March 2024 Message
Steve Lotter
They say ‘never count your chickens before they hatch’. Just before the Israelites leave Egypt in liberation, they become aware that they are not leaving without resistance. The Egyptians are drawing nearer and they scream Moses: Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?”
This is the way of the enslaved. As bad as things are as a slave, it is safe. You know your role. It may be harsh, your life is forced to exist in most narrow of confines, but it is familiar. Now liberated from that bleak reality into uncertainty, you lash out at the ones who insisted change was necessary and right.
The people’s lack of faith is so human. “What have you done for me lately’ is the extent of trust for most people. Over the last months of their lives, 10 miraculous super natural plagues visited on Egypt by their God. This God has protected them from the worst ravages of the terrors. God has freed them and yet at the first sign of danger, they are ready to pack it in and go back to being slaves because God failed. Every reader of this story knows it will not end that way, but their fear is real and palpable.
But Moses has come to believe in this God. Moses has seen the miracles and actions on behalf of the people, and Moses knows the ending. He calls out, as if he were Charlton Heston: “Have no fear! Stand by, and witness the deliverance which the LORD will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. The LORD will battle for you; be still!”
And. Nothing.
But then God calls out, “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward!”
And in that moment, everything changed.
For this was the true moment of liberation. It was the beginning of a necessary change in the relationship between the Divine Being and the People of Israel. This was the moment when the mourners leave grave side, and the shiva period starts. Until this moment all one’s activities and focus is on the deceased, as the mourners leave the grave, the trajectory from loss to return to life begins. This is the moment at a bar mitzvah when the traditional father’s prayer Blessed is the One who has freed me from the punishments of this one is recited, for after this moment the bar mitzvah is responsible for his behavior and making his own choices.
For in this moment, God was indicating to Moses and Israel that no longer would God do everything for them. From now on, God would be partners with Israel. They would have to be responsible for their actions and decisions.
The experience at the Sea of Reeds blasted a new message into their consciousness – Do not be passive.
To be fair, the language of the text suggests Moses presented a confused message – He responds to their fears saying Al tiru, hityatzvu ‘Don’t be afraid and stand by’ – and all other examples of the phrase hityatzvu in the Bible express preparation for war. And remember we are told that the people left Egypt hamushim , translated as armed. It sounds like he is saying, ‘don’t be afraid, defend yourselves.’ Yet Moses also tells them “God will fight for you”. At this liminal moment, the transition is still awkward and clumsy.
And you will say but God still provides the miracle of the splitting sea! True, but the Israelites have to go forward. Rabbi Shai Held notes that it is more accurate to say that this new relationship between Israel and God, in which Israel is no longer the passive, dependent minor partner, is one of interdependency. He states that “God’s miracles, in some fundamental way, are dependent on prior human effort”.
For the mystics, the mutual partnership was expressed in the Zohar as ‘be’itaruta d’la tata, itar hachi nami l’ela’ “Arousal from below, causes arousal up above.” What we do in this world motivates the upper worlds, whose emanation then reverberates back on earth.
The moment of the Exodus begins a new era of partnership between God and Israel. This culminates in the Covenant at Sinai.
Three times on Friday evening we recite the verses from Genesis that describe the creation of Shabbat: “On the seventh day God finished the work that God had been doing, and God ceased on the seventh day from all the work that God had done. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that God had done”. We recite the Vayachulu verses once in the Amidah, once after the Amidah and a third time before kiddush over wine at the Friday night meal. According to the Kabbalist Isaiah Horowitz, in his encyclopedic Shnai Luchot Habrit, states that when we recite these verses testifying to God’s creation of Shabbat we become partners in Creation: How? The word Vayachulu translated as “it was finished” as spelled in the Torah can be read Vayichalu, by changing the vowels around and Vayichalu is plural for “They finished the work of Creation.” Horowitz explains, from a mystical point of view, when a person testifies to the reality of God’s creation, he or she binds together the spirit, the wisdom and the faith elements that made creation possible. The recitation thus renews the creative energy of Shabbat.
To leave the psychology of slavery and ascend to partnership with God requires we Jews to take responsibility for our decisions, our choices, our actions. These are the mitzvot.
Our Talmudic sages instructed us “Do not rely on Miracles. In the post Exodus world, the ultimate mitzvah is “do not be religiously passive”. We each have roles to play and as God told Israel at the Sea of Reeds, each of us must find our way to go forward.