Parashat Va-era 5769 -- The Power to Cry Out

My most vivid memory of my first summer at a Jewish overnight camp is sitting during services and praying with my eyes closed for the first time. For someone who so likes to be in control, looking inward was a new experience.

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Va-era, God tells Moses:

“I have now heard the cries of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am Adonai. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage.” (Exodus 6:5-6).

For me, the miracle of Exodus is not that God answered the Israelites’ cries. God had been answering cries for generations. The miracle is that the Israelites had the self-awareness to realize that they were enslaved and the strength to believe they could do something about it.

Ironically, the most important lesson I have learned in recent years is discovering how to pray with my eyes open. I have learned that prayer is not only about self-reflection, but also about seeing the world, recognizing injustice, and coming to believe I can do something about it.

“I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary judgments. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, Adonai, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I Adonai” (Exodus 6:7-8).

From Egypt, Mitzraim (literally, the “Narrow Place”), God promises the Israelites a new land, a Promised Land. Of course, there will be forty years of wandering, desert trials, and the passing of a generation before the Israelites ever touch foot on the soil of that promised inheritance. It is the awareness of the “in between,” the desert that often stands between slavery and freedom, which reminds me that nothing in life is as simple as spacious land and pledged blessings. Praying with open eyes means accepting the complexities of life. There will always be lands filled with sweetness and there will always be deserts along the way.

This week Torah reminds us that we are a people who cry out; who cry out at injustice, at oppression, at inequality, and unfairness. We are to be the people who pray with our eyes open.

Among God’s many names, we call the divine “Shomeah T’fillah,” “the One who hears prayers. Surely, we hear that name echoed in Torah this week.

Let us be reminded this week that ours is a God who cares about the suffering in our world. Let us be reminded that the path from injustice to freedom is often winding and filled with challenges, but neither of these facts excuses us from taking it. Let us be reminded that our inheritance is not only land, but also a willingness to cry out and wander.

Parashat Sh'mot 5769 -- Names and Journeys

This week we begin the book of Exodus. “Exodus,” according to the esteemed www.dictionary.com, means “a going out; a departure or emigration.” And while this is the book of “The Exodus,” meaning “the departure of the Israelites from Egypt under Moses,” it is also the book of “Exodus,” which means that as we read it, we too should imagine our own journeys, the places we are leaving, ourour migrations, (maybe even, if we’re feeling a little chutzpadik, our arrivals). departures,

And yet, this book is known by a different name in Hebrew. In Hebrew, we call this second book of the Torah, “Sh’mot,” or “Names.” The meaning of the word “name,” reports www.dictionary.com, is “a word or a combination of words by which a person, place, or thing, a body or class, or any object of thought is designated.”

This is the Book of Names and the Book of Journeys.

Is it surprising, then, that in this week’s parashah, the first in this book, we hear of both journeys and names?

The generation of Joseph has died and a new Pharaoh now rules over Egypt. Fearing the size of the Israelite people, Pharaoh persecutes and enslaves them. A Hebrew boy is born. Despite the fact that his very existence, his journey into life, is illegal; he is saved and sent down the Nile on a tiny little ark, the second journey of his life. It is not until he is rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter that he receives his first name (a veteran of journeys, but nameless until then). The Torah tells us, “She called him Moshe [pull out], explaining, "Because I pulled him out of the water" (Exodus 2:9)

Moses is first raised by his mother, who calls herself his “wet nurse,” and then is raised by Pharaoh’s daughter, who called herself “his mother.” Moses comes of age in the Pharaoh’s palace, separated from his people, never called by the name of “slave,” the title by which he should have been known.

And so, knowing what we do about names and journeys, should we be surprised that one day, after seeing an Egyptian beat an Israelite slave, Moses seems to remember that his name should have been “Israelite” and “slave”? Should we be surprised that Moses looks left and right, and then strikes and kills the Egyptian taskmaster? Should we lift an eyebrow when Moses’ memory of his birth-name and all that it inspired in him causes him to flee Egypt and travel to Midian? Yes, we seem to know already, a remembered-name often inspires a journey of one kind or another, just as a journey often inspires a new name.

One day in Midian, while tending to his father-in-law’s flock, an angel of God appears to Moses in the form of a burning bush. God knows Moses’ name and knows just how to call to him from within the bush, “Moses, Moses” (Exodus 3:4)! From the bush, God tells Moses who God is and who God hopes Moses will become: not slave, not wanderer, not child of the Egyptian palace, but redeemer of the Israelite people.

Moses responds by asking God’s name.

Why is Moses so interested in the name of the divine? Because Moses has come to know about names and journeys. God answers, elusively, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh…this shall be My name forever.” (Exodus 3:14-15). God’s name does not have a single meaning. At once, it suggests “I Am That I Am,” and “I Am Who I Am,” and “I Will Be What I Will Be.” God is both a name and a journey.

Yes, I believe this is the message we are meant to hear this Shabbat. Created b’tzelem Elohim, we too are names and journey.

On this Shabbat, as we enter into this new book of Torah, let us reflect on the names others call us, on the names we whisper to our own selves, and on the names we choose for those around us. Let us reflect on where we are, where we have been, and where we are going. On this Shabbat, our God of Being, let us live up to the name by which You call us.

Parashat Va-Y'chi 5769 -- Fear & Blessings

This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Va-Y’chi, tells of the last moments of Jacob’s life. On his deathbed, Jacob draws his son Joseph near to him and blesses Joseph’s sons. After Jacob’s passing, Joseph, the dutiful son, takes the lead in preparing his father’s body, arranging for his burial, and overseeing a mourning ceremony for him. Our Torah is touchingly articulate in its description of the care and concern Joseph shows for his father. Joseph’s honest and poignant expressions of mourning are directly contrasted by his brothers’ reactions to their father’s death. Instead of pointing to their grief and sadness, the Torah tells us “Joseph’s brothers, seeing that their father was dead, now said ‘Perhaps Joseph [still] bears us enmity and intends to repay us for all the harm that we inflicted upon him’” (Genesis 50:15). Joseph’s brothers respond to their father’s death with fear.

What prompted such a reaction?

Midrash Tanhuma suggests the following: "What did [the brothers] see that made them afraid? As they were returning from burying their father, they saw that Joseph turned off the road and went to look at the pit into which his brothers had cast him.Upon seeing this, they said, 'He still bears a grudge in his heart. Now that our father is dead, he will make his hatred of us felt.' But in fact Joseph's motive was a pious one — he wanted to utter a blessing for the miracle wrought for him in that place” (Va—Yehi 17).

This past week, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing a provocative d’var torah by Rachel Timoner, a fifth year rabbinical student at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. In her d’var torah, Rachel cited this midrash and asked poignant questions about, based on her reading of this midrash, suggested that we must consider our own reactions to our world today. She asked us to consider what we might see while looking into “the pit.” Inspired by Rachel, I am thinking:

I, like each of you, have been reading the news these past weeks with my eyes open wide. We are all shaken by the situation in Gaza, the economic crisis, and the growing job loss.

Despite these realities, I believe each of us is still called to answer a critical question: Who will I be in this world?

Will I be like Joseph’s brothers? Will I be continually incited by fear and anxiety? Will I look out at the world and assume sinister motives? Will I become paralyzed by worry? Will I become stagnant? Will I remain mired in conflict? Will I give into my own feelings of jealousy or inadequacy?

Or, will I be like Joseph? Will I look out at the world and see blessings? Will I look at the most challenging parts of my life and find meaning? Will I search for the capacity to forgive? Will I find the strength to honor others? Will I dedicate myself to growth and healed relationships?

This week we read the final Torah portion in Genesis. Next week, a new story begins. Exodus. This is a story of slavery and redemption, of leadership and God’s presence, of pain and of joy. This is life. We cannot often affect what comes to us. But, we can affect how we react to what arrives.

Will we be Joseph or will we be his brothers?

The choice is up to each of us.

“I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life!" (Deuteronomy 30:19).