On Juneteenth And Bold Moses — Rabbi Steven Sermon

Today’s episode is a Shabbat Replay of our service on June 20th. Rabbi Steven reflected on Juneteenth and America’s history of slavery through the lens of Exodus. Moses is portrayed as exceptionally bold in making demands of those in power in his fight to liberate his people. Moses even stood up to God! Maybe we’re not quite up to that level of chutzpah. But how can we boldly speak up for the dignity of all?

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

Transcript

Transcript

A good story sticks around. It speaks to a person across their lifetime, and to many people across generations. We, Jews, have been the keepers of the same story for millennia. You might think of the Exodus as something we only talk about during Passover. But we revisit it each Shabbat (if you raised a glass of wine for kiddush last night, you’ll notice the relief we experience at the end of the workweek is zecher yetziat mitzrayim – an echo of what it felt like to leave slavery in Egypt). It’s refracted through our liturgy, not only on this day but every day, through the words our ancestors sang standing on the shore of the Sea of Reeds: mi chamochah ba’eilim Adonai, mi kamochah nedar ba’kodesh – who is like you, Adonai, among the heavens; who is like you, majestic in holiness? And the Exodus is, quite literally, the story we tell for most of the year whenever we unroll the Torah; what we just read happens as the Israelites wandered from Egypt to the Promised Land. It’s not the most exciting part of the Exodus, but it is – moving from point A to point B – an exodus by definition.

A good story not only speaks to many people but many peoples. While the words might need to be translated, the message stays the same. The god-given promise that people are meant to be free, and that this freedom – no matter how impossible it might seem – is actually possible, has become the cornerstone of many peoples’ faith. I was reminded of this fact yesterday, walking with a couple hundred people in commemoration of Juneteenth. Juneteenth is itself a zecher yetziat mitzrayim, a memory of the long journey from slavery to freedom. The day, June 19, was selected to commemorate the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War, two and a half years after the executive order had gone into effect. It is a reminder that the liberation of enslaved people did not happen at the stroke of the pen, but with great effort over many years. As the journalist Robin Washington (who founded the Alliance of Black Jews) notes, Black folks in Texas already knew slavery was over when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Like Pharaoh, those who benefited from systems of exploitation and oppression, whose hearts had hardened to the human suffering in front of them, had to be forced to let them go free.

https://youtu.be/y8VJrYH81h0

For those still waiting for freedom, wondering when it would come to them, the Exodus was a reminder that the impossible could become possible. You might be familiar with a popular spiritual that was being sung around that time. It goes like this:

When Israel was in Egypt's land
Let my people go
Oppress'd so hard they could not stand
Let my people go
Go down, Moses
Way down in Egypt's land
Tell old Pharaoh
Let my people go

The spiritual is a retelling of Exodus 7:26 – God says to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him: Thus says God, let my people go that they may serve me!” It is difficult to come by the provenance of spirituals; they were as a rule composed in secret, since enslaved people were denied freedom of worship. “Go Down Moses” was the first spiritual to be put down on paper in 1862. The chaplain who recorded the song dates it to 1853. However, Harriet Tubman reported using “Go Down Moses” as a code song to help people fleeing on the underground railroad; she began her work in 1850, so the spiritual may be even older.

One of our colleagues, Rabbi Yehiel Puopko, points out that “Go Down Moses” is a fairly faithful retelling of the story we find in the Torah – minus one line: Thus spoke the Lord, bold Moses said, let my people go. “Bold” is not exactly a word I would use to describe Moses, especially when he first receives his call to lead our ancestors from slavery. When God commands him to go way down in Egypt land, Moses responds: Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? The people don’t know me. I don’t know you. I can’t speak well. Send whomever you like but don’t send me! But just as the journey from slavery to freedom takes time, so does Moses’ development as a leader of this newly freed people. And by the end, in both quality and deed, Moses has become the hero of this story.

Or is he? When we open the Torah this week (as I mentioned earlier, we are somewhere in the journey between Egypt and the Promised Land) Moses is subject to a vote of no confidence. Clearly, not everyone thinks he is the hero our tradition makes him out to be. His cousin, Korach, bands together with 250 Israelite leaders to rise up against him and his brother Aaron. “You have gone too far!” Korach cries out. “Ki kol ha’eidah kulam kedoshim, for this entire community, all of us, are holy, u’betocham Adonai, and God is in their midst. Why do you raise yourselves above God’s congregation?”

While Korach speaks truth (all of us are, in fact, holy) the rabbis understand that his populist rhetoric is self-serving. He is less interested in distributing power among the people, than he is claiming certain privileges for himself. However, his message proves popular – and so later that day, he shows up at the center of the camp with the entire community gathered behind him. God (at this point exhausted by our ancestors’ insistent disobedience) says to Moses and Aaron, “Stand back, so I can annihilate them.”

Moses steps in,:

“El Elohei, ha’ruchot l’chol basar, God, the breath of all living things, when one person sins will you turn your wrath on the whole community?”

God relents. Moses is right. It’s not everyone’s fault (there is an important lesson here about our tradition’s aversion to collective punishment, but that’s another sermon). And so God opens the ground between Korach and his closest conspirators, swallowing them, and then sends fire to consume the remaining 250 leaders who rallied against Moses.

The people panic (understandably). But the next day they turn on Moses and Aaron, shouting: “You two have brought death on God’s people!” God, clearly still tired of all this, says to Moses and Aaron, “Stand back, so I can annihilate them.” And this time, before they can say anything, God sends a plague.

But Moses still intercedes. He instructs Aaron to light incense and make expiation for them. And so Aaron stands among the people as the plague spreads, quite literally holding the line between the living and the dead. Eventually the plague stops and while many have died the people, as a whole, are spared.

Thus spoke the Lord, bold Moses said, let my people go. Bold Moses, indeed (and Aaron, too, for that matter). But what, exactly, does it mean to be bold?

Certainly, Moses (and his brother Aaron) put themselves between the people and their destruction. It is no small thing to take a stand against God, although from the time of Abraham (aka the very first Jew) our people have a tradition of reminding God of God’s own ethical commitments. But that’s the thing. Their boldness is less action, and more vision. In each of these instances, Moses makes real the claim his cousin Korach only stated in theory: that the entire community, every single one of them, is holy. Even the ones who speak out against him. Even the ones he doesn’t get along with. Even the ones he doesn’t like. Moses recognizes the fundamental value of human life.

There is a midrash (aka rabbinic fan fiction) that imagines the exchange between God and Moses when, 38 years later, our ancestors have reached the Promised Land. I have taken two oaths, God says. One was to destroy this people for all of their sins (which are, as we have already seen, numerous). The other was that you should die in the wilderness and not enter the Promised Land, since you also disobeyed me (not quite as many times as the other Israelites, but enough). I am willing to nullify one oath, God says, but not two. Which one should it be?

Let Moses die, he responds, and not one more of my people be destroyed.

And so said, bold Moses, let my people go.

This is a boldness we desperately need right now. We live at a time when the value of human life is no longer central to the conversations we are having as a society. Perhaps it never has been; the legacy of institutions like slavery still shapes our country today. Just like the Exodus began our journey toward freedom, Juneteenth was not the end of our mission to realize the values of liberty and justice for all. As Robin Washington writes, freedom was never achieved in a day. And while we may not singlehandedly be able to effect policies that beget violence or restructure oppressive systems, we can choose how we see and treat each other. It is essential that there are people who retain the belief in unqualified human dignity and worth, so that these values are not forgotten. This has always been one of our jobs, as keepers of this story. But it is not enough to simply state our values (this was Korach’s mistake). Moses reminds us that they should shape how we move through the world. And in a moment when living out our values, even in small ways, means moving against what is popular or expedient  – this could be the boldest choice of all.

So a question I have for all of us: how would we act differently if we considered the dignity and worth of every single person we encounter? How would you speak to the person behind the counter when you’re not getting your way (or the demanding customer, if you’re standing by the till)? How would you treat a loved one when they frustrate you (or make amends when you’ve let them down)? How would you address a friend when they disappoint you? How would you argue with someone who you don’t agree with? How would you treat the stranger? How would you look at yourself in the mirror, on days you feel proud – but more importantly, in the moments when your rough edges are most apparent?

While these may feel like small steps, the stories we keep remind us that change does not happen in an instance – but over the course of a long journey, so long as we maintain our vision of who we are and where we are going.