Parashat Va’era is often remembered for thunder and blood—for plagues that shatter an empire and a struggle of wills between Pharaoh and God. Yet beneath the drama runs a quieter current, one that speaks urgently to our own lives: compassion as the seed of peace, and peace as something deeper than the absence of conflict.
The parashah opens with God reminding Moshe of the covenant—“I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel”. Before any plague strikes Egypt, before power is displayed, God listens. Redemption begins not with force but with attention. Compassion, in the Torah’s telling, starts with hearing the cry of another and allowing it to matter.
This is easy to miss because the story soon becomes loud. Egypt is struck again and again, and Pharaoh’s heart is repeatedly described as hardened. It’s tempting to read this as a simple morality tale: the wicked ruler versus divine justice. But Va’era resists simplicity. Pharaoh is not just cruel; he is trapped. Each plague offers him a chance to soften, to change course, to choose a different future. Compassion here is not naïve mercy—it is the repeated opening of a door, even when it keeps being slammed shut.
Peace, too, is not portrayed as passivity. The Torah does not ask the Israelites to accept their suffering quietly for the sake of harmony. True peace cannot be built on oppression. Va’era teaches that peace requires confronting injustice, naming it, and refusing to normalize it. Yet even in confrontation, the Torah insists on moral restraint. The plagues escalate gradually. Warnings are given. Opportunities to relent are real. Power is exercised, but not capriciously.
Moshe himself embodies this tension. He is sent to speak words that will disrupt an entire society, yet he does so as a reluctant leader, deeply aware of human vulnerability—his own included. Moshe is not a conqueror intoxicated by strength; he is a servant of a God who identifies as “I will be with them”. Compassion shapes his leadership. He does not seek Egypt’s destruction; he seeks Israel’s freedom.
One of the most striking lessons of Va’era is that peace begins in the heart long before it appears in the world. Pharaoh’s downfall is not military—it is internal. A hardened heart cannot sustain peace, even when given countless chances. The Torah seems to be warning us: injustice defended long enough calcifies into identity. Compassion delayed becomes compassion denied.
For us, reading Va’era today, the question is uncomfortably close: Where have our hearts hardened? Whose cries have we learned to ignore because listening would demand change? The plagues may feel ancient, but the moral dynamic is current. Societies still thrive on invisible suffering. Leaders still confuse control with strength. Individuals still choose comfort over compassion.
Yet Va’era is ultimately a parashah of hope. God does not abandon the world to its cruelty. Liberation is possible. History can turn. Compassion, even when rejected, is never wasted – it clarifies truth and opens the path to peace.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Refael Cohen