January 14, 2005 - January 20, 2005

4 Shevat - 10 Shevat, 5765

BO

In this weeks Torah portion (Bo) the issue of whether we humans have free will is addressed in the story of Pharaoh and the Israelites. The Torah reiterates several times that during the Ten Plagues, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not allow the Hebrews to leave. God’s behavior is morally problematic; God deprives Pharaoh of free will by hardening his heart, and then punishes him for being hardhearted. As the medieval Bible commentator Nachmanides asks; “If God hardened his heart, then what was his crime?�

Paradoxically, however, had God not hardened Pharaoh’s heart, he likewise would have been deprived of free will. If someone twists your arm behind your back until you sign a contract, can you be said to have signed it willingly? Similarly, had God turned the Nile into blood and sent frogs throughout Egypt, but had not hardened Pharaoh’s heart, of course he would have let the Hebrew slaves go, not out of free will but out of terror. It was only because God hardened his heart that Pharaoh no longer feared the kind of physical devastation that would evoke instant obedience from a normal person.

Though freed from physical fear, Pharaoh could still have recognized the injustices he had inflicted on the Hebrew slaves, and let them go on that account. Unfortunately, morality was irrelevant to Pharaoh. It was only when the first-born started dying that he finally accepted that he was facing a force immeasurably greater than his own.

Rabbi Larry Raphael

RabbiRaphael@sherithisrael.org

January 7, 2005 - January 13, 2005

26 Tevet - 3 Shevat, 5765

One of the most powerful elements of the story of our exodus from Egypt is the humanity of all those involved, even our revered leader Moses. We know that Moses was not an eager applicant for the job of confronting the Egyptian Pharaoh and demanding that he let the Israelites go free. Upon hearing God’s assignment for him, Moses pleads that he is not qualified, not eloquent enough. We can feel him hoping that God will let him off the hook and seek someone else. But God’s response deserves our attention. God does not minimize or dismiss Moses’ concern. Maybe Moses truly could not have spoken effectively to the Pharaoh alone. But rather than finding this a reason to look for another leader, God promises to send Aaron with Moses, to speak for him. Leading the people to freedom is a job of great significance, and God is not bothered by the idea Moses cannot do it alone. God has chosen Moses for a reason, or perhaps many reasons, and yet this choice does not preclude Moses lacking certain skills, and even lacking confidence.

When we are faced with a daunting task, we may feel we must either meet all expectations or find our way out of the responsibility. The model of Moses leading with Aaron’s essential help offers another possibility. As much as we each must do what we can, we must also honestly ask for and accept the help from others that will enable us to take on responsibilities that we could never fulfill alone.

Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller

RabbiJST@sherithisrael.org

This Thursday we will celebrate a day of national thanksgiving. As anticipation of that celebration I share with you several documents that have guided my observance of this day of thanks and this day of giving. Perhaps you will enjoy sharing one or more of them at your table on Thursday.

President George Washington wrote in 1790 a letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island. He said in part,

"For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."

Immigrants all, we can learn from our history in this country. On Thanksgiving Day in 1905 Oscar Straus, a noted Jewish philanthropist, spoke in Boston and appealed to the tradition of the Pilgrims when he argued for our borders to remain open to the persecuted Jews of Russia:

To bar out these refugees…though their pockets be empty, is a grievous wrong, and in violation of the spirit of our origin and development as a free people, for they too, have God’s right to tread upon American soil, which the pilgrims have sanctified as the home of the refugee.

Finally, the words of the American Jewish poet, Emma Lazarus, may be appropriate to recall on this special day. She wrote this poem for the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1876.

"The New Colossus" Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame; With conquering limbs astride from land to land A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips.

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to be free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Rabbi Larry Raphael

Vayetze

Jacob runs for his life, fleeing the fury of the brother from whom he has stolen the patriarchal blessing and the father he has deceived. He stops for the night, for the sun is setting. The next day, he will cross over into another land, a new family and a world that knows nothing of a covenant with God. Jacob has reached the borders of his life with no assurance that the blessings of power, wealth and progeny he has received from his father, Isaac, will ever be fulfilled. Jacob dreams of a ladder to heaven with angels ascending and descending. He envisions God at his side, renewing the covenant made with his father, Isaac, and grandfather, Abraham:

"The ground upon which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Your progeny shall be as the dust of the earth, spreading out to the west and the east, to the north and south. All the families of the earth will bless themselves through you and your descendants "(Genesis 28:14).

Jacob awakens from his sleep and says: "Surely there is God in this place and I did not know." What is it that he did not know? Two Chasidic masters provide contrary yet equally remarkable insight for us. Each responds to Jacob s confusion over God's presence. One explains that the place where God was found was in the "I"—the self of Jacob. Consumed with anger, fear and deceit, Jacob suddenly becomes aware of the potential divinity within himself, the place where God can reside. The second intuits the opposite. At the very moment that Jacob becomes aware of God's presence, he exclaims: It is "I" (the self) that I do not know. Only when I am not filled with myself, when I empty myself of the ego and self-serving explanations which encrust me, can I truly experience God's presence. Both remind us how ever-present God can be and how easy it is to say, "But I did not know."

Rabbi Larry Raphael

Toldot

The Bible's first mention of Edom is found in this week's Torah portion, where we read of Esau's sale of his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentil soup. "Once when Jacob was cooking a stew Esau came in from the field famished. Esau said to Jacob 'Give me some of that red stuff to gulp down for I am famished'—which is why Esau was named Edom. Jacob replied 'First sell me your birthright.' Esau said ' I'm about to die from hunger. What use is my birthright to me?' So Esau took an oath and sold his birthright to Jacob" (Genesis 25:29-33).

It is generally thought that the primary purpose of this story is to establish Jacob's right to inherit the mantle of leadership. It is a statement by the Torah against primogeniture: Communal leaders should be chosen based upon ability, not by birth order. Esau, like his uncle Ishmael, lacked whatever it was that convinced the authors of the Torah to reject his claim for leadership.

Jacob, however, was not a perfect man by any measure. The beauty of Torah is that our heroes are presented as real people, with their positive qualities accentuated but their failings revealed as well.

From the story of the lentil stew until their reconciliation decades later, Jacob and Esau were bitter enemies. Finally, in the narrative we will read in two weeks, Edom and Israel are able to reconcile their differences and live side by side in peace.

Rabbi Neal Borovitz calls our attention to the following historic parallel. On October 26, 1994, as a world-wide audience watched the signing of the Israel-Jordan Peace treaty, we saw that the children of Israel and of Edom were following in the footsteps of our biblical ancestors. The poignancy of the moment increased when King Hussein, the great grandson of King Faisal of Arabia, and President Ezer Weizmann, the nephew of Chaim Weizmann (the first President of Israel), were reconciling differences 75 years after their forbears first attempted to make peace at the end of World War I.

Moreover, all of the leaders on that Desert Dais ten years ago were men who over the course of their public lives had made many mistakes and miscalculations. It may be that only people who are aware of their own past failures could have made the compromises necessary to reach peace, by recognizing the birthrights of their opponents.

The dreams of the children of Jacob and Esau on that autumn day have not yet been realized. Modern Amalekites have terrorized both Jacob and Esau and turned the warm peace of 1994 into the cold reality of a four-year Intifada. This week as we read this week’s Torah portion, let us affirm that in this generation we shall strive to reweave the fabric of peace between all the children of Isaac and Ishmael.

Rabbi Larry Raphael