Va’era
It’s countdown time again. It’s not seven weeks until the High Holy Days, and it’s not ten days until Yom Kippur. It’s not eight nights until the chanukiyah glows with all its candles, and it’s not seven weeks until Shavuot. But it IS ten weeks until Shabbat HaGadol, which means that Pesach is imminent. While stores like Target and Walmart are stocked with Valentine’s Day and Easter merchandise, the Judaica store at our local shul is displaying an array of seder plates and Elijah’s cups. Yes, it’s time for spring cleaning.
While our Torah readings don’t exactly align with the Passover season, the book of Shmot, or Exodus, prepares us now for what we will observe as we sit down for our seder in just about ten weeks. This week’s parasha, Va’era (“I appeared”) finds the Israelites in harsh slavery, while Moses converses with God over how to end their servitude, which has lasted over 400 years.
וָֽאֵרָ֗א אֶל־אַבְרָהָ֛ם אֶל־יִצְחָ֥ק וְאֶל־יַֽעֲקֹ֖ב בְּאֵ֣ל שַׁדָּ֑י וּשְׁמִ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה לֹ֥א נוֹדַ֖עְתִּי לָהֶֽם:
“I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob with the name Almighty God, but with My name Adonai, I did not become known to them.”
God made promises to each of our patriarchs, which they were not privy to see in their lifetimes. Here, now, we will see that God sees the pain of the Israelites, God hears their moaning, and reveals to Moses that the Israelites will be redeemed as He remembers the covenant made with our forefathers.
Redemption does not come without a cost. Moses must employ the aid of his brother Aaron in order to communicate with Pharoah. And even with Aaron’s help, Pharoah’s heart is hardened, and he refuses to heed the words of this God of the Israelites. Moses and Aaron attempt to show Adonai’s power by a variety of plagues. The goal is not simply to give the Israelites freedom to pursue a work-free life. The goal is to free the people from servitude “so they may serve God.”
It is this snippet of the Torah on which I’d like to expand a bit. At our seder, we say the words: “B’chol Dor VaDor, chayav adam lirot et atzmo k’ilu hu yatza mimitzrayim”-
“In every generation an individual must envision for himself that he is leaving Egypt.”
19th Century Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, one of the fathers of religious Zionism, explains that the redemption of the Jewish People is an on-going work in progress that began with the Exodus from Egypt and continues to weave its way through all the trials and tribulations of Jewish History. Each year on Seder night we recall just how far we have come from those days in Egypt, and how in every single generation there have been challenging experiences in that on-going journey to the Messianic Age.
In our generation, we continue to face challenges, confusion and pain, yet we cannot ignore how far we have come. And yet, we have so far to go to achieve a personal as well as communal final Redemption. Man's viewing the Exodus from Egypt as a continuous process will hopefully lead to daily improvement in conduct as well - as befits a free person.
The Union for Reform Judaism, among other 21st century organizations, offers modern versions of the Biblical Ten Plaques. Among them are:
The Modern Plagues of Inequality
Modern Plagues of Conflict Minerals
Plagues of Malaria, and
What can we as individuals do to help bring about our own freedom from the plaques that take over our lives in our modern day broken world? I’d like to introduce you to a practice in Judaism known as Mussar, a Jewish spiritual practice that gives concrete instructions on how to live a meaningful and ethical life, which arose in the Medieval period as a response to the concern of why it is so hard to be good. Mussar is virtue-based ethics — based on the idea that by cultivating inner virtues, we improve ourselves. This is in contrast to most Jewish ethical teachings, which are rule-based. One Mussar teacher, Rabbi Elya Lopian (1876-1970), described Mussar as “teaching the heart what the mind already understands.”
Pharoah knew intellectually that enslaving the Israelites was sinful behavior. But his greed and ego was an overriding force in his psyche, a common trait for powerful leaders. His heart was hardened, which prevented him from feeling the pain of the “other.” Even with proof from Adonai he could not attain goodness for himself and his people. It required the mighty hand and the outstretched arm of our God to increase the plagues that would ultimately include the slaying of Pharoah’s own first born. And only then could the Children of Israel escape … in order to serve their God.
Remembering our redemption from Egypt cannot be a once-a-year reminder of our need to embrace a service to the Almighty. And in fact, it isn’t. Each Shabbat as we raise our Kiddush cup, we sing:
Ki hu hom t’chilah, l’mikra’ei kodesh zecher litziat mitzrayim.
(For it is) the first of the holy festivals, commemorating the Exodus from Egypt.
As slaves, we are not entitled to a day of rest. Only as free people, embodying the essence of all that is Godlike, can we receive that second soul that we are said to obtain on Shabbat. Only by honoring others as we recognize that we are all created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God, can we join hands and walk together through our deserts of life, hoping to achieve Redemption. May this Shabbat be a reminder of our potential to repair what is broken, and approach the next ten weeks leading to our festival of freedom, with renewed service to God.
Ken y’hi ratzon – May it be God’s will.
