5784/2024
This week's Parashah, Parashat Va’Eira, focuses on the battle
between Moshe and Paroh. Moshe asks Paroh to free the Jews
yet Paroh would not relent even after Moshe’s insistence that
Egypt would be ravaged by plagues if Paroh didn’t concede.
This can be boiled down to a key difference in their characters,
the Middah of Hakarat HaTov. This Middah can be traced all the
way back to Adam HaRishon. Adam allowed himself to be
persuaded by his wife Chava to eat from the Eitz Hada’at.
However when confronted by Hashem, Adam tried to deny his
fault, blaming it all on Chava, saying that she was the one who
led him astray. This demonstrates a complete lack of Hakarat
HaTov. Instead of thanking Hashem for providing him with a
wife, Adam blamed Hashem for giving him a wife who led him
to sin. We can see from here that the lack of Hakarat HaTov is
evident in all human beings and something we all need to work
on. Someone who chose not to work on this was Paroh.
Paroh was indebted to the jews. In Parashat Mikeitz, it was
Yosef who interpreted Paroh’s dream that Egypt would be
ravaged by famine and it was Yosef who set up a system for the
Egyptians to survive while simultaneously helping Paroh
accumulate all the wealth in Egypt. Furthermore, in Parashat
VaYigash, it was Yaakov who blessed Paroh and rashi adds the
Nile, which irrigated all the Egyptian fields, and allowed Paroh
and Egypt not only to survive but to prosper. It was two Jewish
people who prevented Egypts demise. Nevertheless, Paroh’s
complete lack of Hakarat HaTov is evident not even one
generation later when the jewish people are forced into
crushing servitude.
Conversely, Moshe is the paradigm of Hakarat HaTov. Moshe
didn't hit the water to turn it into blood or create frogs because
that water had saved him. Nor did he hit the earth by the
plague of lice, because it was the earth who hid the body of the
Egyptian he had killed. Moshe was so careful as to repay an
eighty year old debt to an inanimate object. The key difference
between Parohand moshe is that Paroh felt everything was
owed to him while Moshe was the humblest of people and
never expected anything from anyone.
Especially in these trying times with the conflict going on in
Israel, we should all take a moment to step back and look at our
lives so we can realize how much we have to be thankful for
and recognize how much we owe to Hashem and the people
around us.