TorahParsha

Real to God

i
God frees the Children of Israel from Egypt by means of Plagues and Signs: in which a staff becomes a serpent, and water becomes blood, and land becomes lice.

These miracles prove the fixed world to be more changeable than it would seem to be.

*
God frees the Children of Israel, largely, on account of the Covenant. God remembered His Covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob: and He sends Moses to free Israel.

And so while God changes the nature of the world, the Covenant lasts.

ii
Slavery requires a captivity with no way of exit. So slavery is only as real as the bonds that hold it in place.

*
The bonds that are the world of Egypt prove to be fictions: God changes that world at His whim.

But the Truth of God's Covenant remains constant.

*
So, in this light, God does not so much free the Children of Israel.

He simply reveals that slavery was never really there in the first place.

For slavery is a fiction with God.

~~~~

The Beginning of Wisdom is the Fear of the Lord

i
Joseph, who interprets dreams, proclaims God as the source of his understanding of dreams.

Joseph says: Do not interpretations belong to God?

*
The Pharaoh of Joseph's day says to him: Since God has made all of this known to you, there is none so...wise as you.


ii
Later, a new Pharaoh arises. That Pharaoh did not know Joseph . That Pharaoh also says: I know not the Lord.

That Pharaoh enslaves the Children of Israel, announcing: Come, let us deal wisely.


iii
Joseph's wisdom comes from knowing God.

The Pharaoh who enslaves the Children of Israel is also wise. His wisdom comes from refusing to know God.

One wisdom is good. The other is evil.


iv
The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, King Solomon said--setting a clear pathway for us; setting a clear way to choose between Pharaoh and Joseph.

Based largely on Rabbi Shlomo Dov Rosen's lectures on the Book of Mishlei. To hear Rabbi Rosen's lectures, go to www.kimitzion.org

~~~~~

 

The Law Must Join the People

Just before God gives the Law, Moses’ father-in-law, Yitro, comes to visit the people in the Desert. Yitro brings Moses’ wife and Moses’ sons with him. 

Where had this wife and these sons been? When he went to struggle with Pharoah, Moses had left them behind. But now the struggle is over and Yitro is bringing Moses’ family back.

*
Then the next day Moses’ father-in-law sees Moses sitting in judgment, from the morning to the evening. Moses sees every case that comes before the court. There is no squabble that is too small for him to see.

Yitro tells Moses: This approach will will not go well. It is too much for one person. The people will tire out. It is not good.

Yitro tells Moses that it would be far better (if God approves) to set up a whole system of courts. Then the people and Moses will carry Justice together.

Then Yitro leaves, and we learn of how God delivers the Law. 

*
Moses is alone before Yitro comes. He is famililess and he is the judge and the people are beneath him. He is a lawgiver who has no peers.

Then Yitro brings Moses his family. Yitro shifts Moses’ position in the nation from judge over the people, to judge with the people. Yitro ties Moses the Lawgiver back into life.

And Yitro has brought the people who are around Moses to be closer to Moses, and to be more like him.

*
Moses the Lawgiver has joined the people. The people of God have risen up to the level of Moses. Now everyone is ready to receive the Law. And then the Law comes.

Sabbath is a Day Beyond Clutching

Full decades after they were released from the Camps, many Holocaust survivors still continued to, and continue to, hoard unnecessary objects. I am talking of items like napkins from restaurants, paper towels, packets of mustard, tiny bags of sugar. These people survived death by grabbing on to every stitch of lifeblood that they could hold to. They could not stop.

*
The monn—manna—was the bread that God rained down on the Jews from the sky. It was the Jews’ sustenance throughout their 40 years in the Desert. It appeared every morning of the week. It covered the ground. The people would gather it and eat it.

*
There were rules around how much you could take, and when you would take it, and when it would fall. In the morning, everyone took what he needed for his own tent. On Friday, a double portion would fall: one portion for Friday, and a second portion for Saturday, for Sabbath, because no bread would fall on Sabbath.

It was no use to gather more bread than was necessary for your tent for that day. Your extra bread would spoil.

If you went out to gather more bread on the Sabbath, you would find nothing. No bread fell on the Sabbath.

*
These people had lived through the Holocaust in Egypt. They had also lived by grabbing. Remember, for instance, that Pharoah had scattered them throughout the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw—to gather their own raw materials for making bricks.

Now they lived off bread that did not allow you to hoard it. It turned wormy, or simply was absent, when you tried to take too much. And so they could not rely on their hoarding to take them through the day. They needed to learn to rely on God.

God who brought bread this morning. God who brought bread yesterday. God who would bring bread tomorrow.

In this way, the falling and not-falling of the bread taught them faith. This was their re-education, after of hell.

The Slavery of Wealth

i.

Speaking of the Children of Israel, this other nation within his own nation, Pharaoh tells his people:

Come, let us deal wisely with it, lest it grow mighty—and it will come to pass that a war will come upon us, and it will join forces with our enemies, and fight against us, and it will depart from the land.

This is Pharaoh’s rationale for enslaving the Children of Israel. It does not entirely make sense. On the one hand, Pharaoh is enslaving the Children of Israel as a matter of national protection: he is afraid that the Children of Israel will join forces with his enemies. That is a reasonable fear.

But at the same time, Pharaoh is afraid—terrified to the point of cruelty—that the Children of Israel will depart from the land. This is what does not make sense. There is no reason, on the surface of things, for Pharaoh to view the Children of Israel departing the land as a problem in its own right.

What is Pharaoh's fear?


ii.
Manhattan, the melting pot where I live now, is the place where the children of all the peoples of the earth can be seen holding hands and kissing in the park and walking together slow. It is a place of the union of all nations.

The other meaning of this place is money. People work late into the night and early into the morning and throughout the day. They do not see their children and they do not see their wives and they do not see their husbands. Or they put off finding a husband or finding a wife or having children for years and years because they are busy striving towards money (I am included in this sin). And we wear beautiful clothes.

Manhattan is not a spiritual place.

I think all these points are connected. As a place of wealth, Manhattan  is a place that is focused on the surface of things. As a place focused on the surface of things, it is a place where people do not ask the deeper meanings of what their nationality might be: this is the notion of a melting pot. As a place focused on the surface of things, however, Manhattan is a place where God is not noticed. Because God is invisible when you look only at the surface of things. 

iii.
Egypt is also a place of wealth, a place of plenty. Abraham and Jacob both descended to there because there was famine in the Land of Israel, but there was plenty in the land of Egypt. Lot, who had lived in Egypt for a time, looked over at Sodom in its good years and saw a place like the Garden of the Lord; like the land of Egypt: which is to say the plenty of Egypt and the plenty of Eden were alike. And notice how Joseph, whose life destiny is to become the leader of Egypt, has a life story that also revolves crucially around clothes. (This observation about the wealth of Egypt is taken mostly from an article on the Virtual Beit Midrash; I cannot recall which.)

And, as Rav Ezra Bick has pointed out, Egypt is also a place of incredible acceptance. Joseph was sold down to Egypt as a slave from a foreign land, and yet he was made leader of the whole nation there.

iv.
The Children of Israel build treasure-houses for Pharaoh in their slavery under Egypt. As they leave from Egypt, the people of Egypt hand over to them vessels of silver and vessels of gold. Treasure-houses, vessels, silver, and gold: this is a struggle around money.

*
Here is what has happened. The people of God are enmeshed within the people of wealth.

The nature of wealth, as I have said,  is a force of assimilation, a force of the melting pot. It is also a force of the rejection of a life of God in the name of a life of money.

But the people of God have a different meaning of their nationhood. And they have a different meaning of their life. They belong to God.

This is why Pharaoh subjugates them to slavery, making them build his treasure-house. Pharaoh enslaves the  people of God to money. And Pharaoh will not let them go, and is afraid that they will go, because for a nation to leave Egypt would be to deny the absolute truth of money’s all accepting, all-embracing absorption of the brotherhood of man into that treasure-house.

v.
As the Children of Israel leave, the roles are reversed. The Egyptians hand  vessels of silver and vessels of gold over to the Children of Israel. Now Egypt hands it wealth over to the people of God, on their way to serve God in the Desert.

i.

Speaking of the Children of Israel, this other nation within his own nation, Pharaoh tells his people:

Come, let us deal wisely with it, lest it grow mighty—and it will come to pass that a war will come upon us, and it will join forces with our enemies, and fight against us, and it will depart from the land.

This is Pharaoh’s rationale for enslaving the Children of Israel. It does not entirely make sense. On the one hand, Pharaoh is enslaving the Children of Israel as a matter of national protection: he is afraid that the Children of Israel will join forces with his enemies. That is a reasonable fear.

But at the same time, Pharaoh is afraid—terrified to the point of cruelty—that the Children of Israel will depart from the land. This is what does not make sense. There is no reason, on the surface of things, for Pharaoh to view the Children of Israel departing the land as a problem in its own right.

What is Pharaoh's fear?


ii.
Manhattan, the melting pot where I live now, is the place where the children of all the peoples of the earth can be seen holding hands and kissing in the park and walking together slow. It is a place of the union of all nations.

The other meaning of this place is money. People work late into the night and early into the morning and throughout the day. They do not see their children and they do not see their wives and they do not see their husbands. Or they put off finding a husband or finding a wife or having children for years and years because they are busy striving towards money (I am included in this sin). And we wear beautiful clothes.

Manhattan is not a spiritual place.

I think all these points are connected. As a place of wealth, Manhattan  is a place that is focused on the surface of things. As a place focused on the surface of things, it is a place where people do not ask the deeper meanings of what their nationality might be: this is the notion of a melting pot. As a place focused on the surface of things, however, Manhattan is a place where God is not noticed. Because God is invisible when you look only at the surface of things. 

iii.
Egypt is also a place of wealth, a place of plenty. Abraham and Jacob both descended to there because there was famine in the Land of Israel, but there was plenty in the land of Egypt. Lot, who had lived in Egypt for a time, looked over at Sodom in its good years and saw a place like the Garden of the Lord; like the land of Egypt: which is to say the plenty of Egypt and the plenty of Eden were alike. And notice how Joseph, whose life destiny is to become the leader of Egypt, has a life story that also revolves crucially around clothes. (This observation about the wealth of Egypt is taken mostly from an article on the Virtual Beit Midrash; I cannot recall which.)

And, as Rav Ezra Bick has pointed out, Egypt is also a place of incredible acceptance. Joseph was sold down to Egypt as a slave from a foreign land, and yet he was made leader of the whole nation there.

iv.
The Children of Israel build treasure-houses for Pharaoh in their slavery under Egypt. As they leave from Egypt, the people of Egypt hand over to them vessels of silver and vessels of gold. Treasure-houses, vessels, silver, and gold: this is a struggle around money.

*
Here is what has happened. The people of God are enmeshed within the people of wealth.

The nature of wealth, as I have said,  is a force of assimilation, a force of the melting pot. It is also a force of the rejection of a life of God in the name of a life of money.

But the people of God have a different meaning of their nationhood. And they have a different meaning of their life. They belong to God.

This is why Pharaoh subjugates them to slavery, making them build his treasure-house. Pharaoh enslaves the  people of God to money. And Pharaoh will not let them go, and is afraid that they will go, because for a nation to leave Egypt would be to deny the absolute truth of money’s all accepting, all-embracing absorption of the brotherhood of man into that treasure-house.

v.
As the Children of Israel leave, the roles are reversed. The Egyptians hand  vessels of silver and vessels of gold over to the Children of Israel. Now Egypt hands it wealth over to the people of God, on their way to serve God in the Desert.

To Listen is Divine

God says to Moses, Behold I have made you like God to Pharoah. God says this as He sends Moses to command Pharoah to deliver the Children of Israel out from their slavery a second time. This is after a first attempt that seems to fail. After that first attempt, Pharoah in fact makes things harder for the Children of Israel than they ever were before. He sends them scurrying to all corners of Egypt to gather straw to make bricks. The Egyptian taskmasters beat the Children of Israel when they are unable to meet their quota.

But now all things are very different. Now Moses is like God to Pharoah. And so this time, when Moses is like God to Pharoah,  Moses’ speaking to Pharoah marks the beginning of the process that leads to the Ten Plagues. That process leads to the Exodus.

I would like to explore what has changed between the first conversation with God and the next: how Moses has become like God to Pharoah and how that has placed him in the position to lead the people out.

**
The first time God sends Moses to speak to Pharoah, Moses tells God that he is a man who is heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue. He is a man who has trouble speaking. God responds:

Who has made man’s mouth? or who makes a man dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? is it not I, the Lord?

The power of speech, God says, is in the realm of God.

And indeed, I have heard other people point out that as slavery sets in the names which are so blatant in the beginning of the Book of Exodus all but disappear. The Exodus story begins And these are the names of the Children of Israel who came to Egypt; and the verses proceed to list seventy names. But by the time we arrive at Moses’ birth, when slavery is entrenched, there do not seem to be names at all. Moses’ father is simply referred to as a man of the house of Levi. His mother is only a daughter of the house of Levi. His sister is only his sister. Moses is simply the child.

These people are nameless.

*
But the power of naming is really a power of speech. Throughout the Bible, the giving of a birth-name will not be written as And his name was... or even His parents named him... but as his parents called his name so-and-so. His parents called his name. As the text describes Moses' naming of his own son: And he called his name Gershom. A name is something called. A name is something spoken.

Names are from speech.

And so in the depths of their slavery, the Children of Israel are nameless. And their leader, who is heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue, has trouble speaking. And so this is a nation gone mute.

But of course it would be a nation gone mute. Because God, who makes a man deaf, or dumb—in Whose realm is the posession of the power of speech—is absent from the midst of the Children of Israel. And with this absence comes the absence, part-and-parcel, of speaking.

*
God sends Moses to speak to Pharoah a second time. Moses counters that Pharoah will not listen to him, a man of uncircumcised lips: a man with trouble speaking. God responds Behold I have made you like God to Pharoah.

Also just before this point in the text, the narrative interrupts itself. The narrative introduces a long genealogy of the names of the leaders of the Children of Israel, from the time they had entered Egypt through the birth of  Moses and Aaron and even after. And the names of Moses’ parents, Amram and Yocheved, are finally introduced. Names have returned.

If names have returned, speech has returned. And if names have returned, the Children of Israel again control their own destiny (for naming is the controlling of destiny through defining it). And if names have returned, God has returned to the Children of Israel.

It is then that God makes Moses like God. Which, I think, is God’s making Moses a man who now has the power to use words, the power to speak: the power to act as God acts: God Who has made a man's mouth.

**
What has created this change? It has come because Moses has learned how to listen.

The first time God sends Moses to redeem the people, Moses says of the Children of Israel They will not believe me, and they will not listen to my voice. This complaint means that it matters greatly to Moses that he is listened to. Perhaps he understands this as the goal of God’s mission for him.

But then the people do not listen to him. The people,  who at first accept Moses’ word, ultimately come to say  back to Moses:

The Lord look upon you, and judge; because you have made us abhorrent in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants to put a sword in their hand to slay us.

What does Moses do then? Moses does something amazing:

And Moses returned to the Lord and said: Lord, why have You dealt ill with this people? why have You sent me? For since I have come to Pharoah to speak in Your name, he has done evil to this people, and You have not saved them.

In the view that Moses had taken at first--the view that he must be listened to--the mission has failed.It has failed completely.  But then Moses’ tells God of the people’s suffering.

*
This is in fact the same reaction as God’s own response to the suffering of Israel:

And the Children of Israel groaned from their work, and they cried, and their cry rose up to God; and God heard their groaning...and God knew.

The Children of Israel cried because of their suffering. God brought their cry before Himself: God brought their cry before God. Now the Children of Israel cry, and Moses hears their cry; and he, too, brings their cry before God.

And so Moses has learned to listen: he learns to act like God. And he has learned, as God knows, that the cries he has heard necessitate conflict with Pharoah. And he knows that this conflict must be undertaken by God. And so in this attitude he truly has become like God to Pharoah.

Now redemption can begin.