Minyan Replay with Rabbi Steven — Parashat Va'era

Today's episode is from our Morning Minyan on Thursday, January 11th when we discussed Parashat Va'era. G-d steps in to save the Hebrews from bondage, but Rabbi Steven is left with a big question — why now? Did G-d forget about them? Or maybe there's something more psychological going on...

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https://www.mishkanchicago.org/series/morning-minyan-summer-fall-2023/

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

Unknown Speaker  
Hello, and welcome to this half hour dose of weekly Jewish spirituality brought to you by Mishcon Thursday morning minion. Jews have a tradition of praying three times a day and it Mishcon, we have a daily virtual minion at 8am Central to get your day started. folks join us from across the country and across the world as we begin each day with words and songs of gratitude, inspiration, healing, and Torah. If you miss us in the morning, join us here every week for the replay of our Thursday minion hosted by me, Rabbi Lizzi Heitmann during my sabbatical. I know you'll enjoy hearing from the voices of Rabbi Steven and guests leaders. Without further ado, I invite you to breathe a little deeper. Connect a little more with yourself with God with Torah with this community and with the world around you, wherever you are, whatever your timezone, we're gonna be reading from parsha by era.

Unknown Speaker  
This is coming tests in the book of Exodus is the second parsha of the Book of Shadows, the book of Exodus, we are still in the middle of the conversation that God is having with Moses at the burning bush. So just a bit of background. We began with the story of how after several generations there is a pharaoh who rose up over Egypt who did not remember the good relationship between the Israelites and the Egyptians. The Israelites are enslaved, grown numerous. There's various measures that Pharaoh imposes to try to control the Israelite population. At one point Moses is put into the river by his mother as a way of saving him from one of pharaohs decrees the death of the firstborn,

Unknown Speaker  
or sorry, the death of all male children.

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And then

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he's rescued by Pharaoh's daughter of race. Pharaoh's court ends up witnessing the oppression of the Israelites he kills an Egyptian slave master runs away into the wilderness builds a life there has been living there quite a time and then God appears in a burning bush and says, Hey,

Unknown Speaker  
you gotta get back to your people say the blessing over learning Torah together, which is less so capacity for a Torah. Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha olam I share crescendo Mitsotakis, Bitsy Vanu less so the defrayed Torah bless it, are you source of all things who brings holiness into our lives, through our actions asking us to busy ourselves with words of Torah read in the Hebrew first and I'll read it in English. The question that I am holding

Unknown Speaker  
is why now? Why is God remembering the Israelites? Now? We're told that they're in slavery for four centuries, right? for over 400 years, so So why now? Why is Why is God suddenly remembering this promise that God had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with the patriarchs and matriarchs of this people? Why is it taken so long?

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That's important part.

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I guess the poor part at the end, they're serious as an English God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am. I deny this word, this section of the tetragrammaton here, this four letter name of God that we don't quite know the pronunciation of we often say out of night, the convention out of night just means my Lord. But the good hey vav Hey here. So God introduces God's self to Moses as I am, right this good hey, Vav Hey, I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai. But I did not make myself known to them by my name, this name you'd hate off, hey, I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. I have now heard the cry of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage and slavery, and I have remembered a covenant.

Unknown Speaker  
Say, therefore, today is what people I am your take off, hey, I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm through extraordinary chastisements

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signs and wonders why not?

Unknown Speaker  
That's interesting country translation there. I can see stronger in judgment maybe, and I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God and you shall know that I you'd hate off him your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians and I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Jacob. Now give it to you for possession. I am. I don't I am. You'd have if a bow Moses told us the Israelites, they wouldn't listen to Moses, their spirit had been crushed by cruel bondage.

Unknown Speaker  
Right, so my question here seems like it took a while for God to remember this covenant that God had established with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob right to bring these people to Canaan to build a home for them there. And suddenly now after several centuries, seems to have heard the cry of the Israelites, and suddenly right the S corp at BT southern remembers this covenant

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and is now going to bring them out right with his outstretched arm and through shift to get Aleem, right.

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Great judgments actually has made another way to translate that.

Unknown Speaker  
And when Moses tells us to the people, they seem to not be able to hear because their spirit had been crushed by cruel bondage. I'm curious why now why after all this time,

Unknown Speaker  
though, I like that translation layer the massive punitive damages.

Unknown Speaker  
So question from Susanna was the combination of the groaning of Israelites combined with the extent of their spirits crushing that registered with the deity, and knows that I find it interesting that God would seem to forget the covenants. The question is God did God forget right? What does it mean for God to remember?

Unknown Speaker  
And absolutely, I think, Suzanne, you're pointing to, was it the cry of the Israelites that actually triggered

Unknown Speaker  
God into action? Nicole? So I tend to think of all of this in a more psychological point of view.

Unknown Speaker  
I think it's more that Moses remembered that he was an Israelite, and stood up against the abuses of the house in which he had been raised. And so God's like, Okay, well, maybe they're ready now. And that sort of continues to play out with all of the moaning and groaning throughout the 40 years until the Israelites are sort of finally, you know, ready for, for freedom and to enter the promised land. So you have to realize you have a problem first and foremost, to be able to do something about it.

Unknown Speaker  
Absolutely. Right. Awareness is the first step for change.

Unknown Speaker  
And I think that seems to be right, right in line with what Susan Susannah was saying, and in line with what you're saying is actually used from the rabbi as our comment, right? It's actually the crying out of the God was waiting for the for the Israelites to cry out to recognize the injustice in which they're living in and even then, right, it seems like they're still having a difficult time really internalizing the message that they might have a different possibility ahead of them because they've been so crushed by by this labor.

Unknown Speaker  
Making points out that there's seems to be a big thing that there is, there's now a leader for the Israelites who has a bit of removal from all the pain and could perhaps bring a new perspective. We had a discussion about this. This last Shabbat I kind of why Moses Moses is an interesting character. Moses is said to have been

Unknown Speaker  
Perhaps a speech impediment or a great difficulties speaking fluidly and so seems like an interesting person to elect to go before Pharaoh and the people and speak a lot. And somebody proposed the actually, it was Moses having a taste of what it might be like to live outside of slavery. And that was so necessary, um, to actually have the imagination of what a different kind of life could look like.

Unknown Speaker  
I'm thinking about more at the end of the last book, very sheet we see that we can family that the covenant was originally made with was still pretty fractured. Like, if you look at what Jacob says to his children on his deathbed, it's not very nice, by and large. And in my experience, when you have that sort of familial dynamic, it just keeps getting passed on and passed on and passed on and passed on, because grudges, you know, are very easily transmitted the door of a door.

Unknown Speaker  
And I'm wondering if the people who descended from the original family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob needed to somehow coalesce in a way that transcended these deep familial grudges?

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And right wrong or indifferent for good or for ill one thing that massive collective trauma can do is forge new alliances

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in service of the greater good. And I wonder if that's what we were waiting for, in that collective crying out.

Unknown Speaker  
Beautiful, beautiful, that this is actually kind of the this was a process of really becoming a people in some way. Right, we do see the transition from kind of a tribal

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or a tribe itself, right. It's still tribal system, but a tribe to more of a people and the time to

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move, move beyond right, some of those some of those wounds that perpetuate themselves over generations.

Unknown Speaker  
Okay, in the chat, question about verse five, the Hebrew says gum, also, but as translators now, which seems a bit different gum is an interesting word, it can mean Yeah. Also, moreover,

Unknown Speaker  
it can also be used as a particle of emphasis.

Unknown Speaker  
We've seen it used to mean even as well.

Unknown Speaker  
It's a there's a lot of a lot of meaning kind of layered onto it. But yeah, no, I think actually, moreover, could be actually a good translation there. Right? Same kind of, I have more overheard, right. I've also heard right, so good to good pointing out if you're actually ever curious about Biblical words.

Unknown Speaker  
There's a dictionary called the brown driver's Briggs. It's available online. The online version is a little obtuse to use, you have to know the three letter root of a word, including words that don't have three letters in them. So I found GM under given mem mem

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system as it can, it can require a little bit of guessing as to where you might find a two letter word, but it's a it's a really great resource. I can copy it to the chat in a second.

Unknown Speaker  
I think no, you're right. Yeah. Regarding the Israelites reluctance, listen to Moses, they've lost trust as part of their crush spirits. And you're correct, right? Prophets are often mocked by their people. Prophets really only arise when there is a difficult message to deliver, and one that people don't really want to hear, or aren't ready to hear or have a hard time hearing.

Unknown Speaker  
And so glad you haven't Moses, get this message the Israelites but Egypt is in the wilderness Burning Bush went back to Egypt. Yes, he went back to Egypt. We're not told about the journey back.

Unknown Speaker  
But that's, it was a Midrash there. Often there's a Midrash we find those gaps in the text. I'm in the car, so I can't chat. But

Unknown Speaker  
I also wonder if there's kind of a covenantal thing where

Unknown Speaker  
die in the Jewish people have to each do their part. And one of the things that happens in the story is that Moses his mother, has somehow the faith or the hope or whatever, to put him in the river. Right? She has some belief that somehow he will survive. And then the Pharaoh's daughter, takes him out of the river. And although we don't hear much about her in the Torah portion, the rabbi's say that she was, she was one of those, I think seven people who ascended straight to heaven

Unknown Speaker  
because of what she had done. And so you have these two women, one Jewish one

Unknown Speaker  
A non Jewish, who set the stage for someone who can actually talk to Pharaoh. I mean, that's the other thing is like, in order to get out of bondage.

Unknown Speaker  
You need someone who has like, he's got access. Right so so the So Moses mother set up a situation through her faith in which there was possibility and that was when God woke up and listened, because there was possibility

Unknown Speaker  
beautiful, I was in Jordan a couple years ago, and had the had the opportunity to our tour guide was the only at that time the only non male tour guide like officially licensed to be tour guide in the country, Jordan, which is very, very cool to get to meet her.

Unknown Speaker  
But she shared a phrase with us today she's translating from from Arabic. So I'm sure it sounds much more beautiful, and Arabic, but

Unknown Speaker  
essentially, the phrase that she that she and her family and her community use was like, If God God will only meet you halfway if you go halfway. And so I feel like this is very much a story of that, right? That, that up until the moment that there weren't people willing to actually risk the possibility of a different future right to have a bit of faith leap into the unknown, right, God's not just going to come in while you're sitting down doing nothing and pluck you pluck you out of, of where you are, right? That actually you have to be open to the possibility of change and to actually believe that things could be could be different. I realized actually I kind of I kind of miss I miss Miss placed us. This, this conversation with God is actually happening after they've returned to Egypt villa, we're still not really told how they get back. I guess they get on a donkey in the pre at the end of the previous parsha.

Unknown Speaker  
But they have already visited the people, the people are having a hard time.

Unknown Speaker  
Or having a hard time accepting this message. Right, Moses and Aaron were told they assemble all the elders, the Israelites, Aaron repeats all the words and perform some signs and wonders with Moses and the elders are convinced. But then it's really interesting how quickly

Unknown Speaker  
that message is lost among them how to have a hard time really internalizing internalizing that message.

Unknown Speaker  
Yes, there can be miracles, if you believe is some great prince of Egypt wisdom. And I truly actually believe that right that, that miracles can happen around us if we are open to the possibility of change. I'm not saying that we have to walk around with kind of a sense of of naivete around the world where we you know, the world is ours for changing. But I truly believe that that change cannot come unless we actually believe in the possibility of things being different than they are now and I and so we've been thinking a lot about recently, given the state of the world. I think one of our jobs as Jews is to continually hold the belief that the world as it is, is not the world as it has to be. And that that actually is our inheritance from the story right that we are the inheritors of a story that is all about seemingly impossible happening within

Unknown Speaker  
a horrific situation.

Unknown Speaker  
But it was because of these people, right? Moses, his mother, and Miriam and Pharaoh's daughter, the midwives as well we read about last week, and then eventually Moses himself and Aaron being and then eventually all of the Israelites, right being a people who said no, the way the world is, is not the way that it has to be. It can be different, it can be different. And so

Unknown Speaker  
I truly believe that that's our inheritance and our mission and the role that continues to be our mission in the world.

Unknown Speaker  
Awesome. Thanks for

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Thanks for doing some learning with us. Let's do let's do some prayers for healing.

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And and then we'll we'll take some time

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for remembering those who are no longer with us with the mourners. Kaddish always like to take the energy of

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learning towards together and directing that towards those in need of a little bit of extra love.

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A little bit of extra strength right now. So if you're thinking of somebody in need of healing with their mind, body, spirit and you'd like to share their name in the chat,

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hold their names in your heart, and we send this blessing to each and every one of them.

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Mediation banheira I have a new Mikko habra, CA The Mortain who may the source of strength, who blessed the ones before us, help us find the courage to make our life

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Ives a blessing and let us say

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me Sure. Bay Hey Ron Hey Mortain

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mecor Hombre ha ha love or Tae new. Bless those in need of healing with refuah Shlaim

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the renewal love body, the renewal of spirit and let us say

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may

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say some blessings refurbished lay mom complete recovery to all those we've deemed the chat

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those names we hold in our hearts on the road to recovery days of comfort, nights of peace since I can say on Main

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we're going to turn to the mourners Kaddish Is there anybody remembering somebody today who would like to share their name? Louder in the chat

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as never before blessing sherry? My mother Muriel Cornwell Mayer Mary fee for blessing.

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See Sylvia herring in the chat Miramare beef blessing Jessica and David Rose in his memory before blessing Lisbeth

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anybody else?

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If you're in a period of mourning or observing a yard site invite to rise as you're able for Khadija Thomas the mourners Kaddish

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All their memories be for blessing easy on the rock.

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You've been listening to contact high up production of Mishkan Chicago. If you were inspired or informed by this episode, please leave us a five star rating on Apple podcasts so that others can encounter our work. And if you appreciate what Mishkan is doing, I invite you to join as a builder or make a donation on our website at Mishcon chicago.org Shabbat shalom.