Finding the Joy · Parashat Vaera
The Narrow Place
The Narrow Place
I am writing this from London, and I have taken off my kippa and replaced it with a ball cap.
I don’t want to write that sentence. I have never wanted to write it less.
A few days ago I was in Jerusalem, where I wore it without a second thought. The only danger was the kind that comes with a siren and a shelter and ninety seconds to get underground. London does not have sirens for what happens on its sidewalks.
Parashat Vaera opens with God speaking to Moses in the most direct terms the Torah has yet offered:
וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֵלָ֖יו אֲנִ֥י יְהֹוָֽה׃ God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am GOD.
And then the promise — four verbs of redemption that will become the four cups of seder wine:
לָכֵ֞ן אֱמֹ֥ר לִבְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל֮ אֲנִ֣י יְהֹוָה֒ וְהוֹצֵאתִ֣י אֶתְכֶ֗ם מִתַּ֙חַת֙ סִבְלֹ֣ת מִצְרַ֔יִם וְהִצַּלְתִּ֥י אֶתְכֶ֖ם מֵעֲבֹדָתָ֑ם וְגָאַלְתִּ֤י אֶתְכֶם֙ בִּזְר֣וֹעַ נְטוּיָ֔ה וּבִשְׁפָטִ֖ים גְּדֹלִֽים׃ Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am GOD. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements.
And what happens when Moses carries this promise to the people?
וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר מֹשֶׁ֛ה כֵּ֖ן אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וְלֹ֤א שָֽׁמְעוּ֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה מִקֹּ֣צֶר ר֔וּחַ וּמֵעֲבֹדָ֖ה קָשָֽׁה׃ But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.
Mikotzer ruach — shortness of spirit. Their breath was too short to take it in. They couldn’t hear the promise of redemption because the narrowness of their lives — Mitzrayim, from the root tzar, meaning narrow — had squeezed the air out of them.
I think about this on a London sidewalk, in a ballcap because wearing my kippa is too dangerous. Constricted. Narrow. The narrowness isn’t the same as slavery. But the mechanism is familiar — when your body is managing fear, your spirit has trouble receiving good news.
And yet. God makes the promise anyway. That’s the part of Vaera that doesn’t get enough attention. The Israelites can’t hear it. Moses protests he’s unfit. Pharaoh isn’t interested. Nobody is ready for redemption. God starts it anyway. The four verbs land in a room where nobody is listening, and they don’t expire. They wait.
Last week, while we were still in Israel, Alon and Monique Abady donated a sixteen-story, three-hundred-thousand-square-foot building — valued at a hundred million dollars — to Chabad of California. It will become the largest Jewish center in North America.
The Abady family arrived in the United States from Syria in the 1970s with almost nothing. A young Chabad rabbi named Baruch Shlomo Cunin helped them — found them housing, gave Alon’s mother a job, provided the scaffolding for a family to rebuild. Decades passed. Abady built a real estate empire. He and the rabbi lost touch. And when Chabad came looking for a building, Abady didn’t hesitate.
Fifty years. A kindness given to a family in a narrow place, and a hundred-million-dollar building rising from the return. That’s the four expressions of redemption playing out across a lifetime. Each verb in its own decade.
The narrowness is real. So is the promise. God doesn’t wait for us to be ready.
Shabbat shalom.
— Uriel ben Avraham