Moshe returned to G-d and said, “G-d! Why have You done such evil to this people?! Why did You send me?! Because I went to Paroah to speak in Your Name, he has done evil to this people! You have not redeemed this people at all!” (Shemos 5:22)
Understandably, Moshe was upset. He had gone to Paroah, as G-d had commanded him to, and demanded the release of the Jewish people. And on cue, Paroah promptly rejected his plea, and not only didn’t free the Jewish people, but even increased their burden. Moshe left Egypt not as the instrument of freedom he had hoped to be, but the cause of increased Jewish suffering! Did he not have cause for complaint, even to G-d?
On the other hand, hadn’t G-d warned Moshe that he would fail the first time? If so, then why was Moshe so upset? The answer was, “Reject my plea, yes!” Moshe complained. “But use it as an excuse to make their lives more miserable ... we never spoke about that! You call that redemption?!” Moshe cried out.
“Yes,” G-d could have said. “Let me give you an analogy. Let’s say, Moshe, you wanted to build a house, but you didn’t have enough money to do so. So what are you going to do?”
“Borrow the money somehow, I suppose.”
“Right. Now, let’s say you wanted to borrow $20,000 to build that house, and I lent it to you, interest-free of course, to be paid back over 20 years. That’s about $83.33 a month. However, after 10 years of making monthly payments, you decide, ‘Enough with these payments! I want out!’ What do you have to do? Do you simply stop making the payments?”
“No, that would be stealing. I would have to pay you the balance of whatever I still owed You.”
“Exactly, Moshe. Now how much would you have to pay me at that time? Up until then you would have been making monthly payments of $83.33. But now you still owe me ...”
“Ten thousand dollars ... I would have to pay you back the balance of $10,000 ...”
“At one time ... right, Moshe?”
“Right, G-d.”
“You see Moshe, the Jewish people, to complete the process to nationhood should really stay in Egypt for 400 years in total. However, they’re sinking so quickly spiritually that if I leave them in there much longer, there’ll be nothing to redeem at the end of the 400 years! But I can’t just wipe away the debt ... G-d forbid! That wouldn’t be good for them or for creation! So, I have to exact a lump sum from them, now, so that they can go out of Egypt 190 years earlier. In other words, Moshe, don’t lose heart. You will see, and so will they, that you were an instrument for freedom after all, though you have triggered increased suffering in the meantime.
Having heard this, Moshe had no trouble following G-d’s every instruction b’simcha, from that point onward.
