There are moments in life when change arrives without fanfare. No sudden breakthrough. No dramatic turning point. Instead, something begins quietly, almost imperceptibly, beneath the surface.
Parshas Va’eira opens in such a moment.
The Jewish people are enslaved. Their suffering is intense. Moshe Rabbeinu has already appeared before Pharaoh once, and instead of relief, things have only worsened. Spirits are broken. Trust is fragile. Hope feels dangerous.
And it is precisely then that G-d says to Moshe:
“Va’eira el Avraham, el Yitzchak, ve’el Yaakov… — I appeared to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to Yaakov.”
This is not yet redemption. The plagues have not begun. Pharaoh has not yielded. Nothing outward has changed. Yet G-d reminds Moshe, and through him, the Jewish people, that they are standing inside a much larger story.
Va’eira teaches us something deeply human and deeply comforting: redemption does not begin when everything changes; it begins when G-d reminds us who we are and that He has not let go of us.
One of the most striking moments in the parsha is that Moshe speaks to the Jewish people again, and they cannot hear him. The Torah tells us:
“They did not listen to Moshe because of shortness of breath and hard labor.”
This is not a failure of faith. It is exhaustion. Trauma. The weight of daily survival.
Va’eira validates that reality. Sometimes people cannot hear words of hope, not because they don’t believe, but because they are overwhelmed. Judaism does not dismiss that pain. The Torah records it.
And yet, G-d does not withdraw His promise.
This parsha reminds us that faith is not measured only by inspiration; sometimes faith is simply continuing to exist, to endure, to show up, even when the heart feels numb.
Rashi explains that the name Havayah (Y-H-V-H) represents G-d’s faithfulness, His commitment to fulfill promises, even when fulfillment takes time. The Avos (our forefathers) believed without seeing results. Their trust itself shaped history.
In Va’eira, G-d is telling Moshe: What you are witnessing now is the middle of a promise, not the end of it.
That message speaks powerfully to our own lives.
Many people today carry quiet burdens: uncertainty, grief, fear for loved ones, and anxiety about the future. Va’eira reminds us that G-d is present not only in miracles, but in the slow, patient unfolding of redemption, even when it has not yet revealed itself.
Before the plagues, before the miracles, before the Exodus, G-d first reintroduces Himself to a broken people.
That is often how healing works as well.
Not with answers.
Not with solutions.
But with presence.
Va’eira teaches that being seen by G-d is itself the beginning of freedom.