What do we do if God is missing?

 

i

The time of slavery in Egypt

before God heard the cries of His people

and before He remembered His covenant with their fathers

and before He sent Moses to save them

was,

we could say,

a time when we felt God’s absence.

*

It was wholly unlike

the time in the Garden

when Adam hid

and God sought Adam out—

asking:

Ayekah

Where are you?

 

ii

And during the time

when we felt God’s absence,

Moses saves Yitro’s daughters

from the harassment of shepherds.

Yitro asks his daughters:

V’ayo

And where is he—

this man who helped you

whom we must thank?

 

iii

Moses marries Yitro’s daughter

and serves as his shepherd

and bears him grandsons

and it is while Moses lives with Yitro

that God heard Israel’s moaning

and God comes to Moses

in a burning bush

and God says:

Now I will rescue My people.

 

iv

When we cannot hear God seeking us

then we must seek each other.

And then God will hear us.

And then God will come.

*

That is the lesson

that Yitro offers.

 

_____
Shabbat shalom,

Abe

 

Please pray for for Ayelet Yakira bat Chaya Hinda Matel Nechama, Esther Chaya bat Yael Miriam, andfor NeshamaEmunah bat Batya

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