My profession is always to be alert, to find God in nature, to know God’s lurking places, to attend to all the oratorios and the operas in nature. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

The following essay is based on the teachings of Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter from Gur (1847-1905) on the parsha Va’era, which are presented in his monumental work The Sefat Emet.

The Background

Things were looking dismal for Moshe and Aharon. They had followed God’s instructions and, on behalf of the Jewish nation, had approached Pharaoh requesting three day’s leave from their slavery to go and worship God. Not only did Pharaoh deny them their request, he increased the hardship upon the Jewish slaves by instructing the taskmasters:

You shall not continue to give the people straw to make brick as you have done till now; let them go and gather straw for themselves….. And there shall be no reduction in the quantity of bricks produced…for they are lazy, therefore they cry saying “Let us sacrifice to our G-d”…….Let more work be laid upon them! (Exodus 4:7-9)

The Egyptian taskmasters then added psychological torture to the physical abuse. They came accusingly to the Jewish officers that they had appointed to take responsibility for the productivity of the Jewish slave-effort. They taunted the Jewish officers and beat them for failing to ensure that the Jewish slaves in their charge maintained productivity rates despite the non-provision of the raw material, straw:

Why have you not fulfilled your tasks in making the same quantity of bricks as you did in the past? (Exodus 4: 14)

Despairing, the Jewish officers approached Pharaoh requesting that he reconsider his new imposition on the Jewish slaves. However, he was immovable. In his mind, Moshe and Aharon had exposed the “laziness” of the Jewish people through their request for a few days “vacation” for the slaves, to go and serve their God. Pharaoh found this behaviour intolerable. In response, he increased the work-load on the Jewish people, thereby demanding the impossible.

Moshe and Aharon were walking out of the palace when they were confronted by the Jewish officers who complained bitterly about the direct consequences of their request to Pharaoh that the Jewish slaves be allowed leave to worship their God.

Moshe felt the pain of his people and, also experienced feelings of guilt for having indirectly caused an increase in their suffering. A sense of inadequacy overcame him and realizing the desperateness of the situation, Moshe turned to God:

Why have you dealt ill with this people? Why have you sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name he has done evil to this people; nor have You delivered Your people at all. (Exodus 4:22-23)

A Comment by Rashi

The commentary by Rashi about the verse Exodus 4:22 is actually found in his commentary to Exodus 6:9. Not only is there meaning in the content, but in its location too:

…Moshe said “Why have You dealt ill with this people?” God replied “Alas, for those that are gone and are no longer present. I really have reason to lament the death of the Patriarchs. Many times I revealed Myself to them by the name El Shadai and they never asked Me, “What is Your Name?”; but you wanted to know what to reply if they (The children of Israel) would ask you “What is His Name?

With even careful reading of the commentary, it remains unclear how God’s response is related to Moshe’s question. Furthermore, given that Moshe reached a far higher spiritual level than any of the Avot, what is it exactly that G-d is lamenting, and why now?

God in Nature

El Shadai is one of God’s names that include in it the word “Dai”-enough. The Midrash elucidates
That there is enough “Dai” of his Godliness in all of creation (Bereishit Rabba 46:3).

For those who are looking, God can be found in nature. The Patriarchs were men of God who knew how to look. The oft-repeated tradition of Avraham’s discovery of God revolves around the consequence of the confluence of an inquisitive, contemplative mind observing the cycle of celestial bodies. The Patriarchs saw their mission as increasing people’s ability to notice God through nature as a means of inspiring them to moral improvement. As the Sefat Emet explains:

The Patriarchs certainly could have attained a level of perceiving God through His manifestation as Havayeh, however they chose to perceive Him as El Shadai, in the way that He is present in the created world. This is the idea of Letaken Olam BeMalchut Shadai – to improve the world through the kingship of the One who is sufficiently (dai) present in nature….They wanted to rectify the worlds that were seemingly devoid of the perceptible presence of God by pointing out and publicizing His glory thereby making known that that His kingship is the kingship in all worlds (Va’era 5637 [1877]).

The Sefat Emet, in a most radical comment, states the following:

The Patriarchs merited being able to find G-d in nature because they had not yet received the Torah. (Va’era 5641 [1881])

Perhaps the constant and intense exposure to words diminishes ones ability to notice that which exists outside of the medium of black print on a white background. Investigating God in nature invites us to perceive all that is not immediately perceptible because it is too small, or its movement too slow, or its change too subtle. It would seem that perception too, needs to be learned. Moreover, this method of incorporating awareness of G-d into the consciousness through seeking out of His presence in nature was indeed effective in nurturing spiritual growth. Our tradition teaches us that the Patriarchs reached such developed levels of spirituality and holiness that intuitively, they kept much of the Torah.

The Sefat Emet explains how God promised the Patriarchs that as a result of the success of their endeavours, their descendants would have the opportunity to continue in a similar manner, the process of revealing His presence in the world. Furthermore, in each exile that the Jewish people would find themselves, they were charged with revealing another aspect of Godliness in this world (Va’era 5637 [1877]). Each exile laden, paradoxically, with opportunity; opportunities within a context of punishment. As the Sefat Emet indicates, the dispersion of the Jews into various exiles had the higher purpose of redeeming the societies in which the Jews found themselves, to the degree that circumstance would allow. And so the Sefat Emet calls our attention to redemption through process, by teaching people to notice through refinement in consciousness.

There was a promise made to Avraham that his descendants would be exiled into Egypt for 400 years. It seems that this would have been time enough for the Jewish people, the descendants of those who knew how to find God in nature, to slowly fulfill their task of redeeming Egypt, and in so doing redeem themselves. With the purpose of the Egyptian exile accomplished, the Jewish people would have set forwards on their journey to the Land which He had promised them.

The Sefat Emet (Va’era 5640 [1880]) reminds us that Moshe as a prophet experienced God through the Name Havayeh. Experiencing God in this way means that Moshe had great clarity about the true essence of existence. It means that Moshe was able to remain unconfused in apparently confusing situations. Moshe Rabbeinu had no patience for process. Moshe Rabbeinu was above nature and was unable to bear seeing bad (Va’era 5637 [1877]).

He found observing the situation in which the Jewish people were in Egypt, with its planned slow process of redemption excruciatingly slow. Perhaps the pain for Moshe was similar to that frustration a parent feels as he silently observes his own children making mistakes that he could see were inevitable. Only some parents are able to hold their speech preferring instead to let their children come to self-realization of certain realities. Having such clarity of perception, Moshe finds the experience of watching the Jewish people attempt to find light in the darkness of Egypt intolerable. And so, he cries out to God “Why have you done ill with these people?” In Hebrew: Lama Hareota La’am HaZeh?

In Hebrew, the word meaning “ill” includes in it the word ra, which means evil. Moshe is asking G-d “Why have you put the Jewish people into this place of good and evil, in which Your existence needs to be revealed through human enterprise in a painfully slow process?” As the Sefat Emet comments:

Moshe Rabbeinu could not tolerate neither the exile nor the darkness in which Israel found itself. However, the Creator, may He be blessed, desired that Israel would also rectify nature (by revealing God’s presence in this world).And he wanted to allow them to operate in the same way that the forefathers had chosen for His glory, the way of clarifying the presence of His Kingship in every place, as will be done in the future, with God’s help, when the Jewish people will complete the process that was started by the Holy Patriarchs (Va’era 5637 [1877]).

The Sefat Emet explains that Moshe wanted God to reveal himself to the entire Jewish nation so that they should perceive Him with the same clarity that he had experienced. However, the redemption from Egypt was to be the blueprint for all future redemptions. It had to include in it key elements that might be required to feature in future redemptions. Moreover, only their presence in this redemption would enable them to actually appear at some future event. One of these features would be a slow redemptive process in which the Jewish people actually redeem themselves.

The Jewish people in Egypt had, to some degree, lost the skill that their forefather’s had in revealing God’s presence in the world. Moshe understood that left to their own devices, the Jewish people would not succeed in bringing about their own redemption. They required Divine help. Therefore Moshe cried out to God “Lama Hareota La’am HaZeh?”. Just as at creation when God “realized” that a world created through the attribute of Justice alone could not endure, here too, God “conceded” and allowed the Attribute of Mercy to play its part (see Rashi Commentary to Genesis 1:1 Bara Elokim). In so doing, He revealed to us that this moment that would result ultimately in the redemption of the Jewish people from Egypt, was the continuation of Creation.

Returning to our initial questions we can now understand why the commentary to the words “Lama Hareotah La’am HaZeh” are to be found not in Exodus 4:22, but in the portion starting with the words “Va’era”. By describing to Moshe how He made himself known to the forefathers through his presence in nature, God answers Moshe’s question. Moshe begs clarity through Divine revelation whilst God prefers redemption through process, which is why He is being nostalgic for the Patriarchal approach.

The Exodus: Plan A

The Sefat Emet presents us with a preferred model for redemption. It is a model that presents God as having a preference for redemptive processes that are dependant on the divinely-inspired human endeavour alone. History had shown that the way of revealing God in nature had been successful in bringing the Patriarchs to Torah observance. Indeed, this is God’s preference to the degree that, even though He knew in the end that He would intervene through the 10 plagues, He wanted to make sure that there was a period in the redemptive process when the Jews were left on their own, to work it out for themselves, despite the great suffering endured. This was critical because the Exodus from Egypt had to embed in our consciousness models of redemption for use in future exiles.

The Exodus: Plan B-Celebration or Thanksgiving?

What should we be contemplative of when we sit down on Seder night to re-live the Exodus with our family? According to the teachings of the Sefat Emet presented here, we are commemorating plan B. On the one hand, as indicated by God’s nostalgia for the Patriarchal way, we should be mindful that it was because the Jews in Egypt lost the perceptive skills and spiritual sensitivity of their forefathers that prevented them from independent personal and national redemption, and ultimately caused them to require God’s miraculous intervention. On the other hand, our recitation of Hallel reflects our deep sense of acknowledgement and gratitude for the fact that God showed us that though we disappointed him, He intervened at our hour of need.

Seder night, the night of miracles is soon followed by the bringing of the Omer offering, the sacrifice expressing our recognition of how God expresses Himself through nature.

For it is He, may He be blessed, who causes the clouds to form, the rain to fall, the dew to descend, the ground to sprout forth and the fruits to grow (Vayikra Rabba 28:1).

Indeed, we the say the word Omer every day for the forty-nine days that connect Pesach to Shavuot, the festival commemorating our acceptance of Torah. It seems that this period commencing so soon after the retelling of all the miracles of the Exodus, is one which invites us to meditate on the idea of the search for God in nature as an authentic and necessary preparation to receiving the Torah.

Many leave the Seder night with a renewed faith that God will perform miracles to redeem the Jewish people. However, perhaps there is a further message, that it is the Patriarchal model of searching for evidence of God in the astounding world He has created that is the preferred approach to redemption, and it is this concept about which we are also being invited to reflect. It is the path that is the true path to spiritual growth because it is measured as it is demanding.. We are invited to embark on the never-ending upwards journey that results from starting to truly observe. This leads to increased awareness which itself brings us to a greater awareness of God’s presence leading to further increase in one’s ability to find God and so on and so forth. After all, there is enough (Dai) of God in all of creation.

And in a way this is the more profoundly hopeful message because it promises us that God trusts that when divinely inspired, we will ultimately redeem ourselves, and the world.