Parasha Vaera 5782

Me

I don’t know about you guys, but I couldn’t say goodbye to 2021 fast enough… This past year was one of the most trying of my entire life… And it seemed like every time we got past one hurdle, one trial, one crisis it was just in time to walk into the next.

We started 2021 off with me barely able to walk due to achilles pain, which then led to surgery on my left achilles tendon. That was followed by six weeks of casts, knee scooters, and crutches. Around four weeks into being in a cast post opp we have to rush to Illinois because our sister-in-law was dying. This was something that hit hard and was a difficult struggle on it’s own…

Three weeks to the day later Danielle’s grandmother dies, and we have to make another emergency trip to Illinois. I am out of the cast at this point, but am just starting to put weight on the leg and am still on crutches.

So, we’re now three months into 2021 and are bouncing back from one surgery and two unexpected deaths in the family. A few weeks later we find out that Danielle’s brother, who’s wife had just died, has just had a major stroke—over the coming months this major stroke gave way to several more strokes and him currently being wheel chair bound and in rehab.

In the midst of all of this we are still dealing with all the headaches of getting our buildings back together after Hurricane Sally. In July we finally get back in our building and are getting things set back up and ready for services at home again. Then, a little over a week after our first service back home again I have to have the same exact surgery on my right leg and have to start the whole cast, knee scooter, crutches and PT thing all over again.

As if that wasn’t all fun enough on it’s own, in November Elyana and I contract Covid and are stuck in isolation.

There’s a lot more that happened in 2021 as well, and on top of all our crises, as rabbi and rebbitzen, Danielle and I are also walking through and carrying the burden for each and every one of your crises as well.

So, if I could sum up 2021 simply, it would be that it was a year of one hit after another just flat out knocking the wind out of us, over and over and over again, and in a lot of ways it just felt like we were never able to fully catch our breath again.

We

And I know we all have had our own ups and downs (probably feels like a lot more downs) in 2021… And when we talk about having the wind knocked out of us over the past 365 days, we all can think of time after time where this has been the case.

Whether we’ve dealt with health crises… Or family drama… Hurricane damage… Financial and employment worries… Or a thousand other options…

Each of us have, in one way or another, all felt like someone had kneed us in our gut this year and we’ve just struggled catching our breath.

God

Well, this week we read Parasha Vaera, Exodus 6:2-9:35, and our Parasha picks up right where Shemot left off last week. In Exodus 6 the Lord begins to reaffirm to Moses what His plans for Israel are. In this we see the promise that HaShem has not forgotten his covenant with His people and the four promises from which the four cups of Passover are based—”I will bring you out,” “I will save you,” “I will redeem you,” and “I will take you as my people and I will be Your God.”

The Lord reiterates what Moses is suppose to do, and Moses argues a little again. This is followed by a random genealogy of Moses and Aaron, which is all tied back together again with God’s reiteration of what Moses is suppose to do and Moses arguing.

In chapter 7 Moses and Aaron reappear before Pharoah and beginning showing the signs and wonders Adonai has equipped them for, beginning with Aaron’s staff turning into a snake, the Egyptian magicians replicate it and Aaron’s staff swallows up the magicians staffs. This is immediately followed by the beginning of the Ten Plagues—water to blood.

In chapter 8 we see the next three plagues—frogs, gnats, and flies. And chapter 9 follows up with plagues 5-7—death of Egypt’s livestock, boils, and hail—these are also where the plagues do not impact Israel in Goshen. With each plague Pharaoh, at least to some degree, recognizes Adonai’s sovereignty in that he begs Moses to pray for relief. But, he continually hardens his heart toward the Divine mandate to Shalach et ami (to let my people go/send out my people).

Now, we don’t know the exact length of time with which it took for the ten plagues to play out in their entirety and for Israel to be cast out of Egypt. But, Midrash Rabbah tells us that the rabbinic thought is that with each of the plagues Moses would warn Pharaoh and Egypt for 24 days, then the plague itself would occur and would last for seven days. All in all, Jewish tradition says from Moses and Aaron’s first returning to Egypt and telling the elders of Israel that God would set them free, through the ten plagues, to Israel leaving Egypt took approximately one full year.

Now, with a brief synopsis of Parasha Vaera covered, I’d like to take our attention to a very specific thing we see in this week’s Parasha. And I believe this to be a reality that we as believers need to recognize and rely on the Lord for in our own walks in the days we live in.

But I want us to pay close attention to a powerful principle we find in Parasha Vaera:

Sometimes we get the breath knocked out of us and we feel so broken we can’t move, but we serve a G-d who fights for us even when we are out of commission.

(Repeat)

Remember, last week we talked about Parasha Shemot and we saw Moses going to the elders of Israel and telling them that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has heard their cries for freedom, He has not forgotten His covenant with them, and He has sent Moses and Aaron to free them from Egypt. To say Israel was excited would be an understatement, they were ready to go immediately! But, God had other plans, bigger plans and Pharaoh made their labor worse, not better, and they definitely did not see immediate freedom.

So last week’s parasha ended with Moses crying out to God, “How could you do this…? You haven’t made anything better for Your people!”

Parasha Vaera opens with HaShem reiterating His covenant relationship with Israel. So let’s dive into the Bible together…

Exodus 6:2–4 TLV

God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am Adonai. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, as El Shaddai. Yet by My Name, Adonai, did I not make Myself known to them. I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage where they journeyed.

Keep in mind, we have chapter and verse partitions, and we have specific passages we read throughout the year as progressive Parashot. But this is all a flowing narrative that we are reading here. So God is responding here to what Moses is crying out at the end of last week’s Parasha.

Adonai reiterates who He is and His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, His covenant with B’nei Yisrael.

The next thing we read is what we call the Four Promises from which we get the four cups of wine that are drunk in the Passover Seder.

Exodus 6:6–8 TLV

Therefore say to Bnei-Yisrael: I am Adonai, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will deliver you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you to Myself as a people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am Adonai your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. So I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, and give it to you as an inheritance. I am Adonai.”

So Moses goes back to Israel again and tries to reassure them of God’s faithfulness. He tells them everything that God has just said to him, including the four promises. But Israel is too broken… They got their hopes up the first time and the world came crashing down around their feet and they just don’t have the strength to try again.

Exodus 6:9 TLV

Moses spoke this way to Bnei-Yisrael, but they did not listen to him because of their broken spirit and cruel bondage.

Israel was broken… They were 100% on board with breaking out of Egypt and hitting the road when it seemed like it was going to be easy, but then things got tough and they quickly threw in the towel. In fact, let’s look at verse 9 again real quick…

Exodus 6:9 TLV

Moses spoke this way to Bnei-Yisrael, but they did not listen to him because of their broken spirit and cruel bondage.

In Hebrew it says, “Va’dabeir Moshe bein el-B’nei Yisrael v’lo sham’u el-Moshe mikotzeir ruach umei’avodah kashah”

There are a couple of words to pay close attention to here, and they really paint us a pretty important picture of where Israel is at this moment mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

First we see the phrase, “v’lo sham’u el-Moshe”—They did not listen to Moses… The Hebrew word Sham’u is from the root word Shama (same as Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4), and it means to listen intently and respond with action. Israel heard the words that Moses was speaking to them, but they could not bring themselves to Shama—to listen and respond, to heed what Moses was saying. Kind of like when I ask my kids to clean their rooms and they hear the words coming out of my mouth but they don’t actually respond to what I am saying with action.

But why? Why is Israel not willing to Shama what Moses is saying? Why are they not able to hear and heed the Word of the Lord?

The next phrase we see is “mikotzeir ruach umei’avodah kashah”—The Hebrew word Mikotzeir is from the root word Kotzer which means shortness. And we’re all familiar with the word Ruach, which is usually translated as spirit (such as Ruach HaKodesh or Ruach Elohim) but Ruach also means breath or wind. Israel had the wind knocked out of them by their cruel bondage.

So when we read this verse in Hebrew we see “Va’dabeir Moshe bein el-B’nei Yisrael v’lo sham’u el-Moshe mikotzeir ruach umei’avodah kashah” which can literally be translated as “Moses spoke this way to B’nei Yisrael, but they did not heed him because of their shortness of breath and the cruel bondage…”

This is both a physical and spiritual reality. Physically Israel had the literal wind knocked out of them because of the crazy workload now thrust upon their backs by Pharaoh. The slavery and bondage had become even more cruel and painful… And when you’re working hard sometimes you find yourself gasping for air and when this happens it makes it even more complicated to get out the weeds.

Spiritually Israel had the wind knocked out of them because they bought into the promise of freedom that Moses dangled in front of them, then things got way worse instead of better. They lost their confidence, they lost their excitement, they lost their expectation and anticipation. Their spirits were literally broken because the reality of what God had in plan and their expectation of how it would happen were not the same. They found themselves broken and downtrodden.

(Talk about running in workouts at the gym)

They couldn’t Shema, listen and heed, what Moses was saying not because it wasn’t true or wouldn’t happen and not because they didn’t want to be free… But because they had the wind knocked out of them, both physically and spiritually.

Let’s take a quick look again at the principle we’re dealing with today:

Sometimes we get the breath knocked out of us and we feel so broken we can’t move, but we serve a G-d who fights for us even when we are out of commission.

I think, and perhaps I’m being presumptuous here, that every single one of us listening to this sermon today can completely feel what Israel is going through here, especially after 2021…

But, remember, Israel had an expectation they had worked up in their heads of how God was going to work. But God wasn’t working within the constraints of Israel’s expectations. He wasn’t simply freeing Israel from Egypt because of the promise of the Promised Land made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. No, He was freeing Israel as a foreshadowing of the fulfillment of a greater Promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…

Genesis 22:17–18 TLV

I will richly bless you and bountifully multiply your seed like the stars of heaven, and like the sand that is on the seashore, and your seed will possess the gate of his enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed—because you obeyed My voice.”

The Land is a big part of the picture, but the bigger picture is the Salvation of the World, to the Jew first and also to the Nations!!! Israel’s freedom from Egypt prepares the way for Israel to stand at the base of Mount Sinai and encounter the Shechinah of Adonai and hear His Voice proclaim the Aseret HaDibrot. All of this is a big picture foreshadowing of the bigger picture in which the Lord would send His only begotten Son to offer His life as our spotless Passover Lamb that we may be freed by His Blood from slavery to sin and death, which prepares the way for us to encounter the indwelling of the Ruach HaKodesh (the Shechinah) and to hear His voice guiding our lives and empowering us to lead others to salvation and discipleship.

And in the same way that Israel had expectations that their freedom from Egypt would come easy and quick, we often have the same ill-conceived notions that our walk in faith and freedom in the Lord while still living in a fallen world is going to be easy… But what exactly does Yeshua say about what our walk with Him will be like?

John 15:18–21 TLV

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But you are not of the world, since I have chosen you out of the world; therefore the world hates you. “Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. “But all these things they will do to you for the sake of My name, because they do not know the One who sent Me.

And again

John 16:31–33 TLV

Yeshua answered them, “Do you now believe? Look, the hour is coming—indeed has come—when you will be scattered, each to his own, and you will abandon Me. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have shalom. In the world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world!”

We come to faith in Yeshua HaMashiach and we have these unrealistic expectations that everything is going to be golden from here. We are free from slavery to sin and everything is going to be smooth and easy. We think everyone we share the Good News with will instantly accept Yeshua themselves. But, Yeshua says that following Him means things will get rough from time to time.

So what do we do when the world comes at us because of our faith in Yeshua? And you better believe me when I tell you that the further we roll into the End Times the more the world around us is going to villanize us because of our faith in Yeshua, because of the Ruach transformation in our lives, because our biblically aligned worldview, our biblically aligned lifestyle, because our biblically aligned allegiances are counterintuitive to the ways of the world.

Let me remind you of our principle we’re wrestling with totday:

Sometimes we get the breath knocked out of us and we feel so broken we can’t move, but we serve a G-d who fights for us even when we are out of commission.

So what do we do when the world knocks the breath out of us? What do we do when we find ourselves like Israel here in Exodus 6--“mikotzeir ruach umei’avodah kashah” (with a shortness of breath because of the cruelness of the world around us)? Do we throw in the towel and give up? Do we throw our hands up and cry out to God, “How could you do this to me? You made all these promises and look where I am now?”

Or is there another, better reaction when we find ourselves without the strength to carry on because the world around us has knocked our breath out and all we can do is rely on the strength of God…?

We see a mirror image, of sorts, to what Adonai says to Israel through Moses in Exodus 6:2-8. In Exodus 6 Israel’s faith is rocked and they blame God and God reassures them. In John 6 things have gotten tough, some of the disciples of Yeshua have quit walking with Him and thrown in the towel. The Twelve have now seen what that looks like right before their eyes.

John 6:67–69 TLV

So Yeshua said to the Twelve, “You don’t want to leave also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life! We have trusted and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

When things got tough and Peter got the wind knocked out of him he recognized from where his strength comes and that God will fight for him, even when he is out of commission.

Or what about Paul’s response in 2 Timothy?

2 Timothy 1:8–12 TLV

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but share in suffering for the Good News according to the power of God. He has saved us and called us with a holy calling—not because of our deeds but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Messiah Yeshua before time began, but now has been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Messiah Yeshua. Indeed, He nullified the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the Good News. For this Good News I was appointed a herald and an emissary and a teacher. For this reason I also am suffering these things—but I am not ashamed, for I know in whom I have trusted and I am convinced He is able to safeguard what I have entrusted to Him until that Day.

Or what about Jame’s response?

James 1:2–4 TLV

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

and picking up again…

James 1:12 TLV

Happy is the one who endures testing, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love Him.

Sometimes we get the breath knocked out of us and we feel so broken we can’t move, but we serve a G-d who fights for us even when we are out of commission.

Look, this past year—realistically the last two years—have been miserable to say the least… We have all encountered trials and testing in our own walks, many of which have been beyond anything we thought we could have the strength for. And I am sure most all of us at one point or another have looked at where we are verses where we thought we’d be and felt exactly like Israel in Parasha Vaera...

Exodus 6:9 TLV

Moses spoke this way to Bnei-Yisrael, but they did not listen to him because of their broken spirit and cruel bondage.

But when the world crashes around us, when we get figuratively kneed in the gut and we can’t catch our breath, we must trust that God is fighting for us even when we are out of commission. We must trust in His plan, trust in His Salvation, trust in His Ruach’s power in our lives. This is only manageable if we are actually pressing into His Presence day in and day out through our discipleship and making sure He is our number one priority.

You

What have you been facing recently that has just flat out knocked the breath out of you physically, emotionally, and spiritually?

Are you experiencing a crisis in your marriage? Are you experiencing a crisis in your walk with the Lord? Are you experiencing a crisis in your job? Your finances? Your children? Your extended family? You calling?

Whatever it is, whatever the world is throwing at you making your burden heavy, remember that Yeshua gave His life so that you can be freed from the bondage of the enemy. Know that He is fighting for you. Know that He has great things in store for you and that He desires to use you through His Ruach to impact the hearts and lives of those around you with the transformational work of the Good News.

1 John 4:4 TLV

You are from God, children, and you have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

We

If our worship team will make their way back up to the stage. (Unmute the worship team)

Listen guys, 2022 is a new year… Today is the first day of a brand new opportunity to rededicate our hearts and lives to the Lord.

We are drawing closer and closer to the return of Mashiach and as we do things around us are only going to get worse. But, there is one reality that remains true, we still have a bigger picture purpose to fulfill. Even as the world around us spirals rapidly down the drain, even as the world around us attempts to make our lives difficult, there is a tremendous harvest of souls before us.

Yeshua says the fields are ripe and ready for the harvest, but the workers are few. Like B’nei Israel, we have been freed from the burden of slavery to sin for the purpose of the Nations around us being blessed through us.

So when we feel like the burden is getting heavy and we can feel the breath getting knocked out of us let us press into the the Ruach (the Breath of God) to find the strength we need to carry on. Each and every one of you hearing these words today are vital and important in the Kingdom of God and no matter how tough things feel at the moment, He has a tremendous calling and purpose for your life. Trust in Him and not in the pain and anguish of the world around us.

Let us press into the Ruach HaKodesh and live out Paul’s words in 2 Timothy...

2 Timothy 1:8–12 TLV

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but share in suffering for the Good News according to the power of God. He has saved us and called us with a holy calling—not because of our deeds but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Messiah Yeshua before time began, but now has been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Messiah Yeshua. Indeed, He nullified the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the Good News. For this Good News I was appointed a herald and an emissary and a teacher. For this reason I also am suffering these things—but I am not ashamed, for I know in whom I have trusted and I am convinced He is able to safeguard what I have entrusted to Him until that Day.