page_title: Va'eira
section_title: Modern
hierarchical_section_title: Va'eira / Further reading / Modern
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of George Eliot by Samuel Laurence
context_page_description: Va'eira, Va'era, or Vaera is the fourteenth weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the second in the Book of Exodus. It constitutes Exodus 6:2–9:35. The parashah tells of the first seven Plagues of Egypt.
  It is made up of 6,701 Hebrew letters, 1,748 Hebrew words, 121 verses, and 222 lines in a Torah Scroll. Jews read it the fourteenth Sabbath after Simchat Torah, generally in January, or rarely, in late December.
context_section_description: Isaac Abravanel. Commentary on the Torah. Italy, between 1492–1509. Reprinted in, e.g., Abarbanel: Selected Commentaries on the Torah: Volume 2: Shemos/Exodus. Translated and annotated by Israel Lazar, pages 85–133. Brooklyn: CreateSpace, 2015. ISBN 978-1508640219.
  Abraham Saba. Ẓeror ha-Mor (Bundle of Myrrh). Fez, Morocco, circa 1500. Reprinted in, e.g., Tzror Hamor: Torah Commentary by Rabbi Avraham Sabba. Translated and annotated by Eliyahu Munk, volume 3, pages 895–920. Jerusalem, Lambda Publishers, 2008. ISBN 978-965-524-013-9.
  Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno. Commentary on the Torah. Venice, 1567. Reprinted in, e.g., Sforno: Commentary on the Torah. Translation and explanatory notes by Raphael Pelcovitz, pages 308–27. Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1997. ISBN 0-89906-268-7.
  Moshe Alshich. Commentary on the Torah. Safed, circa 1593. Reprinted in, e.g., Moshe Alshich. Midrash of Rabbi Moshe Alshich on the Torah. Translated and annotated by Eliyahu Munk, volume 2, pages 375–400. New York, Lambda Publishers, 2000. ISBN 965-7108-13-6.
  Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz. Kli Yakar. Lublin, 1602. Reprinted in, e.g., Kli Yakar: Shemos. Translated by Elihu Levine, volume 1, pages 80–130. Southfield, Michigan: Targum Press/Feldheim Publishers, 2002. ISBN 1-56871-202-2.
  Avraham Yehoshua Heschel. Commentaries on the Torah. Cracow, Poland, mid 17th century. Compiled as Chanukat HaTorah. Edited by Chanoch Henoch Erzohn. Piotrkow, Poland, 1900. Reprinted in Avraham Yehoshua Heschel. Chanukas HaTorah: Mystical Insights of Rav Avraham Yehoshua Heschel on Chumash. Translated by Avraham Peretz Friedman, pages 125–31. Southfield, Michigan: Targum Press/Feldheim Publishers, 2004. ISBN 1-56871-303-7.
  Thomas Hobbes. Leviathan, 3:36, 37. England, 1651. Reprint edited by C. B. Macpherson, pages 456, 474. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Classics, 1982. ISBN 0-14-043195-0.
  Chaim ibn Attar. Ohr ha-Chaim. Venice, 1742. Reprinted in Chayim ben Attar. Or Hachayim: Commentary on the Torah. Translated by Eliyahu Munk, volume 2, pages 499–533. Brooklyn: Lambda Publishers, 1999. ISBN 965-7108-12-8.
  Nachman of Breslov. Teachings. Bratslav, Ukraine, before 1811. Reprinted in Rebbe Nachman's Torah: Breslov Insights into the Weekly Torah Reading: Exodus-Leviticus. Compiled by Chaim Kramer; edited by Y. Hall, pages 56–63. Jerusalem: Breslov Research Institute, 2011. ISBN 978-1-928822-53-0.
  George Eliot. Adam Bede, chapter 32. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1859. Reprinted, e.g., edited by Carol A. Martin, page 313. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. (when the Squire threatens to replace the Poysers with a new tenant, Mr. Thurle, Mrs. Poyser tells the Squire, “I say, if Mr Thurle’s so ready to take farms under you, it’s a pity but what he should take this, and see if he likes to live in a house wi’ all the plagues o’ Egypt in’t — wi’ the cellar full o’ water, and frogs and toads hoppin’ up the steps by dozens.”).
  Samson Raphael Hirsch. The Pentateuch: Exodus. Translated by Isaac Levy, volume 2, pages 63–106. Gateshead: Judaica Press, 2nd edition 1999. ISBN 0-910818-12-6. Originally published as Der Pentateuch uebersetzt und erklaert. Frankfurt, 1867–1878.
  Samuel David Luzzatto (Shadal). Commentary on the Torah. Padua, 1871. Reprinted in, e.g., Samuel David Luzzatto. Torah Commentary. Translated and annotated by Eliyahu Munk, volume 2, pages 561–93. New York: Lambda Publishers, 2012. ISBN 978-965-524-067-2.
  Malbim. The Torah and the Commandments. Warsaw, 1874–80. Reprinted in, e.g., Malbim: Rabbenu Meir Leibush ben Yechiel Michel. Commentary on the Torah. Translated by Zvi Faier, volume 4, pages 158–252. Israel: M.P. Press/Hillel Press, 1984. OCLC 187452464 (1982).
  Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter. Sefat Emet. Góra Kalwaria (Ger), Poland, before 1906. Excerpted in The Language of Truth: The Torah Commentary of Sefat Emet. Translated and interpreted by Arthur Green, pages 87–91. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998. ISBN 0-8276-0650-8. Reprinted 2012. ISBN 0-8276-0946-9.
  Hermann Cohen. Religion of Reason: Out of the Sources of Judaism. Translated 
caption: Eliot
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