PARSHA-PIX Parshat Va'eira

Parsha Pix
7 of the 10 images from the Davka Judaica graphic of the 10 plagues. The final three are in next week's sedra. (BO = BET+ALEF = 2+1 = 3 final plagues that are to be found in Parshat BO.)
Notice the Staff, prominent in the middle of the ParshaPix.
Above it is a sword. This can represent Z'RO'A N'TUYA, the "outstretched arm" with which we were to be taken out of Egypt. Also, the sword is prominently mentioned in the Haftara as that which will befall Egypt.
Next to the staff and sword is a shovel used by the Egyptians to dig for water - only way to get a drink during the plague of Blood.
The oven is what some frogs went into, producing a Kiddush HaShem and a lesson to us that G-d is still in charge of nature - He renews, every day, the acts of Creation. (Each element of nature that was used by G-d in the process of the Plagues and Exodus sanctifies G-d's name because we see His control and involvement in this world. Famous re the non-barking dogs, but frogs, etc. too.)
The Staff is burping from its recent meal of Wizard Staffs (see Sedra Summary for details).
Four cups of wine corresponding to the Four Terms of Redemption, which we find at the beginning of the sedra.
Triple-S J, Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, slogan was Let My People Go.
Pictorial representation of Par'o's heart strengthen- ing, as is mentioned in several places in the sedra and next week's.
Upper-right corner - the emblem of the Hogwarts School. Par'o's wizards might have been dropouts from Hogwarts since they were not able to cope with the plague of KINIM.
Below BARAD (hail) are the standing wheat and the broken barley in the aftermath of that plague.
In the lower left corner are a pair of Crocs, comfort- able shoes whose logo is a crocodile, as in the staff-turned-to-TANIN.
The compass needle points north, EL TZAFON, as in ELTZAFAN b. Uziel, brother of Misha'el (see [9]) and Sitri.
C (atomic number 6, atomic weight 12.01) is the symbol for carbon, the main ingredient in the furnace soot that Moshe and Aharon used to bring about the plague of SH'CHIN (boils). Last year, this was a visual TTriddle and one solver came up with a different solution: it stands for the KORBAN we asked to sacrifice...
The flag is that of Vietnam. The key makes it KINAM, a.k.a. KINIM, plague #3. (The lice are referred to as KINIM, which is plural, 3 times and KINAM, which is singular, twice.)
Elazar b. Aharon HaKohein married one of the daughters of PUTI'EL; they had Pinchas. Elazar's wife was BAT-POOH-T-L.

TTRIDDLES...
are Torah Tidbits-style riddles on Parshat HaShavua (sometimes on the calendar). They are found in the hard-copy of TT scattered throughout, usually at the bottom of different columns. In the electronic versions of TT, they are found all together at the end of the ParshaPix-TTriddles section. The best solution set submitted each week (there isn't always a best) wins a double prize a CD from Noam Productions and/or a gift (game, puzzle, book, etc.) from Big Deal

Last issue’s (SH'MOT) TTriddles:
[1] His shoes, his shoe?
When Moshe sees the bush is burning but is not consumed, he approaches it to see this "great site", why doesn't the bush burn. G-d calls to him from within the bush and tells him not to approach further, SHAL NAALECHA MEI'AL RAGLECHA, remove your shoes from your feet. The word SHAL appears only one other time in Tanach - when Yehoshua is at Yericho and he sees a man (angel) standing with drawn sword, and this "man" identifies himself as a SAR-TZ'VA HASHEM, and then tells Yehoshua SHAL NAALCHA MEI'AL RAGLECHA... remove your shoe (singluar) from your feet. That's the TTriddle - Moshe was told to remove his shoes and Yehoshua was told to remove his shoe. The question mark in the TTriddle represents the question about why there is a difference. Based on Baalei HaTosefot, the explanation is that Moshe had not yet stepped onto the holy ground and therefore was told to remove both his shoes before he proceeded. Yehoshua had stepped one foot onto the holy ground and the angel told him to remove that shoe. It is assumed (and stated by the commentary) that he would conclude on his own that he has to remove the other shoe if he continued walking into the restricted area. Another commentary, the RIV"A, adds that the difference relects the fact that Moshe did not step foot into Eretz Yisrael and that Yehoshua did.
Side point: In searching Tanach for the word SHAL, unless you can specify the NIKUD (which in DavkaWriter you can, but not in many Tanach searching programs), you will also get the word SHEL. Know how many times the word SHEL occurs in Tanach? Not one single time! Surprising, no?

[2] She ran backwards
RAN in Hebrew is RATZ, REISH-TZADI. Backwards, that would be TZADI-REISH, which spells TZOR. Aside from meaning the city Tyre in what is now Lebanon, TZOR is a flint-knife. Tzipora took on and circumcised her son (some say Eliezer, others say Ger'shom). So it was Tzipora who ran backwards. (Of course is she ran, the word would be RA-tza. And backwards would be HATZOR, which is not the word in the pasuk, but...

[3] king, house, song, heart, name...and?
A frequent type of TTriddle revolves around a word and its other occurrences in Tanach. It usually starts as a curiosity, and sometimes results in a TTriddle, when the results are surprising or interesting. CHADAH, meaning NEW, refers to the king, Par'o, in Parshat Sh'mot. So the computer (actually, Davka- Writer) was put to the task of searching Tanach for other things called "new". A serch for the letter sequence CHET-DALET-SHIN turn up 349 occur- rences. Restricting the search to the specific NIKUD of CHADASH, resulted in the much more manageable number of 20 occurrences. BAYIT CHADASH is found twice in the context of military exemption for someone who has built a new house. SHIR CHADASH was a popular result, occurring 6 times in the book of T'hilim and once in Yeshayahu. LEV CHADASH occurs twice in the book of Yechezkeil in the context of the prophet's call to repentance. Yeshayahu prophesies about Israel being called by a new name in the time of the Geula (referring to how the nations speak of us, not our actual name). And? The "and" is a MORAG CHARUTZ CHADASH, a threshing tool of some sort. That's also from Yeshayahu (41:15). If the search would be extended to the feminine form of the adjective, CHADASHA, there would be other items on the list. But that's for another TTriddle.
MM/Bklyn had a hat-trick (sports term, associated with succeeding at anything three times in three consecutive attempts, and extended often to three successes in one game, or solving three out of three TTriddles).

This week's TTriddles:
[1] Western Canada (BC-Alberta), ~2000km long
[2] What time is a fish?
[3] He in sedra, had nephew with same name, and a namesake with famous wife & son
[4] deaf plowing wizards?
[5] His, his half-brother’s grandson’s, and his grandson’s age
[6] 2 singular; 1 plural without, 2 with

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