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Bo: Who is in and who is out 

The first Rashi   on the Torah suggests that the Torah could have begun in this parsha

 

אָמַר רַבִּי יִצְחָק לֹֹֹֹֹא הָיָה צָרִיךְ לְהַתְחִיל אֶת הַתּוֹרָה אֶלָּא מֵהַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם,

 

 Rabbi Isaac said: The Torah  should have commenced with the verse (Exodus 12:2) “This month shall be unto you the first of the months”

With this phrase, the text turns from narrative to instructional.  Take a lamb. These are instructions for the exclusively Hebrew feast made from its sacrifice.  A ritual that protects its sincere participants from the ravage of pestilence around them. 

What was the function of the preceding stories - in all their ambivalence  and tangents?  The stories serve to generate the identity of the people who left Egypt.  Retelling the saga continues to contribute to the identity of the generations of readers who followed and identified with those proud, confused, frightened, redeemed survivors.  Identity cannot come from instruction, it can only come from story. The entanglement that comes from living  as a  minority -  struggling to survive and sometimes excel, in a place  with alternative values – leads to confusions that are never clearly resolved. How do I meld the value of universal equality with the specialness of my own people? How did the Hebrews in Egypt legitimize the leadership of Moses in the society that had saved the world from famine by virtue of the hierarchy led by Pharaoh?  A story has the subtlety that allows living without clear resolution

When we celebrate the shadow of the Exodus, when we have our annual seder, we are instructed to that effect: 

בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם,

 

In each and every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as if he left Egypt,

 

In the Hagadah, this pronouncement follows an outline of Jewish history that begins with Abraham.

 

In that first Rashi, Rabbi Isaac posits that the story of Genesis  is to establish that the world was created by Gd and Gd can dispense its territory by right of ownership. I think that some  of the  subsequent  story serves to create a people who would make a claim to a portion of the Earth that they believe has been designated to them

 

Moses and Abraham are antiparallel.  Moses brings plagues on the Egyptians. Abraham tries to rescue Sodom

When Abraham speaks with Gd  concerning the plan for the destruction of the five communities associated with  Sodom , Abraham points out the injustice of killing the righteous with the wicked.  Gd acknowledges the problem and shows Abraham that the argument does not succeed.  There are too few righteous, less than 10, to save them. The rescue formula for Sodom was the umbrella of the righteous. It was the community that was judged, the net merit of the whole, not the individuals. 

One might suspect that Abraham wanted to save his nephew Lot who lived in Sodom.  Abraham  had risked his life ( and the lives of his army) to save him before from the mortal Northern kings.  It is reasonable to suspect that he was now trying to save him from the wrath of Gd.  Lot and a portion of his family are  saved, and by his merit, he may have saved one of the five communities. 

Of the ten plagues, three( the invasion of the multitude, the zoonosis and darkness) explicitly state that the Israelites were separated and spared from the ravage.  The other seven do not specify this (although it is assumed in the tradition). Two plagues, hail and the death of the firstborn, identify a method for rescue. They allow families to choose.

Onkelos makes this choice clear. In the gloss to  12;43

כׇּל־בֶּן־נֵכָ֖ר לֹא־יֹ֥אכַל בּֽוֹ׃

Onkelos: 

כָּל בַּר יִשְׂרָאֵל דְיִשְׁתַּמַד לָא יֵכוּל בֵּהּ

No [Jew who renounces his religion] may eat

 

The Passover experience served to differentiate the Hebrews from the Egyptians. This separation had to be done in the face of he Egyptians. Ironically,Pharoah had offered that the Hebrews perform their rite in the land, but Moses rejected the idea because it would anger the Egyptians:
8;22

הֵ֣ן נִזְבַּ֞ח אֶת־תּוֹעֲבַ֥ת מִצְרַ֛יִם לְעֵינֵיהֶ֖ם וְלֹ֥א יִסְקְלֻֽנוּ׃

 

If we sacrifice that which is untouchable to the Egyptians before their very eyes, will they not stone us!

The Hebrews are confronting their host society.  The separation requires the defiance.

Matzoh is a rejection of Egyptian technology. The use of yeast to generate carbon dioxide and alcohol marks the beginning of industrial  biochemistry. The Egyptians  were the ancient masters of the microbial world. They made beer and bread by nurturing the microbes.  They preserved the dead by killing the microbes.

Celebrating with matzoh was a rejection of the Egyptian way. It was an act of Luddism, anti technological. Leavened bread tastes good, but it takes time and it is filled with emptiness. The exodus required  quicker decision and less hot air.  Ultimately, fermentation technology was adopted  by the Hebrews, but its rejection celebrated, It’s like not using a phone on Shabbath.

Every day, I grow out of the person I was yesterday. The secular world has much to offer.  Skepticism is warranted; I celebrate it.

 

Va'erah: Persuasion

Gd speaks to Moses to persuade him to confront Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt. The Pharoah is threatened and stricken with plagues to persuade him to let the Hebrew people celebrate their three-day holiday in the desert. Moses gains confidence. Pharaoh stands his ground.

Of course Pharaoh dismisses the demands presented to him. Granting them would weaken his authority and authority is his life. He could have allowed the holiday out of kindness, but that does not seem to be his position. He is the taskmaster of taskmasters, and the make-work must go on. The demand for vacation time is met with an increase in the demands upon the people. He is a model for future despots.

Do we expect Pharoah and his advisors to suddenly give up their beliefs because they are confronted with a greater truth? Gd does not. The oppressed will be heard only when they show their power, their ability to vex the entitled. Hence, the plagues.

The plagues have symbolic meaning. The water of the Nile turns to blood. The river regurgitates the blood of the Hebrew male infants drowned in it. The frogs are just everywhere – like the enslaved Hebrews. It would be a relief for the Egyptians if this people, held in such low esteem, would just leave for a while. Pharaoh gets it, he agrees to let them leave… but it does not happen. Time drags on.

The magicians, the nature-engineers, of Egypt are able to reproduce the first two plagues. Why would they want to? If these necromancers wanted to help the situation, they would remove the plagues, not reproduce them. Moses shows his power and the power of Gd by removing the plagues … at an appointed time. Moses tries to become Pharaoh’s ally. He asks Pharaoh when to remove the frogs so that the announcement can come from the government, and it happens as instructed. This is a great act of negotiation. But Pharoah does not keep his side of the agreement.

The lice are detested things that are ubiquitous, similar to the frogs, but more irritating, more everywhere. The Hebrews make the Egyptians’ skin crawl. Let them out . Not so fast.

The exact meaning of the next plague, arov, is not entirely clear, but it has something to do with invasion. It may mean swarms of insects, echoing the same idea as frogs and lice. Alternatively, it means invading wild animals of various kinds. This catastrophe warrants a concession. Pharaoh offers a holiday, and reluctantly even allows exit from the land. This time, Moshe informs Pharaoh when the plague will end. He does not help Pharaoh maintain the illusion of power.



Delay in fulfillment results in an animal epidemic, a zoonosis. This time, Gd distinguishes between the Hebrew animals and the Egyptian. Suddenly, being Hebrew has become an advantage! The Jews are getting rich from the misfortune of the people who really belong in Egypt. This is the start of another great tradition.

Now that the Hebrews have been differentiated with respect to the plagues, it is easy to identify them as the source of pox, the plague of boils. Holding the Jews, the eternal foreigner, responsible for epidemics lasted for thousands of years. Did they invent COVID for their profit?

The deadly hail is an all-inclusive test. Those that believe the prediction can save themselves and their possessions by going indoors. For some, this may have meant following the instruction of Moses over the threats of a master. Perhaps the exercise of freedom must precede liberation.

The Egyptians do not want to disrupt their pleasant status quo. Life has been good for (some of) them (especially the more powerful and wealthy). It is inconvenient to believe in an invisible power that is trying to change things. Is it really necessary? There is so much to lose. Ultimately, by clinging to the past, they lose so much more. This is a lesson. Perhaps that is why Gd wanted to deliver the full platter of plagues before the Hebrews leave.

Is this story costly for the Jews? It is a textual source for the perception that Jews bring misfortune. They poison the wells (with blood?), they get into everything ( like the frogs), make the skin crawl ( lice), they come in swarms from their most recent refuge, they bring disease to cattle and profit from it and they bring the pox. Since the Exodus, and certainly since the destruction and exile from Israel and Judea, Jews have lived in fear. Much of that fear comes from the trepidation of their hosts. It is a cycle of fear grounded in this text.



When the meteorologist predicts hail, stay inside.

 

 

Shemoth:

How many deaths does it take till they know

That too many people have died

                        Bob Dylan

 

Fifteen verses into the parsha, Pharoah orders the infanticide of Hebrew boys.  The righteous midwives refuse to commit this heinous act.  They hide behind a lame excuse, saying that the Hebrew women are like animals and don't wait for the midwife before delivering their babies. They are  rewarded by Gd... and tolerated by the Pharoah they betrayed. 

Perhaps Pharaoh’s  order was a secret and that is why it did not create the revolution of outrage that it merited. The midwives were not willing to do the killing - that was too close to them, it would be an a murder committed with their own hands.  But they were not courageous enough to warn the Hebrews of the plot against them.  More likely, they did reveal the plot, but too few believed them.  People said that the animosity of this pharaoh will pass; or this pharaoh will die and things will go back to the way they were, the political rights of the Hebrews will be restored.

 

Pharaoh's daughter saves a condemned Hebrew boy.  She knows what she is doing - violating the national law, the edict of her father. One can imagined all sorts of rebellion of child against parent.  This is an ancient and modern source of the moral high ground.  Her act is tolerated. Moses, her adopted son is raised in the shadow of her story.  The story of his name Moshe, "for I drew him out of the water," impacts his development. It evokes the righteous rebellion - the  need for the act and the possibility of its performance. It helps me understand how and why Moses kills the cruel and violent overseer as he smites a Hebrew slave. What would his mother have done?  How could Moses rebel by exceeding the values of his foster mother?

Moses tries to break up a fight among Hebrews. They threaten to  identify him as the killer of the Egyptian taskmaster. They did not need to see the manslaughter, they knew it was this man who was trying to make peace among slaves. Anyone else would enjoy their battle, perhaps bet on the winner. Moses understands that he is identifiably different. The slaves have made a correct deduction. Moses must flee. He is a threat to the hierarchy of persecution. 

When Moses comes to Midian, he sees the strong tormenting the weak.  The local shepherds displace the daughters of Ruel ( Jethro). True to form, he protects the weak. Through that he finds a kindred spirit, marries his daughter, and they have a son.  They name him Gershom: "I was a stranger in a foreign land."  Moshe's time away from Egypt helps him realize that the people  he chose to identify with, the Hebrews, are strangers in Egypt. Moses realizes that justice is a stranger in Egypt.  He is ready for the Divine command to liberate the oppressed. 

Moses, logically, doubts that he can successfully battle a regime with an organization that predates Abraham and rules over the most powerful army in the world. Gd's cryptic answer is in the name provided: I will be what will be. The future, in all its dimensions and possibilities, will happen. If you have the goal in mind, it will favor your cause. Fortes fortuna juvat.  The name of Gd: the future will be the present. 

Moses takes the prescribed action. He requests a holiday for the workers. Life outside work must be given its due.  Pharaoh will not tolerate any diminution of the work.  It is clear that the product of the work is not the important issue. Pharaoh cuts off the supply of raw materials as a punishment for this request. The jobs program is merely a method to control this large population ... of strangers. 

It is only when the work burden is made intolerable - not when the babies are drowned, not when the slaves are brutalized - that the people recognize that something is wrong with this system.  And they blame the liberator, not the oppressor.

The parsha is called Names.  It is the names of those who stood up against the system of oppression that we remember. The future will happen. Identify the goal. 

 

Vayechi: Past Tense

 The title of the parsha is in the past tense. Jacob is still alive, but he is dealing with actions that will occur after he dies: his funeral arrangements, final words to his sons and (some of his) grandsons. 

Jacob makes it clear to Joseph that he does not want to be buried in Egypt; and he very much wants to be buried in Canaan, near Abraham and Isaac. Jacob, the patriarch who does not have any rejected offspring - no Esau, no Ishmael - must be interred in the Promised Land.  He is asserting his link in the lineage associated with Gd of One. Were he buried in Egypt, his legacy would be subsumed into another heritage, not necessarily that of Egypt, but a story that  is dissociated from the literal meaning of Gd's promise. Jacob might have initiated a tradition of burial at the place of prosperity.

The parsha ends with Joseph’s request for re-internment in the Promised Land. Had Jacob not insisted on burial in Canaan, I doubt that Joseph would have made that request.  Joseph could not ask for immediate transfer to Canaan after his death. He did not leave behind a descendant or relative that could wield power equal to his own, able to organize a caravan across the Sinai desert. Joseph was a symbol for Egypt, and  his story had to be kept Egyptian.  The triumph over world hunger was an Egyptian victory  and the mummified body of the  leader of that effort , the V.I. Lenin of Egypt, had to stay there...until his clan claimed him back in the great slave rebellion; the liberation foretold to Abraham and trusted by Joseph. 

When Jacob declined, Joseph brought his sons to their grandfather. Jacob said that he wanted to bless Joseph's sons.  This was also a  bequest to  Joseph. Each of his sons was validated as a tribe onto itself; thus Joseph was given the double portion that is the birthright of the firstborn. Jacob's complex family dynamic is at work: was Rachel the true wife, making her first son, Joseph, the first born? Had the other 10 brothers forfeited their claim of equality to Joseph by their callous behavior to him? Did Joseph earn the right of the firstborn by feeding his brothers  in a manner analogous to Jacob's purchase from Esau for a meal of lentils?

Joseph brings his sons forward, and Jacob asks: Who are these?

וַיַּ֥רְא יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יוֹסֵ֑ף וַיֹּ֖אמֶר מִי־אֵֽלֶּה׃ 

Noticing Joseph’s sons, Israel asked, “Who are these?”

The youngsters he sees are not immediately recognizable as Joseph's Israelite sons, despite the context. Ephraim and Menashe probably looked and dressed and, perhaps behaved,  Egyptian. Joseph identifies them as the sons that Gd have given him "in this." They were Egyptian by culture, but there is a recognition of Gd's involvement in them. Jacob blesses them. He confers the greater blessing upon the younger, violating tradition and  the wishes of Joseph, but true to his form.

My parents are buried in Israel.  Their parents, my grandparents are  buried in unmarked mass graves in Poland. The previous generation is in Jewish graveyards in Poland where the tombstones have been repurposed as cobblestones for roads. I think that if my grandfather had been allowed to grow old, and I were brought before him as youth, he would asked: What is this? And he would have blessed me.

My wife and I have a burial plots in Israel.