This week's parsha features two kal vachomer arguments. A kal vachomer is an extrapolation from a minor premise to a major one. As we will see, both kal vachomer arguments involve the same plague and lead to the same lesson.
In the first argument, Moshe Rabbeinu says to God: "Behold, the Jews didn't listen to me , so how can You expect Pharaoh to listen?" (Sh'mot 6:12) Rashi comments that this is one of ten kal vachomer reasonings mentioned in the Torah. The background is that the Almighty sent Moshe to Pharaoh and the Jews, in last week's reading, and things only went from bad to worse.
Things were looking bleak, with no humanly foreseeable hope for the future, and God's dramatic response was: "Now you'll see what I will do to Pharaoh, for I will send out the people with a mighty arm." (6:1) Strong words, and that is exactly what was needed. For worse than all the slavery was that the people had despaired of hope. Their minds and mouths were not occupied with redemption. And that's why God Almighty opened this parsha of Geulah with those words; if the Jews wouldn't utter the needed words themselves, then God would jumpstart the Geulah for them, with words.
As the S'fat Emet (and others) notes, the essence of Egyptian slavery was that Jewish mouths were enslaved, and with them, Jewish minds and hopes. "It's a foregone conclusion. The game is over," was heard then, as it is so often heard today. That's why the S'fat Emet explains the Pesach redemption as peh sach, meaning now the mouth talks; it's freed.
And we see the same from the other, misnagdisher end of the spectrum: Rabbi Aharon Feldman, in The Juggler and the King (page 63, footnote), quotes Midrash Rabbah: "Why were the Egyptians smitten with frogs? Because talmidei chachamim, Torah scholars, learn out loud day and night, and are therefore likened to frogs, who croak day and night; and with the slavery, the Egyptians stopped up the voices of our scholars." And in the Rabbah bar Bar Chana stories (numbers 5 and 6), the enemy of the frog is none other than the tanin, the serpent; i.e., Pharaoh, whose mortal enemy in the opening plagues is Aharon, who is the peh, the mouth ( of Moses ) - the croaking frog. This tanin, who is Pharaoh, is quoted in our Haftorah: "So says Pharaoh, the great tanin, that lies in the Nile: 'The river is mine, and I created myself.' But I the Lord will put hooks in your jaws and drag you up out of your rivers, and I will leave you fallen in the wilds, to be eaten by the beasts of the earth."
The second kal vachomer of our parsha is seen in Pesachim 53b. Todos of Rome expounded: What did Chananyah, Mishael and Azaryah see that moved them to deliver themselves to the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezar for the sanctification of God's Name (mesirut nefesh al kiddush HaShem)? They reasoned a kal vachomer argument from the passage of the frogs of Egypt, as follows: Whereas the frogs, which are not commanded in the mitzvah of sanctifying HaShem's name, nonetheless threw themselves into 'hot ovens and kneading bowls', we who are so commanded, all the more should be willing to sacrifice our lives for HaShem's Name."
Rabbi Yonatan Eibeshuetz asks: How could Todos say "the frogs were not commanded," when the verse says (7:28): "And the Nile will swarm with frogs, which will go up and come into your houses, bedrooms, ovens," etc. Obviously, the frogs were commanded. He answers that actually, there was no command to each and every frog, who could have argued: 'You go into the oven, and as for me, I shall go into the bedroom, under the nice soft covers.' But even without such a personal command, each frog was moser nefesh l'ma'an kedushat HaShem and jumped into the oven. And from them, Chananyah and his friends reasoned a kal vachomer and jumped into the furnace.
This lesson is noteworthy because each frog didn't argue that his fellow frog go to the fires and he certainly didn't push him in. This lesson is especially important in light of one more plague: blood. The Rebbe of Talna, Rabbi Yithchak Weinberg, notes that the Zohar says: "'And the fish of the Nile died' (7:21) This teaches that the Jews stopped sinning," especially sins of murder and adultery . The Aznayim L'Torah cites that they specifically stopped the sins of lashon hara and diltoria, of slander and informing. Just as the fish in the sea gobble each other up, the Jews had been sinning against each other. This ended, the Talner Rebbe notes, when the national soul sensed the time of Redemption, and the people changed.
For the last few years, as we read Vaera, our national big fish gather along the sea, in Herzliya. These big fish, the biggest fish since Quisling and Benedict Arnold, have no qualms with gobbling up littler fish. Yearly, they spout their treachery about which of their brethren they'll throw into the flames - the Vice Prime Minister says 95% of Judea and Samaria, the former deputy head of the armed services says "only" 68% (what a tzadik!). They make these proclamations in the name of peace and security, seeing no other way to these aims than to further the interests of our Arab enemies and throw Jewish brothers to the dogs.
Just as Pharaoh in Hebrew means "pay back" - indeed, Rabbi Matis Weinberg notes that the Rambam unfailingly refers to the Egyptian monarch as the model of Divine retribution (Frameworks pages 80-81) - so too, these fish are only sowing seeds of destruction, as we saw in Gush Katif last summer and in the "peace and security" now coming out of Gaza.
All we need do is trust in the Lord, who has given us ample strength to stand up to our enemies, and who concludes this Haftorah with: "I will cause the strength of the House of Israel to blossom, and I will give you [the prophet and talmid chacham] pitchon peh [freedom of speech] in their midst, and they shall know that I am God."
In the first argument, Moshe Rabbeinu says to God: "Behold, the Jews didn't listen to me , so how can You expect Pharaoh to listen?" (Sh'mot 6:12) Rashi comments that this is one of ten kal vachomer reasonings mentioned in the Torah. The background is that the Almighty sent Moshe to Pharaoh and the Jews, in last week's reading, and things only went from bad to worse.
Things were looking bleak, with no humanly foreseeable hope for the future, and God's dramatic response was: "Now you'll see what I will do to Pharaoh, for I will send out the people with a mighty arm." (6:1) Strong words, and that is exactly what was needed. For worse than all the slavery was that the people had despaired of hope. Their minds and mouths were not occupied with redemption. And that's why God Almighty opened this parsha of Geulah with those words; if the Jews wouldn't utter the needed words themselves, then God would jumpstart the Geulah for them, with words.
As the S'fat Emet (and others) notes, the essence of Egyptian slavery was that Jewish mouths were enslaved, and with them, Jewish minds and hopes. "It's a foregone conclusion. The game is over," was heard then, as it is so often heard today. That's why the S'fat Emet explains the Pesach redemption as peh sach, meaning now the mouth talks; it's freed.
And we see the same from the other, misnagdisher end of the spectrum: Rabbi Aharon Feldman, in The Juggler and the King (page 63, footnote), quotes Midrash Rabbah: "Why were the Egyptians smitten with frogs? Because talmidei chachamim, Torah scholars, learn out loud day and night, and are therefore likened to frogs, who croak day and night; and with the slavery, the Egyptians stopped up the voices of our scholars." And in the Rabbah bar Bar Chana stories (numbers 5 and 6), the enemy of the frog is none other than the tanin, the serpent; i.e., Pharaoh, whose mortal enemy in the opening plagues is Aharon, who is the peh, the mouth ( of Moses ) - the croaking frog. This tanin, who is Pharaoh, is quoted in our Haftorah: "So says Pharaoh, the great tanin, that lies in the Nile: 'The river is mine, and I created myself.' But I the Lord will put hooks in your jaws and drag you up out of your rivers, and I will leave you fallen in the wilds, to be eaten by the beasts of the earth."
The second kal vachomer of our parsha is seen in Pesachim 53b. Todos of Rome expounded: What did Chananyah, Mishael and Azaryah see that moved them to deliver themselves to the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezar for the sanctification of God's Name (mesirut nefesh al kiddush HaShem)? They reasoned a kal vachomer argument from the passage of the frogs of Egypt, as follows: Whereas the frogs, which are not commanded in the mitzvah of sanctifying HaShem's name, nonetheless threw themselves into 'hot ovens and kneading bowls', we who are so commanded, all the more should be willing to sacrifice our lives for HaShem's Name."
Rabbi Yonatan Eibeshuetz asks: How could Todos say "the frogs were not commanded," when the verse says (7:28): "And the Nile will swarm with frogs, which will go up and come into your houses, bedrooms, ovens," etc. Obviously, the frogs were commanded. He answers that actually, there was no command to each and every frog, who could have argued: 'You go into the oven, and as for me, I shall go into the bedroom, under the nice soft covers.' But even without such a personal command, each frog was moser nefesh l'ma'an kedushat HaShem and jumped into the oven. And from them, Chananyah and his friends reasoned a kal vachomer and jumped into the furnace.
This lesson is noteworthy because each frog didn't argue that his fellow frog go to the fires and he certainly didn't push him in. This lesson is especially important in light of one more plague: blood. The Rebbe of Talna, Rabbi Yithchak Weinberg, notes that the Zohar says: "'And the fish of the Nile died' (7:21) This teaches that the Jews stopped sinning," especially sins of murder and adultery . The Aznayim L'Torah cites that they specifically stopped the sins of lashon hara and diltoria, of slander and informing. Just as the fish in the sea gobble each other up, the Jews had been sinning against each other. This ended, the Talner Rebbe notes, when the national soul sensed the time of Redemption, and the people changed.
For the last few years, as we read Vaera, our national big fish gather along the sea, in Herzliya. These big fish, the biggest fish since Quisling and Benedict Arnold, have no qualms with gobbling up littler fish. Yearly, they spout their treachery about which of their brethren they'll throw into the flames - the Vice Prime Minister says 95% of Judea and Samaria, the former deputy head of the armed services says "only" 68% (what a tzadik!). They make these proclamations in the name of peace and security, seeing no other way to these aims than to further the interests of our Arab enemies and throw Jewish brothers to the dogs.
Just as Pharaoh in Hebrew means "pay back" - indeed, Rabbi Matis Weinberg notes that the Rambam unfailingly refers to the Egyptian monarch as the model of Divine retribution (Frameworks pages 80-81) - so too, these fish are only sowing seeds of destruction, as we saw in Gush Katif last summer and in the "peace and security" now coming out of Gaza.
All we need do is trust in the Lord, who has given us ample strength to stand up to our enemies, and who concludes this Haftorah with: "I will cause the strength of the House of Israel to blossom, and I will give you [the prophet and talmid chacham] pitchon peh [freedom of speech] in their midst, and they shall know that I am God."