WHAT DOES GOD really want from Creation? Not just from the Jewish people, but from the entire world? That gets answered in these parshios with certainty:

God said to Moshe: “Come to Pharaoh, because I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, in order that I may place these signs of Mine in his midst, and in order that you tell your son and your son’s son how I made a mockery of the Egyptians, and [that you speak of] My signs that I placed among them, and you will know that I am God.” (Shemos 10:1-2)

It is an amazing idea, getting to know God, that few understand and even less appreciate. It just seems so simple, until you actually try to do it. It’s not like getting to know another person, which is also not so easy. People barely know themselves, and so much of what we know about others is what they tell us. The rest we learn from how they act.

But if you want another person to know you, you have to tell them about yourself. Or, they have to talk to others who know something about you. But you can’t make someone know or understand you unless you let them know and understand you, and certainly not if they’d rather not.

Not God, though. If God wants us to know Him, He can make it happen regardless of what we want. He can put it into our heads, just as the prophets say He will do in the Messianic Era. Then God will fill the world with Da’as, which means that people will have no choice but to recognize God and all that He does. But by that time, we’ll want to.

We’re getting a taste of that in these parshios. Pharaoh, from the moment Moshe Rabbeinu showed up in the Name of God, had been resisting the education. Even when the lice came and his magicians could not replicate the plague, they downgraded the spectacle to the level of Elohim only. It was their way of saying, “Fine, so we can’t do that too. But still, you’re only doing it through nature.”

Big mistake. Even suicidal. It’s like saying, “We’re not impressed. Do something bigger and better.”

This made Pharaoh a guinea pig by his own doing. It may have felt like bravado, but really it just made him a test subject. Thanks to Pharaoh’s stubbornness and the cognitive dissonance of his own people, we get one of the best sound and light shows of all history. We get to know not just God, but Hashem. Pharaoh’s resistance was Hashem’s revelation.

It’s a lesson for everyone, two actually. The first lesson is that history is about the revelation of God, every moment of it. If it is not happening yet, whatever is happening is opening the door for it to happen. Knowing this, and working to make it happen makes a person a major player in history, even if no one else thinks so. Not knowing this and going about life as if there is nothing more to it, makes a person a human prop to Divine revelation.

The second lesson is that evil people lead to Divine revelation in one form or another. They confront God and provide Him with the opportunity to fight back and show His power. The fact that they can go years before they are stopped and do a lot of damage along the way doesn’t change that. All of it is part of world rectification, though the evil person is only credited for the destruction.

The Holocaust is a very difficult example of this. It was a devastatingly torturous time for the Jewish people, but had it not occurred the Jewish nation would not have reached this redemption state of history. Seemingly, we would not have our land back, and that would have intimidated many Jews from making aliyah. No one, during the Holocaust, could see any future good coming from it. But no one can say now that it didn’t.

Why that way? Why so many Jewish lives? Why for so many years? All valid questions with valid answers. But until God shares them with us, we’re not going to know, at least specifically, what they are. We’re not going to understand how the deaths of so many seemingly innocent people and the ways they died were necessary for revealing Hashem to the world.

In fact, the worse things get for the Jews, the more likely a major revelation of Hashem is imminent. It is always darkest before the dawn because small redemptions don’t get much Press. But a War of Gog and Magog? That will captivate the attention of everyone on the planet, and when it ends in a super-miraculous redemption of the Jewish people once again, the world will be humbled, once again.

As the prophet said, “On that day, God will be One, and His Name, One” (Zechariah 14:9). No one will ever ask again, “Who is Hashem?” especially those who already believe in Elohim. But it may be a shocker at first for those who did not take the Shema seriously, who did not share the idea with their heart when they said, “Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad.” But that’s where we’re headed, clearly, given the depth of Divine hiddenness and bad occurring in the world. Do the work now in advance, and be relieved by the transformation, not surprised.

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