January 2020

As the Torah Turns

Rabbi Lader’s Weekly D’var Torah

Bo – Ex. 10:1-13:16 (Jan.31/Feb.1)

This week’s Torah portion is Bo – Ex. 10:1-13:16… and brings us to the climax of Israel’s struggle for freedom.  Pharaoh, seeing that Egypt has been wounded in the struggle, is willing to let some of the Israelites go… for a time.  Moses refuses to go unless all Israel can go together.  Pharaoh offers a concession, but Moses pushes for an all-inclusive communal agenda: “We will go with our young and our old, we will go with our sons and our daughters.” (Ex. 10:9) Albert Einstein captured the importance of community and justice as he wrote*:  “Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however,there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of other men — above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.” 

May the words of Moses and Einstein resound in us as we rejoice in community and seek justice in our world.  * Living Philosophies, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1931. For the full text, follow this link: https://sciphilos.info/docs_pages/docs_Einstein_fulltext_css.html

From Previous Weeks

Va’era’ – Ex. 6:2-9:35 (Jan. 24/25)

“And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.”

Read More

Shemot – Ex. 1:1-6:1 (Jan. 17/18)

“A new king arose who did not know Joseph…”

Read More

Mikketz – Gen. 41:1-44:17 (Dec. 27/28)

Joseph is called upon from the depths of his imprisonment, cleaned up, and brought to Pharaoh to interpret his dreams.

Read More

Va-Yishlach Gen. 32:4-36:43 (Dec. 20/21)

…Jacob responds to Esau’s embrace with a radical insight or formula…

Read More

As the Torah Turns

Rabbi Lader’s Weekly D’var Torah

Va’era’ – Ex. 6:2-9:35 (Jan.24/25)

From our Torah portion this week – Va’era’ – Ex. 6:2-9:35: “And the Eternal said to Moses: ‘… You shall speak all that I command you; and Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land.  And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.'” (Ex. 7:1, 2-3) Many of us struggle when we read this text… and many Torah commentators as well, wondering why God would harden Pharaoh’s heart, thus impeding Pharaoh’s ability to freely make decisions.  There would appear to be no way that Pharaoh could repent, even if he wanted to!   As the story unfolds, however, we read that Pharaoh willfully hardens his own heart after each of the first five plagues.  Five times Pharaoh turned away from Moses’ call and the suffering of the Israelites. Five times he made his own heart less and less supple and soft. As such, Rabbi Simon ben Lakish claims in Exodus Rabbah, a collection of Midrash compiled in the 10th or 11th century (scholars are unsure of the exact date), “Since God sent [the opportunity for repentance and doing the right thing] five times to him and he sent no notice, God then said, ‘You have stiffened your neck and hardened your heart on your own…. So it was that the heart of Pharaoh did not receive the words of God.’” In other words, Pharaoh sealed his own fate, for himself and his relationship with God.  Only after the fifth plague is there a change of language and God now appears to be in charge.   Obadja Sforno (1475-1550; Italian rabbi, Biblical commentator, philosopher and physician) makes the case that Pharaoh was granted ample opportunity to seek forgiveness and change his evil ways.  Sforno teaches that it had become very clear the the only way Pharaoh would allow the exodus of the children of Israel, would be his fear of the severity of the plagues.  When Pharaoh’s repentance was no longer a possibility, God caused him to endure five more plagues in order that God’s mighty powers be further revealed.  Had Pharaoh shown any sign of remorse, however, he would have faced no impediment to repentance.   Others have suggested that once a pattern of refusal – thinking/behavior – is firmly set, it is as though decision-making is no longer in one’s hands.  Pharaoh had set his course; he was no longer capable of reversing it. Or was he?

This is true in both directions. When we make the choice to turn away from suffering, when we engage in the action of walking away from others’ pain, we impact our inner life — our own heart is hardened, we become estranged from the divine and from our own holiest self. True, it’s scary to look that pain in the eyes, and then to grapple with the feelings of responsibility it might engender in us. But there’s a cost to that turning away.

However, as Luzzatto implies, the situation is never permanent… even when you’ve turned away from others and toward your own self-interest to the point that you can no longer hear the still small voice whispering in your direction. Even then, the gates to the divine — and to ourselves — are always open. As the Talmud (Brachot 32b) teaches in the name of Rabbi Elezar, “From the day on which the Temple was destroyed, the gates of prayer have been closed… But though the gates of prayer are closed, the gates of weeping are not closed.”

Pharaoh could have changed… We, too, can change… We can do the work of goodness in the world. It will change us. And when we’re finally ready to let our heart break open, the gates will be there, ready to receive us… as they would also have received Pharaoh.

From Previous Weeks

Shemot – Ex. 1:1-6:1 (Jan. 17/18)

“A new king arose who did not know Joseph…”

Read More

Mikketz – Gen. 41:1-44:17 (Dec. 27/28)

Joseph is called upon from the depths of his imprisonment, cleaned up, and brought to Pharaoh to interpret his dreams.

Read More

Va-Yishlach Gen. 32:4-36:43 (Dec. 20/21)

…Jacob responds to Esau’s embrace with a radical insight or formula…

Read More

Va-Yetze Gen. 28:10-32:3 (Dec. 6/7)

“Surely God was in this place, and me, I did not know it!”

Read More

As the Torah Turns

Rabbi Lader’s Weekly D’var Torah

Exodus/Shemot – Ex. 1:1-6:1

 This week we begin the book of Exodus/Shemot – Ex. 1:1-6:1.  Hundreds of years have passed since Jacob and his family settled in Egypt under the protection of Joseph… And now, “a new king arose who did not know Joseph” (Ex. 1:8) and the people of Israel are enslaved in Egypt.  Moses, saved from death by Pharaoh’s daughter, grows up in the palace, but does not stand idly by when he sees an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave.  He strikes the taskmaster – and kills him; realizing his own life is now in danger, he makes his way into the wilderness, marries the daughter of a Midianite priest, and becomes a shepherd. Upon taking his sheep into the wilderness, he turns to see a wonder – a bush is burning, but is not consumed…! (Ex. 3:2)  Moses encounters God at this bush, and God tells him to “take off the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” (Ex. 3:5) God has appeared to Moses to send him on a mission – Tell Pharaoh to let My people go; the time of liberation is at hand. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel – rabbi, scholar and philosopher who marched right beside Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – taught: “The road to the sacred leads through the secular… The Jewish form of religious experience is always in acts… in instilling a spiritual quality into the things we are doing.” [“No Time for Neutrality” in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays. (1997)] And the things we should be doing are those things which seek to overthrow the “pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, and falsehoods.” [“On Prayer” in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays. (1997)] And in these acts, holiness is found.  In the inner city… in the posh neighborhoods… in the poverty-stricken mountains… in the arid plains… in the tent cities of refugees… Alas, the list goes on and on… Perhaps Woody Guthrie – singer, guitarist, songwriter, and social activist (1912–1967) – captured this sense of finding the holy wherever we find ourselves in his song “Holy Ground.” The words are Woody’s, from 1954, but the melody is by Frank London, a trumpeter and composer with the Klezmatics.

Holy Ground

Words by Woody Guthrie, 1954, Music by Frank London (The Klezmatics), 2003

Take off, take off your shoes – This place you’re standing, it’s holy groundTake off, take off your shoes – The spot you’re standing, its holy ground These words I heard in my burning bush – This place you’re standing, it’s holy groundI heard my fiery voice speak to me – This spot you’re standing, it’s holy ground That spot is holy holy ground – That place you stand it’s holy groundThis place you tread, it’s holy ground – God made this place his holy ground Take off your shoes and pray – The ground you walk it’s holy groundTake off your shoes and pray – The ground you walk it’s holy ground Every spot on earth I traipse around – Every spot I walk it’s holy groundEvery spot on earth I traipse around – Every spot I walk it’s holy ground Every spot it’s holy ground – Every little inch it’s holy groundEvery grain of dirt it’s holy ground – Every spot I walk it’s holy ground Here is a recording of “Holy Ground” by the Klezmatics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SkhGNBe51g

 Friends — Where is your burning bush? Where is your holy ground? How does it affect how we act in the world when we see the potential for holiness in every spot we walk?

From Previous Weeks

Mikketz – Gen. 41:1-44:17 (Dec. 27/28)

Joseph is called upon from the depths of his imprisonment, cleaned up, and brought to Pharaoh to interpret his dreams.

Read More

Va-Yishlach Gen. 32:4-36:43 (Dec. 20/21)

…Jacob responds to Esau’s embrace with a radical insight or formula…

Read More

Va-Yetze Gen. 28:10-32:3 (Dec. 6/7)

“Surely God was in this place, and me, I did not know it!”

Read More

Toledot – Gen. 25:19-28:9 (Nov. 29/30)

“I am old now and I do not know the day of my death” (Bereshit 27:2)

Read More