9. Vaera -Which Came First The Vessels Or The Light

G-d sent Moses to Pharaoh to redeem the Jewish People. Pharaoh responds by doubling the work load upon the Jewish People. Moses questions G-d, "Why have you made it worse for the Jewish People?" G-d answers Moses, “I have revealed myself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with the name E-l Sha-dd-ai, however, I My ineffable Tetragrammaton I have not made known to them.” (a) We clearly find in the Torah that G-d does reveal himself to our Patriarchs with the ineffable Tetragramaton?! (b) How does this answer Moses’s question? (c) Why did the Jews have to go through the slavery and suffering of the Egyptian Exile before they could receive the Torah, and why must we go through this long and bitter exile before we can receive the deeper dimensions of the Torah that Moshiach will teach us? To understand this, we turn to a deep and revolutionary mystical concept the Rebbe taught on this Shabbat in 1968.