“and it came to pass in the course of
many days; that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel
groaned from the work, and they cried out. And their cry went up to God because
of the work….[1]”
“And God saw the Jewish people, and God
knew.[2]”
This
perhaps is the beginning of the Exodus. For at the same time there is a
shepherd Moses, who is tending the sheep for his father-in-law in a distant far
away wilderness. He is leading his flock in the desert and he comes “to the
mountain of God, to Choreb[3]”
Let
us ask ourselves, what was it like in Egypt at that time. What was it like to
be a Jew, what was it like to be a slave? You are part of a people oppressed
and downtrodden, and suffering. Your taskmasters are controlled by a man, a
pharaoh who may very well be a god. You know that the God of your forefathers
has told Abraham that he will redeem you, a promise that seems impossible now.
Your masters are strong, powerful and domineering, they have the best army on
the planet. They worship powerful gods which you might also worship. You have
lived your entire life here, and so have your parents, and parent’s parents.
You may want to leave, or perhaps, you are one of those who has given up hope
and will perish in the darkness.
At this very moment, at this same time,
God tells Moses:
“ 'I have surely seen the affliction of My people that are in
Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know
their pains; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the
Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large,
unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanite, and
the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the
Jebusite.’” [4]
This
is God’s prophecy, presenting to Moses a glorious vision. And it was glorious,
and brutal, perhaps almost as brutal as it was glorious. The Jews would not
arrive in Israel, for a long time. Over forty years later a very small number
of the original 600,000 men would arrive at the Promised Land. Almost adult men
had perished by the hand of God for the sin of the spies. They would then fight
many bitter battles and partially drive out the nations of the land; partially
for some of these nations were not completely wiped out, they would remain for
hundreds of years as a thorn in Israel’s side. And of course, as we know, the
deliverer of the this prophecy, Moses would not arrive at the Promised Land.
The journey from Egypt to Israel was not
merely traveling from one place to another on the map. Rather it was a change
of another nature; a change in belief, a change in psyche, a change in being.
The setting is not the only thing that changes, so to will the people. And a
people transform only when the people transform; when the individuals that make
up a nation change.
The
people as a nation and the people as individuals do change. Both struggle
mightily with the difficult task of leaving the old. It is not easy to change
your entire way of life. It is not easy to change your way of relating God; the
way of relating to yourself. One must
make the leap from slavery to freedom, family to nation, from an idolatrous
self-centered world, to an all-encompassing acknowledgment of reality. Make the
leap, and maybe fall; and maybe fall many times.
The
Torah tells us that the Jews would fall many times and many ways. They were
tied down to their slave mentality.
“ they said to Moses… Is not this the word that we spoke
unto thee in Egypt, saying: Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For
it were better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the
wilderness”[5]
and
“the children of Israel also wept on their part, and said:
'Would that we were given flesh to eat! We remember the fish, which we were
wont to eat in Egypt for nought; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks,
and the onions, and the garlic; but now our soul is dried away; there is
nothing at all”[6]
Servitude and lack of responsibility had
become a primal part of the Jewish psyche. Freedom would come with much work
and at a high cost. There are many hard and harsh steps that the Jewish people
took as a people. Exodus was the first; the first step in the maturation
process, in the growing up, in achieving a liberty that would only come to
fruition much later. It began the Jewish People and it transformed our unique
relationship with God. It gave us not only a different perspective on the
world, but it evolved our self-definition. It was done in a very specific
manner. It was done precisely to address these issues. Every detail will be
crucial.
Part 3
Imagine
for a moment that you are one of the Jews on the night of the Exodus. You live
in Egypt the large prosperous and fertile country. You work hard, long hours.
The days are filled with torturous work under cruel and powerful masters. You
help keep the land running yet you are unlike those around you. You are a part
of a clan, a family, a different family. There is something unique about your
people, survivors of an ancient legacy, keepers of an old faith. You have been
a slave for over two hundred years. Much of your heritage has been lost, though
you do wear the traditional garb and speak the language of your people. It
seemed as though this exile would last forever. That is until recently, when he
returned, a man who may possibly fulfill the ancient prophecy to Abraham;
Moses, the boy who lived, the man who survived and has returned, out of the desert,
to save his people.
In the
time since he went to Pharaoh the first time, so much has happened. Our God has
waged a war against Pharaoh and Egypt and their gods. Their land is in ruins,
their spirit crushed, they seem on the verge of letting us leave. Many of us do
not want to leave. Or perhaps, more accurately ‘did’ not want to leave. They
died during the plague of darkness. We desire to leave, but the desire to stay
in this comfortable place, the only place we know is very strong. And of
course, there are the Egyptian Gods, that integral part of the culture we have
been immersed within for last two centuries.
Now it
is the night of Exodus. We have been given two very special commandments
circumcision and the pesach sacrifice. Both are difficult, both are different,
korban pesach is probably the last thing we will ever do; for the sheep is one
of the Egyptian gods, gods of our neighbors and masters, those who wield over
us the power of life and death. We have spent the past four days with this
sheep tied to our bedpost; we know what we are getting into, the risks we are
taking, and the sacrifice. It is a most stressful time, a most difficult time;
as we eat our pesach in a hurry, we can hear the death screams of the Egyptian
first born, and we wonder in dread, will we last the night.
As we,
the reader, skim through the bible, often the intensity and the fright of the
Exodus, escape us. We don’t realize just how much was going on, and how
traumatic it was. Our projection of freedom smothers the realization of how
testing and jarring the actual freedom was.
This
prompts two questions. The first being why was the actual freedom so difficult,
why couldn’t we just have left Egypt. Gotten up and left. The sacrifice here is
great even in the depiction of the parable the girl is told “by your blood you
shall live”.
The
second question is why are there elements told to the Jewish people during the
Exodus that seem to have no relevance to their situation at all. For as a
preparation for that night, Hashem commanded the Jewish people in many things
that seemingly are only about future generations, and have no personal
relevance. We keep Pesach because we are commemorating the Exodus; they weren’t
commemorating the Exodus, rather, they were living the Exodus. Why were they
commanded to observe the Pesach holiday before there was a Pesach holiday? Why
were the Jewish people commanded to eat matzos at the seder night. It was only
the next morning when their dough did not have time to rise.
Other
aspects also seem out of context. Why are the Jewish people told here about
Israel? Why are they told about pesach laws concerning future generations? This
may be very important information, but why do they need to know this now. Isn’t
the impact of this redemption already enough, why must they shoulder an even
greater burden?
To
review some of our questions; what is happening in the redemption? Why is it so
complicated and seemingly convoluted? Why are so many elements and mitzvos
included here that seemingly belong elsewhere? Why are the Jewish people
ritualizing their redemption rather than experiencing it? And finally why is
the whole experience so traumatic.
Rashi
addresses many of these questions one very potent note. He tells us that the
Jews were steeped in idolatry and required the commandments of circumcision and
the pascal lamb in order to be worthy of redemption. And not only did they
require the pascal lamb, but it was done in this way to help the Jewish people
break the yoke of idolatry.
Suddenly
many points become clear. For at this point the Jewish people were in the
process of becoming, the process of achieving independence, the process of
freeing themselves from the filth of idolatry. The Exodus was traumatizing, and
necessarily so. For only by making the difficult choices, could they become,
could they mature into their full stature. Exodus was a catalyst; it was here
that the Jews would be forced to draw the line. They would perform
circumcision, thereby identifying themselves with the covenant, with their forefather
Abraham, with the Jewish people. They would also denounce the “gods” by killing
them. Choosing to kill the gods was a choice to grow up.
This
choice took place in the proper time, for the girl had grown up. She was ready
to take upon herself the mantle; she is ready to be clothed in splendor. The
Jewish people make the break, and separate themselves from idols in such a way
that it will be final. It will be dangerous, it will be scary, it will be
traumatizing. It will be because it must be, for this is the only way to
become. The girl will live by her choices, by her blood[7],
by her love[8]. As the
Jewish doorposts are marked by the slaughter[9],
and the Egyptian firstborn are dying, the Jewish people are born.
It is
here that the nation begins, and for this reason it is here that the first
mitzvos are given. For a Jewish people is not merely a group of people, rather
it is a eternal unit. The individuals leaving Egypt are not merely gaining a
personal freedom, but rather they are partaking in the redemption of a people.
This redemption that is part of a larger context; it is a stage of development
in the life of the girl and it will be an event that God will always remember
us by[10].
The Jews leaving Egypt are not merely being redeemed, rather they the first to
experience Pesach. The first Jews to keep this mitzvah, a mitzvah that would
share the character of all mitzvos; it would be commanded to the entire Jewish
people for all of time. And it had to be observed in the form that the eternal
Jewish people would adopt. For this reason the first mitzvah of the paschal
lamb was preceded by the establishing of the lunar calendar. For without a set
date, the Egyptian Jews would not be adhering to the eternal Passover. They
would be creating the holiday, but they would also they would also be observing
it.
But they
would also be observing it as the Jews who were experiencing redemption, as the
Jews who were casting away their idols. And for this reason there are five
aspects of Pesach that they were commanded that we do not keep. These “only for
Egypt” Passover themes were necessary and crucial for them, but they are not a
part of the undying Torah and Mitzvos. And it was important that this was
realized even then. The Sons of Israel had to realize even then that they were
a part of something bigger and greater than them. Their personal experience as
every Jews takes part in the eternal.
Perhaps
this is why in the parable, God washes the blood off of the girl. For the
analogy of blood expresses the real trauma that the Jewish people went through
and that would continue to haunt them[11].
Therefore when God lifted the people out of Egypt it was just as important for
Him to deal with the trauma, for Him to wash off the blood. To bath them in
water, to wash away their blood, to anoint them with all and to clothe them in
splendor[12]
[1] Exodus 2:23
[2] Exodus 2:25
[3] Exodus 3:1 This mountain would become the site of the giving of the Torah (The Talmud tells us that the name Horeb connotes _____.)
[4] Exodus 3: 7,8
[5] Exodus 14:11, 12 (spoken at the splitting of the sea)
[6] Dueteronomy 11:4, 6
[7] Ezekiel 16:6
[8] Ezekiel 16:8
[9] Exodus 12:7
[10] See Rashi to Shemos 12:39 “vegam” and Ezekiel 16:60
[11] As we mentioned; the golden calf, the Jews desiring to return to Egypt…
[12] Ezekiel 16:9-14