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Haftarah Va’eira: Too Big For Your ‘Breeches’

January 10, 2013 by Patrick Beaulier

haftarah

Ezekiel 28:25-29:21

This week’s haftorah opens by Ezekiel recalling the exiles being led from Egypt and the subsequent decimation of the Pharaoh Meanwhile, over at this week’s Parshah, it’s raining plagues as Moses lobbies for his people’s freedom.
“When I gather in the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they have been scattered.. then they shall dwell on their land…and dwell upon it securely.”

Flash forward a few centuries, and Egypt is again about to receive some godly punishment—this time a forthcoming flood of conquering Babylonians. Why is Egypt in trouble this time? Ezekiel says their first sin was to renege on their promise to aid Israel when they were being attached by the Babylonians, and secondly, they’ve been arrogant—attributing their success to the Nile and not to G-d. But “the river is mine and I have made it,” and as such, an angered G-d is going to reward Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian [Read more…]

Filed Under: Jewish Text (Torah/Haftarah/Talmud) Tagged With: convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, haftarah, online conversion, Parsha Va'eira, parsha vayeira, parshah va'eira, parshah vayeira, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, vaeira, vayeira

PARSHAT VA’EIRA

January 14, 2010 by Patrick Beaulier

By M.

This week’s portion is Va’eira, which continues where it left off last week, with Moses and G_d talking. Hashem commands Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him to, you know, let His people go.
Then come the plagues.
The portion ends by telling us that G_d “strengthens” Pharaoh’s heart.
This really stuck with me and I’ve been thinking about it for a few days. What does this mean? Why would G_d “harden” or “make stubborn” Pharaoh’s heart? How could a G_d who created Free Will intentionally make Pharaoh not listen, essentially forcing him to sin without the chance of repentance?

Ramban tells us that Pharaoh and Egypt were punished because they originally sinned of their own accord, through their own free will. They chose to enslave the Israelites and treat them the way they did. They made their own choices to do wrong, and they continued in them. Thus they passed too far beyond the limits of G_d’s redemption.
“He will not be able to repent, but will die because of the sin he had committed previously of his own free will…” (Hil. Teshuvah 6:3)

They cultivated their own bad habits.
What this says to me is that we need to be careful with how we act. It is too easy to get into the habit of taking the easy way out, to be sly and clever and underhanded, to do wrong and not think bad about it. Maybe it starts out by getting too much change back and you keep it. Then you take credit for work that’s not yours. Maybe next you see something of someone else’s and you take. Then you start to talk bad about someone, or are putting people down. Eventually, you become so ingrained, so indoctrinated by your own bad habits that you don’t even notice that you are cheating anymore.
Then  it’s Game Over.
You’ve gone so far you don’t even think about it anymore, and your heart has become strengthened and you may not be able to change. You can’t get back to where you were. You’re lost. That is being beyond G_d’s redemption.
Don’t let it go that far.

Filed Under: Jewish Text (Torah/Haftarah/Talmud) Tagged With: Counterculture, darshan yeshiva, Jewish, Jews, Judaism, Moses, Moshe, Parsha, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, pharaoh, Punk, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, Religion, Torah, vaeira

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