Parsha Vaeira: How Torah Transforms One Into a Prince

Rabbi Zweig addresses three difficulties in Parshas Vaeira. First, when Pharaoh offers to let the Jews sacrifice in Egypt, Moshe refuses, saying the Egyptians would stone them for slaughtering their gods. Yet later, on Shabbos (שבת) HaGadol, the Jews publicly took the Paschal lamb for four days and slaughtered it—and nothing happened to them. How could Moshe's warning have been accurate? Second, Pharaoh correctly foresaw that the Jewish people would suffer bloodshed in the desert under the astrological sign of Mars, yet we know ein mazal l'Yisrael—the Jews are not subject to the zodiac. Hashem (ה׳) took Avrohom and lifted him above the stars; how then could Pharaoh's vision be correct? Third, the Gemara (גמרא) derives from the frogs that entered the burning ovens that one must give one's life for Kiddush Hashem, as Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah learned. But frogs have no free choice—why is their act considered mesirus nefesh, and why were they rewarded by not being killed? The answer begins with a fundamental yesod: God told Adam, "ur'du b'dgas hayom"—man will have dominion over all animals and nature. Rashi (רש"י) notes that when man sins, he becomes "yordu," lowered, and then the animal kingdom gains dominion over him. Man's natural state is to control his environment entirely, including microbes and disease. This dominion is not merely physical but spiritual. When a person is spiritually healthy and connected to God, nature itself becomes subject to him. When he is spiritually weakened through sin, he becomes vulnerable.