By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D., in El Cajon, California
Parasha Va’eira opens in a place that feels painfully familiar when hope itself feels threatened.
Hashem speaks to Moshe while Bnei Yisrael are still enslaved, still crushed by labor, still reeling from disappointment. Moshe has already stepped forward once, and instead of relief, things have gotten worse. Pharaoh has intensified the oppression. The people are exhausted, demoralized, and emotionally spent. The Torah tells us with striking honesty: “They did not listen to Moshe, because of shortness of spirit and hard labor” (Shemot 6:9).
This is not a failure of faith. It is a human response to prolonged suffering. When the spirit is constricted, kotzer ruach, even good news can feel unreachable. The Torah does not criticize the people for this. It records their reality with compassion.
Parasha Va’eira asks a timeless and deeply personal question: How do we respond when “hail” falls into our lives?
Not literal hail, though Egypt would experience that, but the storms we all recognize: illness, loss, fear, antisemitism, betrayal, disappointment, emotional overload. Moments that strike suddenly and shake our sense of safety and control. Experiences that leave us asking, “Why this? Why now?”
One of the most revealing moments in the parsha occurs after the plague of hail. Pharaoh, shaken and afraid, calls out to Moshe: “I have sinned this time. Hashem is righteous, and I and my people are wrong.”
At first glance, this sounds like repentance. It sounds like insight. But we know how the story continues. The moment the hail stops, the moment the pressure lifts, Pharaoh hardens his heart and returns to his old patterns.
Pharaoh gives voice to a promise many of us recognize in ourselves:
“If only this would stop, I would change.”
“If I could just get through this, I’d live differently.”
And yet, how often do intentions dissolve once discomfort fades? How many commitments fade when the pain recedes, especially as the new year begins and resolutions quietly disappear?
Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel of Slabodka offers a penetrating insight. Pharaoh’s failure was not that he failed to admit wrongdoing. It was that he experienced suffering only as something to escape, not as something to learn from. Pain that is treated solely as punishment rarely leads to growth. When hardship ends without inner reflection, the heart remains unchanged.
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin reframes this with both spiritual wisdom and psychological realism. Difficulty, he teaches, can be a form of Divine assistance for self-improvement if it is met with honest cheshbon hanefesh. Not denial. Not resentment. Not blame. But a willingness to look inward with humility and courage. Hashem pose’ach derachim, Hashem opens pathways we could not previously see.
This is not about romanticizing suffering. Torah never asks us to do that. It asks us to engage with difficulty in a way that deepens us rather than diminishes us.
The plagues themselves are not acts of revenge. They are acts of moral clarity. Pharaoh believes power comes from domination. Hashem reveals that true power flows from justice, accountability, and truth. Va’eira teaches that when lies go unchallenged, cruelty flourishes. Silence enables oppression. Moral clarity requires voice, even when speaking is uncomfortable.
This lesson resonates powerfully in our own moment, especially as antisemitism resurges in open and unsettling ways. History teaches us something sobering: when we forget our faith, our story, our values, or our worth, oppression finds fertile ground. But when we remember that we are part of a covenant stretching back generations, hatred loses its ability to define us. Va’eira does not promise that hatred will disappear overnight. What it promises is something deeper and more enduring: that Jewish dignity, identity, and hope are stronger than any Pharaoh. When we speak with our voices, stand with our values, and remember who we are, we continue the journey from slavery toward redemption.
Parasha Va’eira insists that dignity precedes deliverance. Identity precedes safety. We do not wait for the world to validate us before we stand upright.
At the same time, Torah is deeply realistic about human pain. Emotional suffering is not minimized or bypassed. The Meshech Chochmah warns us against false comfort, religious-sounding words that offer hollow reassurance. Platitudes do not heal. They alienate. They can deepen isolation rather than relieve it.
What does help?
Empathy.
Patience.
Presence.
Compassion.
Standing beside one another without judgment or comparison. Allowing pain to be named rather than rushed away. Torah does not demand that we transcend human emotion. It teaches us how to move through it with dignity and faith.
We see this clearly with Bnei Yisrael. Even when Moshe brings a message of redemption, they cannot hear it. The Sforno explains that kotzer ruach reflects not only physical exhaustion, but emotional despair. Hope itself felt inaccessible. Anxiety narrowed their capacity to receive reassurance. The Torah records this without criticism, validating spiritual numbness as part of the human condition.
Redemption, the Torah teaches, is rarely sudden. The plagues unfold gradually. Each one weakens Egypt incrementally. Va’eira reminds us that real change is almost always non-linear. Growth is built through consistency, small steps, and the willingness to return again after setbacks.
Moshe models this persistence. He goes back to Pharaoh again and again, even after apparent failure. And he does not go alone. Aharon stands beside him. Torah strength does not mean carrying everything by oneself. Seeking support is not weakness, it is part of the redemptive process.
The Kuzari reminds us that Hashem is present even when events appear random. Rav Nachman teaches that sincere tefillah is always heard, sometimes the answer is “yes,” sometimes “no,” sometimes “not yet,” but never ignored. And the Chafetz Chaim offers a line that speaks directly to the heart: bitter does not mean bad. Bitter medicine heals.
Our mesorah is filled with tzaddikim who endured their own forms of “hail.” They were not spared hardship. They were refined by it. Seen through the right lens, adversity does not break us, it clarifies us. Hashem is not constrained by the “facts” as we see them. He can reverse outcomes, soften hearts, and open doors we never imagined.
So what do we do when hail is falling? Remember it’s not a dark time, it’s a meaningful time.
The Torah offers grounded, practical guidance:
• Learn Mussar to steady the heart
• Daven with kavanah to realign the soul
• Pause daily for honest cheshbon hanefesh
Torah and mitzvot lift us lema’alah min hateva, above a purely naturalistic perspective, allowing us to see challenge as refinement rather than defeat. Rav Avigdor Miller, drawing from Mesillat Yesharim, teaches that growth often fails not because lessons are not sent, but because we are too distracted to recognize them.
Like the healthiest forms of modern psychology, Torah begins with self-awareness, not self-absorption. We are meant to live with the awareness that “the world was created for me,” while remaining deeply humble. The hail of our lives is not meant to crush us, but to polish us like diamonds shaped under pressure.
Parasha Va’eira reminds us that before circumstances change, people change. Redemption begins within. When we hold fast to our values even as emotions fluctuate. When we take small, faithful steps forward. When we allow ourselves to be supported. When we trust that Hashem is refining us, not breaking us.
The hail will pass.
The real question is not why it came, but rather who we become because of it.
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Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D., prepares a weekly D’var Torah for Young Israel of San Diego, where he and his family are members. They are also active members of Congregation Adat Yeshurun.