A snake is prepared to bite (Photo: ShutterStock)
This coming Shabbat we will read in the synagogue Parshat Vara in which the Holy One, blessed be He, commands Moses to force Pharaoh to take the Israelites out of Egypt.
The Rebbe Rabbi Yosiah Pinto explained in his lesson that in this week's parsha we see the great power of the right of the fathers.
And so Rabbi Pinto said:
We see God tell Moses our Rabbi to go to Pharaoh, and suddenly we see something of a great miracle. The Torah begins to tell us the genealogy of the people of Israel. "These are the heads of your father's house, the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel" Reuben and his children, Shimon and his children, Levi and his children come to Moshe our rabbi and Aharon tell their family branch and here the genealogy stops, they do not continue to the following tribes.
Then the Torah continues and tells us that Moshe our Rabbi came to Pharaoh to talk to him about redeeming the Israelites from Egypt.
If this is how it should be understood, if the Torah tells us the genealogy of the people of Israel, let's start from Reuben to the end of the tribes, why go all the way to Levi and stop there?
And another question must be asked, when Moses goes to Pharaoh, God commands him, "For Pharaoh will speak to you, saying, Give you an example, and you said to Aaron, take your staff and throw it before Pharaoh. They will call Pharaoh to take the staff and throw it into a snake." Their sticks are thrown away and their sticks also turn into snakes. Aaron's staff becomes a stick again and the Torah says "And Aaron's staff swallowed up their staff" that Aaron's staff swallows all the snakes of the prows. The question arises if you want to perform a miracle that the snake will swallow the snakes of the prows so that the snake will swallow , why does the snake become a stick and the stick swallows the snakes?
But it is possible to interpret a frightening principle that the stick symbolizes the right of the ancestors, God asks Moses, "What is this in your hand, and he said, 'Metta'" (Exodus 4:2), with what power will you come to Pharaoh - with the stick, Moses shows Pharaoh the stick that symbolizes the right of the ancestors, and Pharaoh I say to him, by what right do you come to me to redeem the children of Israel, the people of Israel are wicked, what are these worshipers of idolatry, even these worshipers of idolatry, by what power do you want them to be redeemed?
Moses says with the power of the stick, the right of the ancestors, throw the stick away, a living thing turns into a snake, the living thing turns back into a stick that is dry and is nothing, then the dry thing as if dead swallows the snakes.
What is parental right?
Even if parents and grandparents have passed away, their power is still alive and well.
I have to do it.
And this is what Moses shows Pharaoh to be careful about one thing - the right of the ancestors, that is why the Torah is numbered from Reuben to Moses and Aaron who walked in the right of the ancestors.
And as we said before, if a person has to go to a rabbi to receive a blessing or to the grave of a righteous person who has passed away to pray, where should he go?
He will go to the grave of the righteous, because there this dry stick of ancestral right has greater power than the snake that bites.
David Berger, submitted on behalf of Shuba Israel
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