This is the d’var Torah I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on January 16, 2026.
Most of us know the feeling of trying to do the right thing and watching it backfire. You speak up, show up, follow through, and instead of things getting better, they get harder. The conversation goes sideways. The plan creates more stress. The trust you thought you had starts to crack.
That is exactly where Parashat Va’era begins.
Moses has done what God asked. He confronted Pharaoh. He told the truth. And the result? The Israelites’ suffering intensifies, and their disappointment turns toward Moses himself. “Why did you make things worse?” they ask. Trust, fragile to begin with, begins to unravel.
God’s response is striking. Instead of changing course or dismissing the people’s pain, God repeats a steady refrain: I am Adonai. I am still here. I have not forgotten you. Even when trust feels thin, the relationship endures.
Va’era teaches us that liberation is not only about breaking chains. It is about rebuilding trust. A people shaped by injustice cannot move toward freedom until something internal begins to heal, belief in leadership, in one another, and in the possibility that tomorrow can be different from today.
The plagues come one by one, not all at once. Redemption unfolds gradually, asking the people to stay engaged, to listen again after disappointment, to risk hope when it would be easier to retreat. Torah insists that moral courage is not dramatic or instantaneous. It is relational. It is sustained. It is built over time.
That message matters deeply in our fractured world. When injustice feels overwhelming, the temptation is to disengage, to decide that what is broken is too big, too entrenched, too exhausting to confront. But Torah will not let us off the hook so easily. As Martin Luther King Jr. taught, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Va’era pushes us to understand that injustice, left unchallenged, corrodes the entire moral fabric of a community.
Trust does not mean ignoring harm or rushing past pain. The Israelites’ anger is understandable. Their suffering is real. Trust begins when leaders listen, when communities hold space for truth, and when accountability replaces defensiveness.
Building trust is sacred work. It is how Torah becomes a living moral compass, guiding us toward justice with courage, humility, and relationship at the center. Redemption does not arrive all at once. It begins when we choose, again and again, to stand together and refuse to accept a broken world as inevitable.
Rabbi Eve Posen 