Parashat Va’era  (Exodus 6:2 - 9:32)

Reflections on the Torah Portion

The dramatic story of the Exodus moves swiftly along; this week, we begin to read of Moses’ demand to Pharaoh to free the Israelites, Pharaoh’s refusal, and God’s punishment of Egypt with the first plagues.   Problematic to the text is a well-known, repeated phrase, that “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”  Jews of every era (not just in modern times) have objected to the determinism the Torah suggests.  Maimonides went to great lengths to emphasize that “free will is given to each person.  If one wants to direct himself toward the path of God and become a tzaddik [righteous one], the power is in his hands” (Hilchot Teshuvah, 5:1).

How, then, to explain the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart?  Avivah Zornberg believes it is an “essentially mysterious” process, but points to a pattern:  for the first six plagues, the text says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and then, she writes, “God’s role in Pharaoh’s resistance begins” (The Particulars of Rapture, p. 105) Pharaoh dug himself into an emotional hole, resisting and resisting, until “a kind of autism, almost pitiable in its irrationality” takes over within him.   Or, as Biblical scholar Moshe Greenberg writes, “Pharaoh had only to be himself to do God’s will.”

Sinai Update – January 15-21, 2006

Parashat Shemot (Exodus 1:1 – 6:1)

Reflections on the Torah Portion – Rabbi Andy Vogel

Political scholar Michael Walzer says that the book of Exodus gave us an “idea of great presence and power in Western thought, the idea of deliverance from suffering and oppression.”  The narrative in Exodus gave rise to a critical concept in our civilization, one which is central to the Jewish religion:  that we can find redemption and liberation in this world.

A key moment is reached in this week’s Torah portion leading to that idea.  The narrator of the Torah tells us after the descriptions of the sufferings of the Israelites that “God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.  God saw the children of Israel; God knew.” (Exod. 2:24-25)  This last phrase is vague: What did God know?  Using the language of Jewish mysticism, the 12th century rabbi Nachmanides wrote that this mysterious divine “knowing” (da’at) is connected to the divine attribute of love and understanding (chesed and binah), the source of all redemption.  Previously in the narrative, God seemed to be absent, writes Nachmanides, but all that changes in Exodus chapter 2.  In other words, redemption can dawn when the knowledge of suffering begins, when God and we become present, not absent, to hear the cries and sufferings of others.  That “knowing,” that knowledge, is the beginning of liberation.

            - Rabbi Andy Vogel

Sinai Update – January 1-7, 2006

Parashat Vayigash (Genesis 44:18 – 47:27)

The power of repentance – and taking responsibility for the events of one’s own life – is a highlight in this week’s Torah portion, one of the greatest scenes in the Bible.  Standing before his powerful brother Joseph in Egypt at the story’s climactic moment, Judah steps forward (Genesis 44:18) to replace as his substitute in captivity their youngest brother, Benjamin, whom their father Jacob loves.  Stepping forward in his speech to Joseph, he recalls their father Jacob’s pain losing a young Joseph years earlier, demonstrating he has learned from the past.

In the Hebrew, “stepping forward” is vayigash elav, literally translated “he approached him,” and interpreted by our rabbis as a physical as well as emotional drawing near to Joseph.  But the Etz Hayim Commentary offers another interpretation (p. 274).  Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Lieb of Ger  (19th century) read this phrase as “Judah approached himself”; Judah’s repentance involved a deep self-knowledge.  By discovering who he really was at his core, Judah was able to rise above his father’s favoritism to be his best self, and thereby correct the wrongs of the past and bring healing to his family.

Sinai Update – January 8-14, 2006

Parashat Vayechi  (Genesis 47:28-50:26)

Before the book of Genesis concludes, ending the sagas of the patriarchs and matriarchs, Jacob blesses his children and his grandchildren, Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Menashe.  He places his hands on the grandchildren’s heads, crosses his hands to reverse the blessing order (blessing the eldest boy with his left hand, the youngest with his right), and says to them, “By you shall the people of Israel be blessed!  They [future generations] shall say:  ‘May God make you like Ephraim and Menashe.’” (Gen. 48:20).

When do we, the future generations referred to by Jacob, receive this blessing?  On Friday evening, in our homes, we can bless each other, especially children.  The Reform movement’s book Gates of Shabbat: A Guide for Observing Shabbat (1991, page 21) encourages us to share this ancient blessing at our Shabbat tables: “May you be like Ephraim and Menashe, who carried forward the life of our people.”  Or, for girls: “May you be like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, who carried forward the life of our people.”  And it encourages a “freestyle” blessing that comes from the heart.  We take the opportunity to bless one another too infrequently, but by pausing to do so on Shabbat, we increase the power and beauty of blessing in the world and our lives.