Parshas Vaeira

This weeks Parsha (or Sidra) is Va'eira (literally, "and I appeared"), and primarially tells the story of the first 7 plagues to befall the Egyptians and the hands of Moshe: Blood in the Nile, Frogs, Lice, Wild Beasts, Death of Cattle, Boils, Hail. However, the parsha begins in the midsts of an exchange between Moshe and G-d in which Moshe is questioning why G-d increased the suffereing of the Jewish people (by way of Pharoe) after Moshe fulfilled G-d's command to request that Pharoe release the Jews from slavery (at the end of the previous parsha, Shemot). This leads us to the first verse of this weeks portion, "G-d spoke to Moshe and He said to him, "I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob with [the name] Almighty God, but [with] My name YHWH, I did not become known to them."" Before we hear what the Rebbe has to say about this, I will give a brief preface about the concept of the different names of G-d: in the Torah there are two primary names by which G-d is refered to, one is Elokim (meaning the G-d of the natural world, and referring to his attribute of judgement and severity, this was the name used to create the world, "In the beginning, etc", and the name with which he appeared to the Fathers) and the other is YHWH, the 4-letter name of G-d (refering to the transcendent G-d, and his attribute of kindness). In the case of our particular verse here, the fact that G-d Almight only revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with his "limited" name teaches us that they never questioned him (to the point that he should reveal his "true" intentions) despite the trials with which they were confronted. Moshe, on the other hand, is famous for his confrontational attitude with G-d Almighty. Therefore this verse essentially contains a rebuke of Moshe: if the Fathers did not ask questions of Me, then how do you Moshe, see fit to question Me?
There is something very important to understand about this interchange between G-d and Moshe, because it is very rare for the Torah to criticize even an animal, and yet here there is an open admonition of Moshe our Great Teacher. To answer this, we must understand the essential difference in the ways that the Fathers and Moshe 'served' G-d. The Fathers represented the 3 emotional traits of Kindness (Abraham), Severity (Isaac), and Mercy (Jacob, a combination of the first two), while Moshe the transmittor of the Wisdom of the Torah represents Intellect (this is not to say that the Fathers did not use intellect and that Moshe did not use emotion, but rather in general they were characterized by these traits). This can explain why Moshe brought questions to G-d, seeking to comprehend G-d's ways; in order that he could transmit it to the rest of the Jewish people (including us today) whose intellects' were more mundane; whereas the Fathers' mode of service was primarily action oriented (to spread G-d's Kindness, or Severity, or Mercy throughout the world, in the way of faith without questions). Therefore, when Moshe brought this question against G-d, his response was to, so to speak, to refer him to the example of the Fathers; that he should combine the great intellectual service he already embodied with his emotions and heart, and therefore translate his knowledge into action. In general, this was the achievement of the giving of the Torah; that intellect and emotion, the spritual and the mundane, the G-d of heaven and the G-d of earth should be fused; the Higher brought down into the Lower, and the Lower elevated to the level of the Higher. So included in this instruction to Moshe is also instruction to those whose primarly function in this world is based on emotion, that they should learn to channel their emotions with the power of their intellect. These two character types, the intellectual and the emotional, span the entire range of humans, described in the Torah as including everyone from the "heads of your tribes" to "the hewers of your wood and the drawers of your water"; from the great scholars to the simple working people who simply follow their heart and natural instince of right and wrong; and the directive is that they must all work together and learn from one another. It was this way that Moshe brought the Jewish people together that they should be 'redeemed' from the slavery of Egypt, and it is in this way that we can all bring ourselves out from our personal Eygpts, and eventually into our personal Israels, "a land flowing with milk and honey".