Last week was the beginning of our fearless heroes try to break the iron clasp of Pharaoh, king of Egypt!

The Torah left us with our fearless leader, Moshe (Moses) asking haShem (god) what good he was doing, and haShem replying to just wait and see; the fun is about to begin.

Well, the fun begins in this week’s parsha (Torah portion) which is called Va-ayra which means, “And I appeared.”  It starts with god telling Moshe that he appeared to Abraham and Yitzhak (Isaac) and Yaakov (Jacob) under the guise of kel shadai which means the power of enough (or the power of my breast), but not as the four letter name (which is a form of the verb to be).

This is the beginning of what god told Moshe to tell the people.  However the people were too wiped out by the extra work to hear it.  So much for the pep talk.  Instead god tells Moshe to go to Pharaoh and tell him to send the people out.  Moshe wonders why Pharaoh will listen to him when his tribe didn’t.

We then jump gears and get a listing of the heads of each tribe and a list of the generations between Levi and Moshe and Aharon.  After this short interlude, we go back to haShem telling Moshe what to say to Pharaoh and haShem laying out the whole process to Moshe.  At this point, we are told, Moshe is 80 and Aaron is 83.  The two go to Pharaoh.  Pharaoh wants a proof.  Aharon gives him one.  Pharaoh is unimpressed as his magicians can duplicate the feat.

And now we get into the macot.

Oh sorry, I used the Hebrew word here. The word macot means hits, but you will usually find it as plagues.  God doesn’t put plagues on Egypt, he hits Egypt 10 times.

Moshe gets up early to tell Pharaoh, and to perform the first hit, which is turning all the water into blood.  Next, are frogs that get into everything and everyone.  Third up are the lice.  Following the lice are wild animals that move into everyone’s houses and trample the land.

Each time, Pharaoh makes a slightly larger gesture towards letting the people go, but in the end, his heart either gets hardened or strengthened.  Fifth up is death to all Egyptian livestock, which is then followed by boils.  At this point, god tells Moshe to tell Pharaoh that the only reason Egypt will survive is to proclaim haShem’s name throughout the world. We end the parsha at the 7th inning stretch, right after the hail destroys everything not put under cover.

A pretty brutal parsha if you ask me.

What is going on here?  How could a god of love do such things?

Based on a simple reading of this as a history, I don’t have good answers.  I could say that it is showing tough love, but that wouldn’t explain the fact that god has set this up ahead of time, just so he can make a point.  I guess, on this level, the only way to get an answer is to ask god herself.

Fortunately, we can also look at the Torah from other points of viewing.  One of those, as I have mentioned in the past, is to look at all of this as analogy.  I find this the easiest way to look at this parsha.

In the past, I have talked about how it is a model for breaking addictive behavior.  Today I want to look at something I haven’t seen before:  how to get god to do what you want!

We are in the book of Shmot (Exodus) and I am looking at chapter 8, verses 5-7.  We are in the second hit, which is frogs, and Moshe asks Pharaoh to tell him when he wants the frogs to leave.  Pharaoh says, “Tomorrow,” and Moshe says, “Like you say, for the sake that you will know that there is nothing like haShem, our god/powers…”  Verse 9 tells us that, “Hashem did like the words of Moshe.”

This is not the only time god does as Moshe says.  We see it again in chapter 8.  In verse 25 Moshe tells Pharaoh that the wild beasties will go the next day, and we read in verse 27 the same words we saw in verse 9:  Hashem did like the worlds of Moshe.

Now these are two explicit times in this parsha alone that we see god doing what Moshe says.  There will be other times in the future that god, “Changes his mind,” because of Moshe, or does what Moshe says.  How is it that he can get god to do what he says?

I already hear some of you saying that if I can answer that question, I would be a billionaire.  I hear others of you saying that it is because Moshe is a tzadik (a righteous or saintly person) and is at a level we can never attain.

However, there is a rule in the Torah that says each word is coming to teach us something, and god does not waste words in the Torah.  So, my answer to the second group is that your argument might explain why god does as Moshe says once, but not twice.  Besides, we see in other places in the bible where god does something just because a prophet said so.  We could learn about god doing the bidding of a tzadik from these places.

No, I think that our parsha is trying to give us a different teaching.  As I share it, I hope to answer the first group’s question as to how I can answer the question and not be filthy rich.

You see, the answer is not something I can give you; it is already inside of you.

There are two ways of looking at this.  The simple answer is to say that each one of us has a part of Moshe inside us, and so all we have to do is access it, and then god will listen and do our bidding.

However, that answer is not so simple because our Torah says that Moshe was the humblest person who ever lived.  So, to access the Moshe in us means we have to let go of our ego and find the most humble part of ourselves.  As we do that, we start to connect to the second way of looking at this.

Moshe was able to get god to do his bidding because Moshe was doing god’s bidding.  We can plainly see this if we look back a parsha and see the fight Moshe put up trying to convince god that he wasn’t the man for the job.  Moshe didn’t want the job!

Nevertheless, because god wanted Moshe to do it, Moshe took the job and performed it to the best of his abilities.

When you take on the task god has in mind for you to do, and do it to the best of your abilities, god will do whatever you tell him to do.  This is the secret!

Of course, it opens up a whole other question of what does god want from us and what if we don’t want to do it?

I will answer that second part from personal experience:  sometimes we go kicking and screaming and cursing, but in the end life is better for taking it on.  The kicking and screaming bit, for me anyway, is part of the work I do in order for my ego to feel it has a say in the process and still acquiesce.

The first part of the question requires patience, time, effort, and reflection.  It requires one to find that still small voice within and to listen to it.  Argue with it too, if need be, for that means you are also listening.

However, if one is willing to not harden one’s heart, one will “feel” that following this voice will make one happier.

Of course the ego will fight you, because it wants to be in charge.  However, that voice, is god, and as you start to follow her, you will find that you will start to receive the things you ask for more and more.  Why?  Because you are connecting to your part of the harmony of the universe which is nothing more than the feminine aspect of god which is nothing more that an aspect of god itself.

In other words, you are connecting to yourself which is nothing less than god.  And when you connect to yourself/god, of course god will do what you say!  Simple.

I bless all of you with the patience and fortitude to find your way in this world and to connect with your purest essence so deeply and so strongly that what you ask for and what you receive will be one and the same.

If you want to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.

About the Author

Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.