This Week’s Torah Portion — Va’eira (וָאֵרָא) Torah Reading: Exodus 6:2–9:35 Meaning: “And I appeared” Parashat Va’eira opens in a moment of tension, disappointment, and divine clarification. Moses has already spoken to Pharaoh. He has already delivered God’s words. And instead of freedom, the people received harsher labor, broken morale, and crushed hope. The leaders of Israel turn on Moses. Pharaoh mocks him. Moses turns to God with a raw question: Why did You send me?

The Book of Revelation was never meant to be read as a newspaper of the future. It was written as a prophetic unveiling to communities already suffering under empire. Its imagery is not futuristic fantasy but ancient political language rooted deeply in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jewish thought world of the Second Temple period. When John speaks of dragons, beasts, heads, and horns, he is not inventing symbols. He is inheriting them.

A Torah-faithful, First-Century Jewish Study Introduction: When God Defines Himself When Moses encounters God at the burning bush, he asks a question that every oppressed people eventually asks: “When they ask me, ‘What is His Name?’—what shall I say to them?” (Exod. 3:13) This is not idle curiosity. In the ancient world, a name defined character, authority, and reliability . Moses is asking: Who are You, and how can Israel trust You? God’s answer is not a noun, a title, or