction, but harmony. Fire and ice can coexist when they are governed by a higher will. This balance—neither frozen indifference nor consuming excess—is the Torah’s vision of human life.

Torah and Eretz Yisrael embody that vision together. They are a single heritage, entrusted to us not for convenience or comfort, but for responsibility and continuity.

A Promise Renewed

The story that began in Egypt has not ended. It continues to unfold in every generation, calling upon us to choose loyalty over indifference and guardianship over neglect.

וְהֵבֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נָשָׂאתִי אֶת־יָדִי לָתֵת אֹתָהּ לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב וְנָתַתִּי אֹתָהּ לָכֶם מוֹרָשָׁה אֲנִי ה׳

 “I will bring you to the Land that I swore to give to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and I will give it to you as a heritage—I am Hashem.” (Shemot 6:8).

Torah and the Land were given together. They endure together. And they will ultimately be fulfilled together.