You Don’t Wait for a Better Life. You Make Space for It. | Va’eira

Okay, the story begins paras. We are in the second para portion of the book of Exodus. And the truth is the the beginning of redemption is is uh is emerging. Redemption is actually emerging because it's at this point where God uh tells Moshe at this time the Jews are going to go free. You're going to get into long dialogues with Pyro back and forth. I'm going to harden his heart. He's going to say no. And I'm going to educate them. Pyro said to Moshe originally, "Who is this God that says uh you're going to go free? I've never heard of him." So God says, "I have to educate him." And the way he educated him is through the 10 plagues. Those are mechanisms of education and through that education finally the Egyptians and ultimately the world will realize that there is a god who runs the world and you don't get to abuse his people. So although the geographical redemption doesn't start in this portion there's elements of redemption that does begin in this portion. There's there were layers to the redemption. was not working. The actual stopping of of actively being slaves which was in this week's para because of the plagues the plagues all in all all 10 plagues took about a year to happen. Then there was the actual leaving of Egypt. Then there was crossing the Red Sea. There was different layers. There's leaving the the Egyptian or slavery mindset which we're still working on. We still haven't figured out yet, but we'll talk about that. But first, the parha starts off with a continuation of a conversation that Moshe had with God in last week's para. In last week's para, God and Mosha meet for the first time. They meet at the burning bush. God says, "You're going to set the Jewish people free. Let them know redemption is coming. Let Parro know that the Jews need to leave Egypt and go serve God in the mountain, Mount Si." And Moshe tells this to power says, "I don't know what God you're talking about, but if the Jews are complaining and they want freedom, maybe they're just bored." And he starts making their workload even more difficult. Moshe says to God, "God, why did you do bad to this nation? Why are you being so bad?" That's how the conversation concludes effectively in last week's para and they pick up in this week's para. Before I tell you where they had picked up, before we get into that, I I just think it's interesting to note that the first interactions that Moshe and God have are are very raw. [laughter] I mean, it starts off with Moshe doubting himself or doubting his people. God trying to convince him. motion not interested in the leadership position and then it's God why are you being bad to these people and then it's God going back to admonishing Moshe it's a very human raw real relationship it's very clear here that as dedicated as Moshe is as given over and and faithful as he is and and Moshe is like the epitome of of faith and and what we call bittl a total awareness and and dedication into one's source, true source, spiritual awareness. Despite all of that, Moshe was no robot. He was no robot. He had an opinion. Um, and he did not let that be bottled up. So, God continues the conversation in this week's portion, in this week's para, and he says, and I'll read the poke, I'll read the verse, and I'll just translate it into English. God says to Moshe, "I am God and I had appeared to Abraham, to Yeitz, and to Yakov Shai, which is one of the names of God. I appeared to him with this particular name, Hashem, but my name God, the Lord, I didn't let them, I didn't make known to them." And not withstanding all of that, I still established my covenant with them. I still established my promise with them. And the way Rashi and many of the commentaries explain this is that God was admonishing Moshe. God was saying, Moshe, you're asking why am I being bad to this nation? Why are you asking so many questions? I've appeared to them. I did not appear to them on the same level of closeness that I'm appearing to you. They've never questioned me. Why are you questioning me? That's how commentaries understand this from a basic barebones level. Moshe is kind of being told off. Why are you asking these questions? If we examine the text though, we'll notice and this is kind of the perspective that teaching illuminates. [sighs] God wasn't just admonishing Moshe. He was actually communicating something very deep to Moshe that was an integral part of redemption. Everything that is taking place in these portions, which by the way, I mean, this is a big statement, but everything in the Torah ultimately is a message and how how to get closer to God's vision for humanity, which is the ultimate redemption. But that's certainly true on a smaller scale in the portion in this specific portion, the portion right before the redemption from Egypt, the Exodus from Egypt. Everything we're learning here are steps to get closer toward that redemption. It's a lesson to motion how to get closer to redemption. It's a lesson to us reading about this and how to get closer to our own redemption, our own personal redemption, and ultimately the global redemption, the coming of Messiah ushering in the Messianic era. And I'll share with you how. Let's start with that phrase, the name of the para v. and I've appeared to Abraham, to Yidk, to Yakov. I did not make my name God known to them. And the way Rashi says, they still didn't ask too many questions, right? Um, you you know my stickick with translations. Translations are dangerous because number one, they might not be completely accurate. Number two, let's say you find an accurate translation. They're narrow. Translations are narrow because a word in Hebrew can have multiple connotations, multiple perspectives, multiple meanings. Yet, when you rely on a translation, you're limiting yourself to one very specific perspective. The word, how does that translate? If you look at an English, it's going to say, "And I have appeared to etc." God is letting Moshe know. I've appeared to them. Why is my appearance to you so different? Why are you so confrontational? Why are you so difficult? It's past tense, but that's not necessarily or the complete truth. It doesn't have to be past tense from a grammatical perspective. Grammatically speaking, the word v could mean and I've appeared. Past tense, it could mean and I appear. It could mean I will appear. All three are valid. All three are grammatically correct ways of translating that word. Now they might not be contextually correct ways of translating the word because died already. So what does that mean? And I am appearing to them or I will appear to them. Right? So contextually that might not be the best translation. Grammatically it could conote past, present or future which totally changes the way we understand what Moshe what God sorry is trying to communicate to Moshe. God is telling Moshe sorry Moshe says to God, "Why are you being so bad to this nation?" In other words, why are you keeping them in exile? Why are you keeping them in slavery? Why are you keeping them in Egypt? Why are you allowing beautiful souls to be abused? Abused by life, abused by the world, abused by outside oppression. God's answer. I appear constantly past, present, and future to Abraham, to Yid, and to Yakov. How is that helpful? [laughter] How is that meaningful? The answer is we have to find within ourselves the and I think there's two ways to do this but number one if you look at Rashi Rashi says you know Rashi is very meticulous with his with his commentary and I've appeared and Rashi says to the patriarchs why does it have to say to the patriarchs where it spells it out clearly there there is only three patriarchs. So some say that the word aos can mean fathers, patriarchs. It also has another meaning to those who want to those who want to connect to God have appeared to them. Like somebody wants to ask the kat from the turn of the 20th century. He says reb will you allow him to be to those who want God. The word ava can mean father or patriarchy. It could also mean desire. But there is another meaning here. We all have within ourselves a desire. We all have within ourselves a specific mechanism of desiring of Abraham of and that can be accessed. God says I am ready to appear to these people to the people within you. if we are ready to receive it. Now, when is God telling this to Moshe? In the thicket of slavery in Egypt, we have to somehow find within ourselves the little Abraham that God illuminates. The little yeitzk that God illuminates the little that God illuminates. The cabalists explain what Arakov represent on a on a more specific level. Abraham represents love, kindness. He was the epitome of love and kindness. The four-door tent, the unwavering tolerance for and love even toward his son Yeshu who who was an evil person until he had done toua. Abraham was a loving kindness person. And we all have within our own hearts a love for God. We all have a desire for kindness, but it needs God's appearance. It needs illumination. It needs to be lit up. And we can allow God to light that up. We'll talk about how to do that soon. Represents discipline. While Abraham was engaged in outreach out of love and kindness, was engaged in focus. He had never left Egypt. Sorry, he had never left. He never been to Egypt. He had never left Israel. He had never left the land of Israel. He was that disciplined character. He had high expectations. High expectations of Asov. That's why he wanted to give the blessings to him. He had high expectations of Yakov. And then Yakov with all of his challenges and everything represents balance. The balance of of love and discipline. And with the incredible pain and heartache that he had gone through in his child rearing experience, somehow his children all ended up, you know, being leaders in their own right, carrying on the the 12 tribes of Israel because of that balance. And we all have within ourselves a little yak of a little balance. [sighs] It needs to be illuminated. It needs God's appearance. And when God illuminates our heart, when we activate those feelings, that experience, that's an important step toward redemption. And where that happens is exactly where this conversation with God and Moshe happened. In Egypt, we often think that we have to leave Egypt so we could be free. Like, if I leave Egypt, I'll be free. If my problems go away, I'll be happy. If you know, if if if I can just figure out my my traumas and my triggers and my angst and everything else, my relationships will be more calm and settled. And that I mean that's those are probably true, but often those are circumstances that are out of our control. And sometimes a good starting point is actually the other way around. It's not that if I leave Egypt, I'll be free. If I'm free, I'll position myself to leave Egypt. If I become internally free, I'll position myself to leave Egypt. If I position myself to be internally free, I will learn how to approach that trauma differently and to not allow triggers to destroy my life. If I learn to show up differently and position myself differently in a relationship, then maybe that will lead to freedom, to being more calm and more at peace, to feeling more safe. This is what God was telling Moshe. Moshe, you're complaining. Why am I being bad to these people? And we not to, God forbid, justify this, but this is what God is telling Moshe. We need to reposition ourselves, man. We need to reposition ourselves. Stop waiting for freedom. Start living freedom. We don't just wait for Msiah to come. We start living that reality. We don't just, you know, it's like the law of attraction. How are you going to position yourself? Who are you want to be? I was once working with a couple. [snorts] And it was uh at the start of our session, it was a I'm not going to go into detail, but it was a very it was tense, man. It was very tense. Um, and the truth is I'm I'm thinking of a particular case, but this is often true with many of the couples I work with where it there's this very so I could just be more abstract in general here. There's this very turnt tense circumstance of two people who are going through a very difficult time with each other and don't like each other anymore. They might love each other, but they certainly don't like each other. [laughter] and I'll sit down with him and ask a question like, "What is the best case scenario that you can hope for from having this conversation?" If at the end of the hour you felt like this was time and money well spent, how would you know? And the answer is usually what they really want for the relationship. And it's usually a version of the relationship that they've lived in the past. They'll say something like, "Well, we'd be more trusting. We'd feel more safe. We'd feel more comfortable in our own skin. We'd feel more loving or happy." And what they're really doing is describing a past that they've had already, which means they're also describing a future they believe they could have. So now two anxious people, two angry people, two tense people are having a discussion about a redeemed relationship, about the best version of their relationship. And it's like in incredible to see. And the reason why it's incredible is because to me that's messianic. They're living messianic lives because they're not waiting for things to get better so that they could be happy. They're deciding we need to be happy so things can get better. We're not just waiting for Messiah so that life will be better. We're going to live our best, most spiritual lives so Mashiach could come. And that's what God was effectively communicating to Moshe. This is what the Jews need to do. They need to allow my appearance to seep within to start living that reality. In chapter 37 of Tanya, the author of the Tanya, the alterba writes um a huge paradigm shift in how we understand the spiritual dynamic of reward and punishment. And he tells us that the reward and punishment system of God is um it's consequential. It's cause and effect. Which means it's not like you did a mitzvah, here's a brownie. It's waiting for you in heaven. Right? You did a sin, you did nea, here is um extra temperature waiting for you in hell, right? You you know the joke where this guy goes to heaven and he's just enthralled by the by the environment and he meets his creator and he's in heaven and he says, "Let me take you to the buffet." this creator, God, let me take you to the buffet. Right? And there was like Chinese takeout. He says, "I knew it was Jewish heaven, right?" No, I'm kidding. He says, "Master of the universe. I love Chinese takeout, but I was thinking it would have been something more biblical, like milk and honey with grape vines and, you know, something a little bit more biblical." He says, "Yeah, but it's just you and me here. I'm not going to do all that just for [laughter] >> [gasps and snorts] [laughter] >> Okay. But the the way we actually understand reward punishment is that it's it's cause and effect. It's not that okay Jews, you've been doing pretty good. I think we'll send Mashiach. It's that the goodness that we do, and to take it a step further, the goodness that we live actually causes the Messianic era to come. In other words, the term reward, at least in English, might not be so accurate as much as it is an effect, an impact, cause and effect. That when we do a mitzvah, we actually bring God's presence closer. We bring the messianic era closer. When we start living a redemption lifestyle, when we start living aligned with our preferred future, we attract that preferred future to become a much closer, much more reality. [sighs] The way we live with the redemption, how do we live with gula? And this is me talking, not me, this is the Torah talking to the Jewish people in Egypt back then, but it's talking to us right now. How do we live a redemption lifestyle? How do we live with freedom? It's the diff. So, so I'll give you uh the example brought in in amongst the cabalists. the cabalists and and even I think this is kind of described in the prophets as well describe the messianic era as the birth and the exile as gestation it's pregnancy the pain of exile the pain of slavery the difficulties that we go through are the birth pains of Msiah but there will be a time where there there will be this birth and what happens the moment of birth what is the fundamental shift that happens before birth versus pre-birth the nama the soul gets blown into the body gets given to the body the gamorra with talmud tracka says that prior to a person being born the nama won't come in the sha doesn't get born until it makes a promise it's going to be a sadic it's not going to be a rash right but once that happens bam what was just a body being nurtured directly from the mother through the umbilical cord has its own independent life force it could now hear it could now see it could now cry it could now scream it can now eat before it wasn't eating its mouth was sealed. It was being nurtured through the belly button, its head between its knees. But now it spreads out and has life. What is the difference between the messianic era and exile life, vitality, where we're not just bodies, we're bodies that are animated with something much deeper. Our mitzvah aren't just behaviors. They have deep, meaningful spiritual context to them. Our relationships aren't just on paper, but they're fully lived and breathed with connection. That's going to that's what's going to happen when Msiah comes. And the way we usher in that era of vitality and life is by living that now before Msiah even comes. Like what if Mashiach came right now and I felt reborn with life? How would I see myself differently? How would I be putting on fill in differently? Because God's presence is like right here. How would I give charity differently? How would I wake up in the morning differently? What would my relationships look like? How would they be different? How would I feel more free? Living that reality now before Msiah actually comes is actually what ushers in the messianic era. And this is what God is telling Moshe. Moshe says, "God, why are you being so evil to this nation? Why are you allowing them to go through slavery?" And God says, "I appear past, present, and future." It's in the present and it's in the future. Because if they could access the part of themselves that bequet this tradition from they could access that appearance from God, that vitality from God, they have to just be ready to catch it. They have to just notice it. Okay, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.