Rabbi’s Message
Question: Why doesn’t the Torah portion of the Song at the Sea end with the song? That should be the climax. The Ten Commandments reading ends with that. Instead after the song, we continue to read - In the wilderness, the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve this whole congregation to death.” And after the manna came down, Moses explained the rules of gathering, “Let no one leave any of it over until morning.” But they paid no attention to Moses; some of them left of it until morning, and it became infested with maggots and stank. And Moses was angry with them.” And once again, “The people thirsted there for water; and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “What shall I do with this people? Before long they will be stoning me!” And then just to round off our special Shabbat, “Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.”
After the climax of liberation, we read bitter complaints, ingratitude, a desire to return to slavery and war.
What were the Rabbis thinking? What they were thinking was – this is real life, this is history, this is humanity. Victory does not bring freedom. Freedom is a neverending struggle. There is no climax to history. History itself must end for the kingdom of God, that is Paradise, Gan Eden, Heaven, to begin. What we call Mashiachtzeit, Messianic time cannot exist within history or human time.
Look at our American history. In 1865, the scourge of slavery end in this nation. The North defeated the rebellious South which dehumanized black Americans as slaves. America finally became a free country. Except that it did not. The Reconstruction era was in some ways even worse than the antebellum period as the North abandoned all attempts to rein in Southern racism and exploitation for the sake of maintaining a functioning and prosperous economy. The South found even more vicious ways to subjugate its black population with lynching and share cropping.
It took one hundred years for the civil rights movement to succeed, only for a backlash against those rights to develop over the last 60 years, so that under the Trump administration insults such as diminishing the celebration of black American life or sending out masked government agents to terrorize and arrest black and brown citizens in raids against alleged criminals living illegally in the US.
Victory does not bring freedom. Freedom is a neverending struggle. There is no climax to history.
In Israel the return of the body of the last hostage, Rani Gvili, concluded one of the aims of Israel’s war against Gaza. But it was a bittersweet moment.
Rachel Goldberg Polin, who was a leader in the movement to return the hostages, including her son Hersh who died in captivity, tried to express the complex feelings of one of the war aims: (I)t was confusing for me yesterday to receive many messages telling me how happy I must be. But as more and more texts and emails swam to me, I began to understand the messages were because this specific agonizing mission, to get every hostage home, has concluded... I am deeply grateful that those people have been with us, and I am glad that, for them, this is over. Their circles closed, their chapters finished, and I am endlessly thankful for them. But for us bereaved families, the eternal hurdle is figuring out how to wake up each morning with part of our souls elsewhere.”
And even more difficult for Israel is that now that this aim of the war is over, it must now confront itself. Does it wish to remain a Jewish democracy, with all oxymoronic yet ethical overtones that such a concept entails, or does it wish like so many performative democracies to act as an authoritarian state that uses Jewish nationalist tropes and parochial legalisms to rule its population?
This phenomenon which we are watching unfold in our nation as well, is not unknown in the world. In September 1938, a Jewish labor lawyer, Ernst Fraenkel, had smuggled out of Germany a manuscript that would be published two years later at the University of Chicago, The Dual State, A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship. Aziz Huq, a professor of law at the U of C, explained Fraenkel’s concept: a lawless dictatorship does not arise simply by snuffing out the ordinary legal system of rules, procedures, and precedents. To the contrary, that system—which he called the “normative state”—remains in place while dictatorial power spreads across society. What happens, Fraenkel explained, is insidious. Rather than completely eliminating the normative state, the Nazi regime slowly created a parallel zone in which “unlimited arbitrariness and violence unchecked by any legal guarantees” reigned freely. In this domain, which Fraenkel called the “prerogative state,” ordinary law didn’t apply. (A prerogative power is one that allows a person such as a monarch to act without regard to the laws on the books...) In this prerogative state, judges and other legal actors deferred to the racist hierarchies and ruthless expediencies of the Nazi regime… The key here is that this prerogative state does not immediately and completely overrun the normative state. Rather, Fraenkel argued, dictatorships create a lawless zone that runs alongside the normative state. The two states cohabit uneasily and unstably… Fraenkel insisted, it was a mistake to think that even the Nazis would entirely dispense with normal laws. After all, they had a complex, broadly capitalist economy to maintain… Capitalism could jog nicely alongside the brutal suppression of democracy, and even genocide.”
And this is the America we are living in today. While the people of Minneapolis, and Los Angeles, Washington DC and Chicago, have had masked government police force roaming their streets, terrorizing communities, deporting citizens and non-citizens, murdering two innocent Americans who were supporting their neighbors, for the rest of us life goes on as normal. Stock market doing great, the movie Melania is out! The Super Bowl is coming and up and Bad Bunny is the half-time show!. Normal America goes on as the prerogative state corrupts big business, Congress and even the Supreme Court.
If you believed as Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice, well let me remind you: Victory does not bring freedom. Freedom is a neverending struggle. There is no climax to history.
So is there a message from our Sages in which the climax is an anti-climax? I think there is. And it does come after the Song at the Sea. It is Shabbat: “Mark that the LORD has given you the sabbath; therefore God gives you two days’ food on the sixth day. Let everyone remain where he is: let no one leave his place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.
How does Shabbat respond to our reality? First and foremost Shabbat is anti-isolationist, it intentionally creates community. We celebrate Shabbat together as community, we have meals together, we connect at shul. Community is what the people of Minneapolis have shown is the way to combat ICE terrorism. They are not looking out to protect undocumented individuals, they have repeated time and again they are looking out for their neighbors.
Shabbat as the manna that God provides is a time when everyone has enough. When they gathered the manna, and the larger availability on the 6th day to prepare for Shabbat, they gathered…each as much as he needed to eat. Shabbat is about equity. When everyone in the synagogue is an equal, when everyone has just what they need, when we are able to rest from the stress and terrors of the week, we are getting a taste of heaven, a simulacrum of the world after the end of history. And finally, Shabbat is never-ending. It is constant, once a week. A victorious battle teases us with finality. Shabbat promises a continuous flow of blessing. May our nation, and the state of Israel learn well this message of Shabbat Shirah.
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I know that this bulletin is a little tardy (My bad, but Purim got in the way!) but I share the words that I began with before the Megillah reading :
Before the Megillah reading - a moment of seriousness. It seems a remarkable irony that the US and Israel are involved in a war with Iran, which is ancient Persia, at the very time we are celebrating Purim, in which the Jewish people of Persia defeated an ancient Persian who was committed to genocide against the Jewish people. And recently the modern leader of that ancient nation, just as committed to genocide against the Jewish people, was killed by Israeli forces. But this is not a time for Schadenfreude or using our story tonight as a prototype for what will happen in this war. We pray for a swift end to bombings in Iran, and Israel and throughout the Middle East.
This current war though does suggest a slightly different insight into our story tonight. Ahasuerus, ruler of 127 provinces throughout the Mideast and Asia, is willing for a generous bribe to follow Haman’s plan to kill all the Jews. And later due Esther’s influence, he allows the Jews to fight back and kill all the Hamanites. In a political system in which unstable and foolish egomaniacs can be swayed by bribes or flattery and not by concern for those they lead or any kind of prudent strategy, war and destruction will always be an easier solution than peace and deliberation. While we celebrate tonight Esther’s bravery and how she turned the King away from genocide towards punishing Jew hatred, we have to recognize that in other versions of this story, the pendulum could have swung the other way. It is never safe to trust weak, selfish and power-hungry human beings. Let that be a lesson of our text for us this year.
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On a more positive note: Our third rabbinical candidate is coming this weekend. Please continue to show your support for these candidates so the congregation can make a strong impression on them and so members will be able to make a comprehensive choice for our next rabbi.
Our next Hebrew level class and Pesah are not far away!
March 15 Sunday at Sinai we begin the next level of Hebrew with the Read Hebrew America program. You only need to be familiar with the letters to be in this class. It will explore the meaning of prayer words and we will continue to work on reading skills.
Pesah Tuesdays
Three dates in the month of March we will go deep in Pesah – All classes will be on Topics
March 16 Monday 7:30 PM What’s the deal with Chametz and why should I sell mine? The rest of the year we love chametz – it’s our challah! Why this one week of the year is it considered ‘wicked’?
March 24 Tuesday 7:30 PM The spiritual elements of the Seder meal
March 29 Sunday evening – I will replay my Pesah seder zoom program over Zoom for those who want to watch a seder experience in full. During the Covid years I held a seder over zoom early in the evening for those whose custom is to eat early. I will replay it or send it to those who would like to watch and learn from it.
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Unveiling for memorial stone for our beloved Jill Ross
Sunday March 15 11:30 AM at HOcemetery