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Ari Sacher

‘Faulty Logic’ Parashat Vaera 5785

G-d sends Moshe to Pharaoh to demand that he release his Jewish slaves. Pharaoh is mildly irritated and instead of releasing the Jews, he increases their workload. Moshe, frustrated, returns to G-d and tells Him to find Himself another prophet. G-d responds by telling Moshe to inform the Jewish People that He is going to release them from their bondage, give them the Torah, and take them to their ancient homeland of Israel. But when Moshe informs them of their impending release from bondage, they are indifferent [Shemot 6:9]: “They did not listen to Moshe because of [their] shortness of breath and [their] hard labour.”

Undeterred by their cold response, G-d tells Moshe to up the ante and to return to Pharaoh [Shemot 6:11]: “Come, speak to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, that he will let the children of Israel out of his land”. Moshe sees this task not only as futile, but as illogical, a directive, as it were, unbecoming of a Supreme Being. Moshe replies [Shemot 6:12] “The Jewish People would not listen to me; how, then, should Pharaoh listen to me, seeing as I am tongue-tied?” Moshe was leveraging a logical principal called an a fortiori argument (kal va’chomer), a form of reasoning that draws upon an established proposition to argue in favor of a second proposition that is considered even more certain. For example, if it is known that driving 10 kph over the speed limit is punishable by a fine, then, a fortiori, driving 20 kph over the speed limit is also punishable by a fine. If something is true in a less extreme case, it is likely to be true in a more extreme case. Moshe was telling G-d that if the home crowd wouldn’t listen to him, how could He expect a highly antagonistic audience to care about what he has to say?

There are two logical problems with Moshe’s a fortiori argument. First and foremost, the Jewish People had a very good reason why not to listen to him. Indeed, the Torah explicitly states this reason: They did not listen to him “because of [their] shortness of breath and [their] hard labour”. They had been broken and defeated by the Egyptians. All they cared about was making it home safely at the end of the day. They had no past, no present, and no future. They had nothing to wistfully remember and nothing to hope for. And so when Moshe calls, using highfalutin words like “freedom”, “redemption”, and “homeland”, it is not surprising that his words fall on deaf ears. But perhaps Pharaoh, who had his own slaves to perform his menial labour, would have more patience with Moshe. This punches a large logical hole in Moshe’s logic. The second problem with Moshe’s argument is his appending of the phrase “seeing as I am tongue-tied”. How does this make his argument any stronger? Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi[1], writing in his super-commentary on Rashi[2], suggests that Moshe was not aware of the real reason why the Jewish People did not listen to him. He was convinced they did not listen to him because of his speech impediment. And if his speech impediment was irritating to them, then it would most certainly offend Pharaoh, the leader of the world’s only superpower, a person used to speaking with eloquent spokesmen and politicians. The best proof that Moshe’s argument was logical was that it accurately predicted Pharaoh’s response to his demand that Pharaoh “let my people go”. Pharaoh, just as predicted, does not listen to Moshe. He does not let the Jewish People go free. He remains resolute until G-d beats him over the head with ten plagues and he has no other choice but to let them go.

It would be easy to complete this essay right here. We have tidily explained Moshe’s logic and refuted an seeming logical fault. We could just write “QED” and move on. But doing so would prevent us from revealing an insight much larger than proving or disproving some logical claim. To continue, we will need to implement some logic of our own.

Let us return to Moshe’s a fortiori argument. He begins with the premise that the Jewish People have not listened to him and he concludes that if they would not listen to him, then Pharaoh will surely not listen to him. What does Moshe mean when he says that the Jewish People did not “listen” to him? Does he mean to say that they stuck their fingers in their ears? The medieval commentators are not exactly helpful here. Rashi suggests that they did not accept his words of comfort. What does that even mean? Did they tell him, “We have considered your words of comfort and we have decided not to accept them”? Rabbi Obadiah Seforno[3] explains that they did not mentally absorb his message. The Rashbam[4] asserts that they did not believe him. How does Moshe so sure of this? Was it because they did not give him a standing ovation after his speech?

We can understand how the Jewish People could have “listened” to Moshe by understanding how Pharaoh was expected to “listen” to Moshe. Here, things are straightforward: G-d commands Pharaoh to free the Jewish People from their bondage. This is a direct order, one which Pharaoh is expected to obey. Our logical conclusion must be that “listening” is equivalent to “obeying”. Assuming the same definition is valid for the listening, or lack of listening, by the Jewish People, it must mean that they, too, did not “obey” Moshe. The trouble with this definition is that Pharaoh received a clear directive, which he disregarded. Conversely, Moshe came to the Jewish People not with a directive, but with a message: The time for their redemption haג arrived. What were they meant to do to prove that they had “listened”? I suggest that they were meant to begin preparing for redemption. How so? Immediately before the destruction of the first Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash), Jeremiah [32:14-15] commands the Jews in Jerusalem to store the deeds of purchase to their homes in earthen jars where they will last for the duration of their exile. By storing the documents, they were preparing for their redemption.

Judaism cannot be relegated to the mind or even the spirit. Judaism demands action. Jeremiah did not demand that the Jews believe his prophecy, he demanded that they act on it. This was the response that Moshe wanted to elicit. The Jewish slaves could have begun packing. They could have begun storing food for the trip[5]. They did neither. They just went on with their sad ordinary lives. Now, let’s take one more step. Before Moshe returns to Pharaoh, G-d informs him [Shemot 7:4] “Pharaoh will not listen to you, and so I will lay My hand upon Egypt and deliver My people the Israelites, from the land of Egypt”. Whether Pharaoh plays along or not, the end result will remain the same – the Jewish People will leave Egypt. G-d is telling Moshe that either Pharaoh will send them out or I will pull them out. The choice is his. Reflecting this back onto Moshe’s words to the Jewish People, he is telling them that the time for their redemption is now. This is happening. Two paths lay before them: they can be spectators or they can be participants. They can run at the front or they can be carried kicking and screaming. The choice was theirs. And they, like Pharaoh, chose unwisely.

I’ve stated so many times over these past fifteen months that tectonic pieces have been set into motion. It is far from clear which direction we as a country and we as a people are going. So many people have been killed, and watching Hamas as they regroup and as they rebuild is sickening. But there is no denying that Israel’s security situation has never looked brighter and, that a new Middle East is blossoming before our eyes, one in which Israel is no longer a pariah, but, rather, a leader. Does this signal the eschatological end of days? Who knows. But it behoves us to prepare just in case. The question is how. Should we sell our houses and come on aliyah? Should we brush up on the laws of sacrifices and ritual purity so that we’ll be ready when the Beit HaMikdash is built? Should we bake bread? A conversation I had with R’ Alon gave me a starting point. There were many factors that led to the Massacre of October 7 and the ensuing war. For many years, our political and military leaders lived under a conception, or misconception, that Hamas was deterred and that what they wanted most of all in the world was to administer the People of Gaza, nothing that a few suitcases of Qatari dollars couldn’t fix.

There is nearly unanimous consensus that this conception allowed the massacre to happen. But why did it happen when it happened? On October 6, Israel was a country on the verge of a Civil War. The government was rushing headlong to legislate judicial reform. One half of the country supported the legislation and the other half brought the house down – wildcat strikes were held that shut down the economy, reservists refused order for military service, and many Israelis told the international press that they would leave the country if such reforms were passed. Ten days before the massacre, on Yom Kippur, Rosh Yehudi, a Jewish outreach organization, held outdoor services with a dividing wall (mechitzah) in direct violation of a court order to hold the services without a mechitzah, even though this would have been religiously problematic. Protesters showed up at the main prayer sight on Dizengoff St. in Tel Aviv, sparking bitter confrontations between organizers and attendees and protesters, and causing unprecedented scenes of anger and accusations. All this on the most solemn day of the year. Hamas has openly stated that Israeli division was a significant parameter in the timing of the massacre. They’re already at each other’s throats.

Since October 7, Israeli unity has been at an all-time high. While some Israelis would still like to return to October 6, the vast majority do not. We have seen the enemy and it is not us. If we want to prepare for our redemption, a good first step would be actively furthering Jewish unity. Stop talking and start listening. Stop speaking in terms of them and us. If you like learning Torah, invite someone who knows less than you to learn together. The Torah has a charm of its own. It needs no justification. Let it do the speaking and not you. If we reach out our hands, there is a fair chance that someone else will reach out and hold them, someone who might act differently than you, someone who might think differently than you, someone who might look differently than you. That someone is your brother. Whether you know it or not, you’re both marching in the same direction. You might as well march together.

It would be, after all, be the logical thing to do.

Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5785

Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Shlomo ben Esther, Sheindel Devorah bat Rina, Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel, and Meir ben Drora.

[1] Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi, known by his acronym “Re’em”, lived in Turkey at the turn of the  15th century.

[2] Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, known by his acronym “Rashi”, was the most eminent of the medieval commentators. He lived in northern France in the 11th century. Rashi, in his commentary on Shemot [6:12] notes that Moshe’s argument was one of ten a fortiori arguments in the Torah.

[3] Ovadia ben Jacob Seforno, known as “The Seforno”, lived in Italy at the turn of the 16th century.

[4] Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, known by his acronym “Rashbam”, was the grandson of Rashi. He lived in France in the 12th century.

[5] In an earlier shiur, we demonstrated that the fact that the bread baked by the Jewish People on the eve of exodus did not have time to rise was testament to their lack of faith. Had they really believed they were going to be redeemed, they would have baked their bread earlier in the day, giving it time to rise.

About the Author
Ari Sacher is a Rocket Scientist, and has worked in the design and development of missiles for over thirty years. He has briefed hundreds of US Congressmen on Israeli Missile Defense, including three briefings on Capitol Hill at the invitation of House Majority Leader. Ari is a highly requested speaker, enabling even the layman to understand the "rocket science". Ari has also been a scholar in residence in numerous synagogues in the USA, Canada, UK, South Africa, and Australia. He is a riveting speaker, using his experience in the defense industry to explain the Torah in a way that is simultaneously enlightening and entertaining. Ari came on aliya from the USA in 1982. He studied at Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh, and then spent seven years studying at the Technion. Since 2000 he has published a weekly parasha shiur that is read around the world. Ari lives in Moreshet in the Western Galil along with his wife and eight children.
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