Va’era
Exodus 6:2-9:35
By Jen Smith
Va’era opens with a line that feels almost like a divine sigh:
“I appeared [to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] … but by My name, I was not known to them.”
God is hinting that we are on the cusp of something new. Not just new miracles, but also a new way of being Free.
Until this moment, the Israelites have only known God through promises; in this next chapter, they are about to know God through experience. And this shift from abstract knowledge of prophetic promises to visceral experience matters because Freedom is something that we must live to fully experience.
The Torah describes the Israelites as crushed by avodah kashah – harsh labor. But the mystics remind us that the deepest type bondage is not only physical slavery; it is constricted consciousness. We know that the Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, shares a root with the word meitzar, meaning “narrow place.” Egypt is far more complex than its location on a map. Egypt is a state of mind.
We see this when Moses brings a message of hope and the people cannot hear him:
“They did not listen to Moses because of shortness of breath and hard labor.”
And no wonder! The slaves were in a state of physical bondage and mortal pain, but they were also faced with emotional and spiritual suffocation. Trauma narrows the soul, and sometimes when you have been kept in a cage for too long, freedom can feel frightening.
How many of us live in our own narrow places? Throughout our lives, many of us will experience the feelings of being trapped by fear, anxiety, superstitions, expectations, perfectionism, or trapped by a belief that change is impossible.? Va’era gently insists that liberation doesn’t begin when circumstances change; liberation comes when we are able to pause, breath, and open our mind to the miracles all around us.
The plagues are often read as punishments, but Jewish mysticism reframes them as deconstructions. Egypt’s gods, ancient constructs of power, control, and domination of nature are systematically dismantled in front of the Israelites’ (and Pharoah’) very eyes. They experience the plagues in real time, to say nothing of the 400 years of slavery leading them to this moment. The Israelites are not spared from the impact of the early plagues of frogs, locusts, boils, lice, darkness, hail, and sickness. It is only in advance of the final plaque, death of the first born, that the Hebrews are given instructions for how to protect themselves from the Plague of Death.
The more I think about this, the more I am convinced of this profound spiritual truth: We cannot free ourselves without first naming that which enslaves us. Growth is often disruptive, and healing can be painful. Liberation requires us to know Bondage from experience, just as Joy requires that we first experience Sorrow. Ultimately, Va’era reminds us once again that the only way out is through.
“I have heard the cries of the Israelites.”
The God of Va’era is not a God of abstraction. This is a God we can experience personally and communally; This is a God Who listens, Who feels, Who transcends human history and human pain.
The Torah reminds us that redemption is not escapism. God does not remove the people from Egypt instantly, nor does his remove the sea from their path – there is no “easy way out.” Instead, God chooses Moses to lead the Israelites through the narrow place. We do not float above suffering; we experience it, and ultimately, we transform it. Step by step. Plague by plague. Breath by breath.
Freedom requires honesty, courage, and faith – not perfection. The transformation and redemption begin way before Moses leads the people through the parted Sea. Va’era, like freedom, is a revelation; and the revolution begins the moment we dare to even believe in possibility of a Promised Land.
May we have the courage to release the bitterness of what binds us, and the courage to have faith that before we are free, we are already well on our way.