Parshat Voeira: Staff Eats Staff

For education to be worthy of its name the teacher, mentor, parent et al. must employ tough love on occasion. However, the way we administer this love can make the difference between success and failure. It can determine whether the student will have a future or will his or her potential forever remain untapped because of a bad experience with an “educator.”

Staffs into Serpents

When G-d sent Moses to Pharaoh, the first sign he was to use to demonstrate G-d’s power was the throwing of Aaron’s staff before Pharaoh, which then turned into a serpent. The Egyptian sorcerers then replicated his wonder. Afterwards, Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.

If G-d’s intent was to merely impress Pharaoh that Moses had supernatural powers, there were many other miracles he could have performed. Why the conversion of a staff into a snake and then having his staff swallow up the Egyptian ones? And why was this prelude to the Ten Plagues that followed?

An Educational Process

In truth, all of the ten plagues were not just instruments of punishment, but a means to crush the evil of Egypt. Indeed, the Jewish view of punishment in general is that it is a means to an end. The end is rehabilitation. Hence, the ten plagues were essentially an educational process that consisted of ten steps, or ten specific lessons.

Accordingly, the miracle of the staff-turning-into-a-snake served as a general introduction to the whole process of educating the Egyptians.

Internalizing the Exodus

Since we are required to internalize the process of the Exodus every day, it follows that we must apply the ten plagues to our own internal “Egypt.” Moreover, prior to applying the “Ten Plague therapy” we must preface the lesson from the staff-snake miracle.

Thus, for us to experience true freedom and to literally bring about the final Redemption, we must first and foremost apply the lesson of the staff turned into a snake.

The Rebbe’s View on Education

The following is adapted from the works of the Rebbe in which a fundamental lesson is derived for those who are entrusted with educating others.

Begin with Positive Energy

When we approach another who needs our guidance, Jewish law demands that we begin with and accentuate the positive approach. With soothing and loving words, we can accomplish much more than with harsh and stinging words of recrimination. This is known as the approach of Aaron who “Loved peace, pursued peace, loved every creature and drew them close to the Torah.” (Ethics of the Fathers)

Unfortunately, there are times when the approach of “tough love” is required. There are people who are so covered with “steel armor” that makes them impregnable. They are impervious to any positive influences and they are resistant to our positive approach.

Piercing their Armor with Aaron’s Staff

There is only one way of getting through to them. And that is by shattering their shell and piercing their armor. In Hebrew terminology this is the process of “beliahswallowing” the others resistant ego.

This then is the significance of Aaron’s staff swallowing up the staffs of the Egyptians. When a person is compelled to use the method of “tough love” and shatter the inflated ego of the person who is need of therapy, it must be done with “Aaron’s staff; the staff of a person whose sole motivation is love and absolute concern for the good of the person he is admonishing.

Staff Eats Staff

There is still another powerful lesson in the narrative of Aaron’s staff that swallowed the Egyptian staffs. As our sages point out, it was Aaron’s staff that swallowed up the Egyptian staffs and not his snake. Only after his snake (that had originally been a staff) reverted to being a staff, did it swallow the Egyptian’s staffs.

The lesson in this, states the Rebbe, is that when one is compelled to discipline another it does not suffice for the motivation alone to be love. The disciplining procedure itself — while not overtly loving — cannot be laden with emotion of anger and hostility. Rather, one must act like a “staff” that is devoid of emotion and sense of ego. To shatter another person’s inflated ego, it is important that it not be done with a feeling of ego and need to dominate over others.

With this introduction, one can then proceed to administer “Ten Plague Therapy” that enables us to pierce through the obstacles that stand in the way of our spiritual freedom and our realization of the ultimate Redemption through Moshiach.

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Voeira by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.