When Pharaoh Became A Slave

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

Transcript

Transcript

0:02  
I've been asking everyone left and right, like, what are songs right now that you're listening to, or that you want to listen to, or that you need to listen to, that are helping uplift you and take you through, you know, whatever, whatever feelings you might be feeling. And this is one I'm gonna I'm gonna just start minion off this morning with this is, this is a Bruce Springsteen adaptation of a gospel tune called hand on the plow, but it ended up being popularized as eyes on the prize. So see you. And as we're listening to this, I am going to put on my tele I invite you to do the same. Here we go. You

1:34  
keep your eyes i Now, spread my love all over your child. Keep your eyes on the ground. Oh, why

2:09  
not start up your

2:19  
morning? Listen for rabbi.

2:41  
Scott, thing I did was wrong was staying in the wilderness too long,

2:53  
keep your friends

3:02  
the warfare. Did that was right, was the day we started to Fight. Keep your eyes. Hold On

3:20  
all. Keep Your

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eyes Hold on, she

4:46  
goes on the prize. Hold on.

5:06  
I've been to Heaven, but I went to streets up there are paved with gold. You

5:29  
all right,

5:33  
just read out loud what Tehila wrote. This theme here echoes one of my favorite slogans from the 12 step program, don't stop before the miracles, which is very, very on message for the Torah readings we're doing this month in the book of Exodus. Yeah, you know what a way to start the morning. A couple days ago, I don't know, Tuesday morning, a friend in the democracy building space said, Well, I'm just going to have to lean into my joy practice even harder. So you know what? That's what we're here for every morning and for one another. And so I'm going to let us begin with our morning blessings, gratitude for having woken up, gratitude for another day. And you know, I felt like on Monday when we gathered we didn't have enough time nearly I mean, minion was an hour on Monday, and it wasn't enough time. Wasn't enough time to read the words of Dr Martin Luther King. Wasn't enough time to talk about their relevance to this world today, and not enough time to to see the ways in which those themes are timeless and actually threaded throughout, you know, our our morning davening and so, so I actually have to say, as we go into, as we go right into Bucha, blessings of the morning, this first one, I'm actually curious. You know, for those of you who have been saying these, either, you know, for months or years with us here, or maybe grew up saying them, or you know, just are quite familiar with them, this first one, ashana said, vivid Layla, blessed are you for the ability to make distinctions between day and night, like for, for some of the blessings, the relevance, or the meaning, I feel like jumps off the page and is So, you know, just resonates immediately, or is actually just like, literally true. Blessed are you for, you know, making the bent to stand and and you and that you could stand up and you could straighten up, and you can go, Okay, well, wow, I needed to crack my back. Yes. Now, you know, I've blessed the fact that I can stand up a little straighter. What? What does this blessing about? About? You know, first of all, at Sher Natan de sevi, it's actually, literally, who gave the rooster the ability to understand the distinctions between day and night. But what's the meaning of this blessing? Anyone like, literally, well, what does this blessing mean to you? You know, like, on a good day when you're really internalizing the meanings of the blessings, you know, like, what does this blessing mean to you?

8:15  
Yes, this blessing to me is it brings us back to creation, the My dog's barking, the chaos before creation, there's, you know, separating night from day, and, and that's what This is,

8:37  
okay? And, and Glenn, why should this be the first blessing in the litany of blessings? Why? You know, why should we bless God did that in the act of creation? Yeah, I guess

8:51  
it's us starting off our day. We're going to create something today.

8:54  
Ah, we're going to create something today. Alright? And I'm also seeing Sarah, no Theresa, I think it's being grateful for the rhythms of life. Yeah, like the night becomes day, day becomes night, night becomes day. And there's actually some comfort and uncertainty in that flow and blessing, that certainty and blessing that flow, whatever horrible things happen during the day. May God bless me with the ability to sleep. We'll get there too. Sintra, I think it means when the wind is southernly. We know a hawk from a handsaw. We have the ability to distinguish what is what. Woo, yeah, being able to distinguish moments, being present to the moment, being present, danger and peace, light and dark. Yeah, I there's, there's something in here about, like, trusting our instincts, right? Like that the rooster. The rooster has, you know, one of the smaller brains among among the animals, and yet, we bless that. The rooster knows the difference between. And night. And of course, the rooster wakes up and crows and wakes everybody else up on the farm. But it's some kind of important instinct that this creature has knowing the difference between day and night. And it's for those of you who have said something along the lines of like it is honoring our ability to know what from what this from that, to make distinctions that's actually a divinely ordained thing, and we shouldn't take it for granted, reality versus dreams or nightmares. Yes, I also think it speaks to our ability to discern our reactive minds from our wise minds. That's good. I you know, over the past few days, I have, you know, seen a lot of chatter as I'm sure you have, trying to make sense of Elon Musk's, you know, tapping his heart and then basically doing a SIG Heil kind of move with his arm. For you guys know what I'm talking about. And you know, most people looking at that, or many people looking at that, and saying, My goodness, my goodness, he just did a Nazi salute, and then, like the head of the ADL saying, you know, my friends, let's not jump to conclusions. Let's give the benefit of the doubt. He was excited. It was a moment, and, you know, he felt something with his heart and put his arm in the air. It's, that's, you know, it did happen sometimes, you know, don't make too much of it. And you know, many people in my circles are, you know, looking at the pictures and going, don't tell me I didn't see what I saw. I saw what I saw. And I know what I saw. And there, you know the idea of honoring, honoring your own, your instincts about something. And so this, this for me. I, I was thinking back to a line from, and forgive me, because the, my God, the typeface on the thing that comes up first when you type in Letter from a Birmingham Jail. So teeny weeny. But Dr King goes into discussion about, you know, this thing. What? Why is it that sometimes the white moderate, he says, you know, says, Just wait, why don't you? Why don't you give the new administration time to act, you know, why don't you just see what they do? And he says, We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded. Frankly, I've yet to engage in a direct action that was quote unquote well timed in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I've heard the word Wait, wait, just wait. It rings in the ears of every Negro with piercing familiarity, this wait has almost always meant never. We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists that Justice too long delayed is justice denied. And so there's an interesting kind of interplay here, of like, you know, what? How do we wait with patience? I'm going to read some, you know, a Torah commentary later that talks looking at this week's Torah portion about the importance of patience in the fight for equality and justice, but also there's a kind of urgency that King is describing here. He talks about waiting for 340 years and describes like, what how painful it is all of those different moments of Wait. Wait when your daughter is at the at the amusement park and can't ride the same rides as the other kids. Wait at the water fountain. Wait when you can't have your car, when you can't have your car fixed, because you're you're an African American person. And so he says, you know, he quotes people, and says, one may well ask, how can you advocate for breaking some laws and obeying others. And he says the answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws, just and unjust. Lavine venue, I would be the first to advocate for obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral obligation to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St Augustine in saying an unjust law is no law at all. And so then he goes into, what's the difference between the two? And maybe I'll just, I'll read this, because it gets into theology, really. What's the difference between a just and an unjust law? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God, which, okay, is interesting. Put an asterisk there. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas and unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts Human personality is just. Any law that degrades Human personality is a. Unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber substitutes an i, it relationship for an I, thou relationship, and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence, segregation is not only politically economically and socially unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that the sin is separation, is not separation and an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement. This is Christian theology, theology, his terrible sinfulness. Thus, it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right, and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances for it they are morally wrong. And so then he goes into that more. I'm happy to drop this into the chatter. You can, of course, just look up Letter from a Birmingham Jail. But this is to say, my friends, in this moment, I do feel like we're going to be presented every day with the opportunity to feel our way into what feels like it is uplifting, the human personality and what is degrading it what is uplifting people in general, people in our country, People who are trying to find security and safety in their bodies and their sexuality and their identity, and people who are trying to say that doesn't matter, or that's wrong, or that's fake, and it's it's our job. If you feel like you know the difference between day and night, you know the difference between something that feels, that feels like it is honoring human beings and human dignity, and something that is degrading human beings and human dignity, and that we have the ability, and not just we have, but must bless, the ability,

to know the difference, and then to figure out how we try and create the world that we know is possible, even even amidst a world trying to tell us that it shouldn't be so with all that in the background. Now, for every one of these blessings, I do feel like there's, you know, like a dissertation we could go into of all the symbolic meaning, all the metaphoric meaning and all the literal meaning each blessing can have for us. If you have any more insights about any of the ones below, I invite you to share them in the chat, but we're just going to go down the list. Baha Rucha Adonai, aloha. Surena Thomas said, vivid venue moving Laila baharu, Hata Adonai, elohinu melecha o Damn shasani. Betsel Bo, I am grateful to be created in your image. Baruch ata, arunai elohinu Melech Ha olam shasani, Israel. Baruch ata, arunai elohinu melecha o Damn shasani. Barhoreen, Baruch ha ta arunai elohinu melech haudam shasani, Israel. Baruch ata arunai, elohinu melech haudam Bucha every him, I'm grateful that you open my eyes each day with new vision. Baruja arunacharu me i I'm grateful for the gift of clothes over my naked body. Baruja MATIER Asuri, I am grateful for the ability to release what is all tied up. I'm grateful that humanity has the ability to pursue the release of captives. I am grateful for when people are reunited with their families after many months of being kept apart, of being held in captivity, I am I am prayerful that those who are still suffering that fate may be released and redeemed. Baruch hat, odam zu Keith Fauci, I'm grateful for my ability to straighten what is bent. Oh, go ahead and take a little forward fold, or at least roll your neck out wherever you are, beginning to find a little more space and spaciousness and the ligaments and muscles, things connecting everything in your body, work out some of those creaks and cracks and I

19:43  
stand up a little bit straighter, sit up a little bit straighter in your seats. But Ruja night him, I am grateful for the stability of the earth over the waters. But mihi Mika there, I'm grateful that you. Prepare my steps. Baruja taronavinus. Baruja taronavinus, for El big Bucha, I am grateful that you give strength to me and my people. Baruja tarona Farah, I Tifa, I am grateful that you crown me with dignity and beauty. And take a moment and just sit up a little straighter. You know your head connected through that like Portal that is your crown, your your Keith air, connecting you to the Beyond, crowning you with dignity and beauty,

20:45  
breathing into it,

20:48  
breathing into your belly, your strength and finally, baruja Adonai, Elohim ha No 10 liya EFCO, ah, I am grateful that you give strength to the weary, that you give me strength when I am tired.

21:09  
I mean, all right,

21:18  
I mentioned this the other day. I

21:27  
Rabbi line from Leviticus 19, Baja camoja, you will love your neighbor as yourself. Rabbi shy hell makes a point in his book, which everybody should read again now. See, it's, where is it? I've not heard of Dora. He wrote this, oh, he wrote this mammoth book called Judaism. Is about love last year. It's like the size of my, you know, hand and thickness. And one of the points he makes in here is this line, hareni vaha hakamocha, you will love your neighbor as yourself. Throughout Jewish history, generally, was interpreted as you will love your neighbor Jew as yourself. Um, he says, you know, liberal, liberal Jewish denominations love to take this line, the hare kamoja, you will love your neighbor as yourself. And, of course, universalize it and say it was made you know your neighbor. It's everyone. He says, In point of fact, if you look back at all of the various all of the various commentaries and commentators, they understood this as you will love your neighbor too, as yourself, because Jews tend to live in insular communities where their neighbors were, in fact, choose, he says. Except the thing is, this isn't the only commandment in the Torah, and it's not the only commandment that talks about how to be in relationship with your non Jewish neighbors. There is another, there is another commandment of equal weight and stature, saying, I am the Lord your God who led you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You will not hate or mistreat the stranger. You were a stranger in the land of Egypt. And there, specifically it says, GER non Jew not. And when people understand gare as convert, he says, you know, that's kind of sort of a more modern application, garment, non Jewish person living in your midst, and very clear in the Torah, you will not oppress or mistreat the stranger. You will love the stranger for you were a stranger in the land of Egypt. So as we, as we sing this, I want us to imbibe both, really, both

23:40  
rainy me. Oh no, I think

23:45  
I forgot to

23:51  
turn on original sound, and that's going To make it sound way better. Oh, Yeah.

24:12  
The

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Cowboys, ah,

24:34  
one last time.

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And out alive.

24:52  
Come on.

25:05  
May it be so

25:09  
I'm seeing some nice, good, good chatter and exchanges in the chat here, reflecting on all these blessings and how they hit tonight, today, um, I'm going to just take us right into the Shema. Ask us to sit up a little straighter, if you're wearing a Tallis, to take the four corners of your seat. Seat, gather them into yourself. I'm I'm

sorry I'm having a hard time finding my fourth corner. It's probably a metaphor for something. All right, here we go. Oh, there it is. Custom is to hold them all in one hand, and then hold that hand above your eyes as you make the shape of God's name, little Shin, little yud, little Dalit Shaddai, over your eyes, as we say the Shema,

26:16  
Shema

26:20  
Yisrael. Adonai,

26:27  
Adonai EHA

26:43  
God, you know, I'm feeling the Nava Tehila via ha this morning. So from your from your end, feel free to go and say all the words of the via hafta to say them out loud as I just sing this one line, you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your being, and all of the images of God that work, that walk around this world, that walk around this planet, every human being an image of God.

27:22  
If

27:40  
there's anyone you want to pray for this morning whose name you want to say, feel free to unmute and say their name. I'll go ahead and put their name in the chat, and we pray for love, for healing for them, they have to Be

28:02  
Aha. Deaf, the flower before me,

28:58  
for some reason, my little chat box isn't moving, so I want to see all the names of people that you are putting in here. Everyone in this room, Anna and Fran Shane, Karen union folks, Charlene Harold, Delia, Jamie Jeremy as elder about Miriam.

29:23  
Oh, good man, you

29:45  
anyone who is held in a vicious cycle of not being able to break out of a pattern that is hurting themselves or someone else. I.

To send healing to anyone who feels like they need to be able to use their voice but is afraid, anyone who's feeling alone or heartbroken or despondent or depressed

30:17  
or hopeless,

30:20  
just sending love and sending feeling of being surrounded in God's Embrace and in the embrace of A community of love.

30:52  
For me,

31:09  
all right. So here it is, 832, and I have this. I have this really Jewish standard time tendency to run over in minion, and I'm sorry, because it sometimes means that folks who came to say Kaddish don't get to say Kaddish. So let us move into Kaddish Kadisha tome for anybody who is here for the purpose of honoring a loved one who has died, who you want to connect with and whose name you want to lift up in this moment. And then, yeah, I'll do the the other five to 10 minutes of things I wanted to do here, which include a little more singing and a little bit of tourist study about this week's parsha so for Nancy Pryor, for Yvonne Jennings, for markner, love Alan Nathan Pollock, Theresa, Owen Blair, I don't know if you're if you were saying Kaddish for Steve, Sarah, it's and Justin Baldoni, or if they're on your prayer for healing list. Joan curlo, all right. Is there anybody who would like to lead us in Kadesh this morning?

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Okay,

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May every single one of their memories be a blessing today and every day. Yiddka Dash she may rabbi. Israel, bagala vis mankarima,

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VID NAS,

33:09  
shalom, who, Yes, all

33:39  
right, my friends, alright, you have a good day. Leah Ari and alright. Well, I'm gonna just read. Well, first of all, I'm gonna pull up. I'm gonna pull up Safari, favorite little Torah place, and go to Exodus seven, two to four. All right, so here's the little Torah section we're going to look at this morning. We are in Parshat, the era, and we actually maybe we should, maybe we should go to the beginning of the Parsha, maybe, just so you can see why it's called the era. But then I'll fast forward to All right, so the rabbi, Elohim, el Moshe, the yomara love ani Adonai God spoke to Moses and is like, Hey, I'm God. I appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is El Shaddai. Hey, that's the name that we do with our hand during the Shema the shin and the Dalit and the yud. Can see it right here. I appeared to them as El Shaddai, but I didn't tell them my secret four letter name, and you're gonna see. Um, and I established my covenant with them, but I've heard the moaning of the Israelites. But okay, this is VIERA. This is, this is this word. I appeared. I appeared to your ancestors, but I didn't tell them this name. But I'm telling you this name because this is a powerful name. This is a name of justice. This is a name of mercy. This is a name of all of the dimensions of God, which you will see as I do, the miracles of the Exodus. Okay, so now fast forwarding. Here we are in chapter seven, and God says to Moses, you will repeat all that I have commanded you and your brother, Aaron, and you will speak to Pharaoh to let the Israelites depart from this land, Sheila et Deena, Yisrael, mierzo, but I will harden Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply signs and marvels in the land of Egypt, and Papa that I'm okay, and when Pharaoh does not heed you, I will lay my hand upon Egypt and deliver my ranks, my people, the Israelites, from the land of Egypt, with extraordinary chastisements. And the Egyptians shall know that I am God when I stretch out my hand over Egypt and bring the Israelites out from their midst, Moses and Aaron did, and God commanded them. And so they did. And so then the the commentary I'm reading, fast forwards to chapter 828, I'm going to go all the way down here 828, but Pharaoh became stubborn and would not let the people go. And this parsha vahera is where the first seven plagues happen. You know, God basically shares with Moses and Aaron, God's plan, which is, you're going to go to Pharaoh, you're going to ask to let the people go, and then God tells Moses, but I will harden Pharaoh's heart. So like, even if Pharaoh wanted to let you go, it Pharaoh's not going to. And so what we see is, actually, for the first few plagues, God doesn't have to harden Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh's heart is hard. Pharaoh is not interested in ending the status quo, and so I'm gonna, I'm gonna read to you from this book here. This is my around the Shabbat table. I've read from I've read from this one before. It's the one that sort of organizes commentaries into like, here, you could talk about this a Friday night. Here, you could talk about this Shabbat at lunch. Here, you could talk about this Shabbat in the afternoon. To give you a whole arc of a Shabbat day that's really like framed with and held by Torah. Okay, the Parsha of Valera describes the first seven of the 10 plagues that afflict Egypt with ascending vehemence. The supremely powerful people of Egypt is rendered utterly helpless. The most fertile countries of the world becomes a wasteland over the span of more than a year, the people of Egypt live in psychological terror of the visitation of the plagues. All of this transpires because Pharaoh will not listen to you during the first five plagues, despite Pharaoh's witnessing of the continual ravaging of his land despite the warnings and their fulfillment, he refuses to accede to Moses's request to let the Jewish people go during the last five plagues, God hardened Pharaoh heart, removing his free will. Why didn't Pharaoh listen to the warnings of Moses and Aaron? Why didn't Pharaoh change his mind? What does it mean to harden one's heart? What prevented Pharaoh from seeing the folly of his own decisions and led him to bring about the devastation of his own people and land? I will just bracket here by saying like, you know, last week and the week before, we watched these wildfires in LA. Everyone knows that climate change is is manifesting in extreme weather patterns that are destroying property and people and land. You know, seeing it with the hurricanes in Florida, seeing it with fires in LA and other places. And it's like, there's not debate about it. There isn't like a both sides equally, you know, sort of locked in an argument about whether human caused climate change is a thing. It's a thing. And in the midst of all of that, to watch our new president just sign us right out of the climate Paris Accords in one of his first acts of the presidency for me was just such a it was. It was a moment like Pharaoh, you know, like I see the damage being done to my very own people, and yet I harden my heart and for ideological reasons, for financial reasons, for short term gain reasons, I am going to lean in harder. To the thing that I've said, that I believe, or that I think that is right. And there it is. And you know, it's, there's a lot, there's a lot of resonance between, you know, Pharaoh and anybody who is just obstinate in their views, despite the very obvious evidence that it is hurting the very people who you purport to care about. So Rabbi Arie ben David writes, Pharaoh imprisoned himself in a reality in which he could not escape, from which he could not escape. Despite the drastic consequences, Pharaoh was unable to change. He had become addicted to what to himself. He single handedly ruled Egypt, acquiring for himself the status of a god neither respecting nor considering any contrary opinions. He rejected the advice of those closest to him. And then you see that in Exodus 10 as his own advisors are saying, My God, like, Okay, do the thing already. Change. Move. Change your opinion. Let the people go. And he is obstinate and having convinced himself of his mythical powers and exaggerated position, he sought absolute control. Paradoxically, in the end, Pharaoh loses all control over his nation, his people, even himself, the one who attempts to enslave an entire people, ironically, becomes the epitome of a slave, themself bereft of any power to alter their own life, he becomes addicted to his set of principles, his vision of himself, his power. This addiction precludes any change, despite the clear and disastrous consequences. Pharaoh refuses to adjust his conviction. How does this happen? The Talmud in Yoma affirms that someone who says, I will sin and later repent, I will sin and later repent, will not actually be able to actualize their repentance. Why not? The Talmud repetition of the declaration implies the declaration is not an isolated remark. Rather, it's a habit, a syndrome. The sinner continues to perform the same actions while simultaneously thinking it will be possible to change these actions and disassociate from them. Eventually, this dissonance will be resolved in favor of the action as the habit becomes part of a person's normative behavior. The Talmud contends that this action will control the person more than this person will shape the action despite the express desire to abandon the behavior. Eventually, we will somehow come to rationalize our actions and convince ourselves that they were justified. Pharaoh, having convinced himself so long that he possessed complete and supreme control over his nation, fell victim to his own self perception. He couldn't listen to others, and eventually imprisoned himself in his own self conceptions. His worldview became petrified, his heart became hardened, and he himself became a slave. Period. It's the end of that commentary, all right, responses, reactions. I'm now, I'm seeing some stuff in the chat here. I'm now, like, I'm going back Octavia Butler foretold in the parable of the sower. In real time, there's studies showing that people who strongly believe something and are confronted with logic showing the opposite, are more likely to double down on their views. Indeed. Yeah,

yeah. Lori's saying, like, yeah, I get that. If someone tried to explain to me why I shouldn't be Jewish, it just wouldn't work. I mean, Rabbi Steven gave a whole holiday sermon about that this year, the more they hate us, the more we should be us, right? It seems like it. I mean, it's just, it's interesting, right? Yeah,

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it's why I can't, can't, you know, it's like, why are people Magas it's, you know, but it's what they they truly feel and and I get that, I just don't like it. I'm

44:01  
going to turn off the recording here, and we'll we'll end the recording earlier than this. I'll just end it after my after my Torah thing, after the reading. But I.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai