Torah portion: Va-Era

When Moses is full of skepticism, people are not; but when Moses himself is convinced, people have lost their own sense of conviction

Dr. George Savran|Published: 01.19.07 , 09:13

In a dramatic opening, parashat Va-Era begins in Exodus 6:2-8 with God’s declaration of his name, his attentiveness to Israel’s plight in Egypt, and his vow to fulfill his promise to the Patriarchs by bringing them out of Egypt and into the land of Israel. Most powerful here is God’s reiteration of that promise in five consecutive verbs of performance:

“I will free (you from Egypt)”

“I will deliver (you from slavery)”

“I will redeem (you)”

“I will take (you me as my people)”

“I will bring (you to the land)”

The message contained in this revelation is not new, but the forcefulness of God’s declaration, with its rhythmic repetition of similar verb forms in short precise sentences, brings home the promise with striking power and clarity. While the speech begins with Israel as the object of God’s actions, it ends with the people becoming a subject in its own right, capable of responding (“and you will know that I am God”) and entering into a full relationship with God.

Much of this message had been delivered to Moses in the revelation which follows the burning bush in Exodus 3. There, too, God reveals himself as the God of the Patriarchs who has come to redeem Israel. But the differences between the texts bespeak a significant change:

Where the earlier text spoke of Israel in the third person, here God addresses Israel (through Moses) directly as “You”, emphasizing the development of a closer, more immediate relationship, moving climactically to God’s adoption of Israel: “I will take you to me as a people”.

The Exodus is to be the moment of Israel’s election as God’s people. God described himself earlier with the deliberately evasive expression Ehyeh asher ehyeh (“I will be what I will be”), but here Moses receives a more direct and fuller explication of God’s nature.

The process of leadership

A further difference between the two revelations has to do with the responses of Moses and of Israel to God’s promise, for the question of the reception of this message is no less crucial than God’s stated intentions.

Somewhat surprisingly, Exodus 3-4 is punctuated with Moses’ objections: No less than five times he expresses his doubt about the entire venture. “The people won’t believe me,” “I can’t speak well,” and even to the extent of saying “Send someone else.”

But when Moses finally delivers the message to the people in 4:30-31, they display no resistance whatever, and are completely convinced of God’s promise. In Exodus 6, by contrast, Moses himself raises no objections. But when he speaks to the people, it is they who are resistant: “They would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage” (6:9).

The difference between the texts illustrates the great difficulty involved in the process of leadership. When Moses is full of skepticism the people are not, but when Moses himself is convinced, the people have lost their own sense of conviction.

The difficulty of matching the responses of the leader to those of the people is perhaps the greatest challenge of leadership. The content of the message may be inspiring in and of itself, but the timing of the message is often the most crucial factor.

Dr. George Savran is a Lecturer in Bible at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies