This week’s parashah, Bo (Shemot/Exodus 10:1-13:16), begins “Then God said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display these My signs among them, and that you may recount in the hearing of your children and your children’s children how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs among them – in order that you may know that I am God.’” (10:1-2). This is then followed by the onset of the eighth plague of locusts. The parashah continues with the continued hardening of Pharaoh’s heart after the eighth and ninth plagues and then the last plague, the death of the firstborn. The parashah concludes with the commandments to dedicate the first-born of the Israelites to God and to observe Pesakh/Passover.

At the end of last week’s parashah, Va’era, the land of Egypt/Mitzrayim was almost completely decimated by the plague of hail. Mitzrayim, which is connected with the Hebrew for “narrow, constricted,” has been laid waste. The place that was known for its glory and grandeur has been brought low. Yet, in spite of this, Pharaoh retains his hubris. Living in his palace, separated from his people, he is able to maintain his sense of superiority and his belief that nothing could ever destroy him or his power.

After the conclusion of the seventh plague, it must have seemed to the people that they and their land could suffer no more. Yet, with the coming of the locusts we are told that what little vegetation had been left after the previous plague was now totally consumed. If the people thought the land was bare after the hail, they now knew what barrenness really looked like. However, even that could not prepare them for what was to come. For we read that in the ninth plague, they experienced a darkness that they could actually feel. This darkness touched the core of their being. They were totally and utterly engulfed by it. This palpable darkness can represent not simply depression, uncertainty or fear, but the people’s realization that everything upon which they had built their hopes and dreams had ceased to exist. All that they believed to be real was an illusion. They could no longer experience anything but nothingness.

We get little sense of how the common Egyptians felt after each plague ended, but one can only imagine that they were relieved to see again when this plague ended. Yet, what were they able to see? If they had truly come to the realization that everything they knew before was an illusion then what did their eyes perceive in the light?

What they saw was a land that was totally barren. The palaces and cities of Pharaoh meant nothing to them, for they realized that they were simply empty monuments. They were able to see the reality that they had moments ago felt with their entire being. The only thing that did exist for them at that moment was the realization that nothing existed. One could imagine that they even doubted their own existence after all they had experienced. For how could anyone be certain of anything after experiencing the deepest darkness? As they tried to comprehend this while continuing their lives, darkness came again. However, this time it was the “normal” darkness accompanied by the light of the full moon. Perhaps they could trust this darkness. Perhaps they again began to feel more secure, like life was going to once again be what it was before. Then, the final plague struck and they felt as if they were plunged back into the deep darkness once again. For within hours, the entire first born of Egypt lay dead. The first born, the ones upon whom the hopes and dreams of the people’s future rested, were no more. If there was any doubt that nothing would ever be the same, it had now been eradicated. The rug had been pulled out from underneath the entire nation. The future no longer existed. Rather, the future seemed at that moment to be as uncertain as anything could be. That is how the parashah ends for the Egyptians.

Though we usually identify with the Israelites, I believe, just as when interpreting dreams, we can find ourselves in all of the characters in the Torah. Therefore, we are also the Egyptians … the Mitzrim … the constricted ones. We are the ones who have been oppressed by a power that we believed to be greater than us. We may not have been slaves to Pharaoh, but we were under his control nevertheless. We have worshipped him as a man/god who controlled our lives. We have looked at his grand edifices and identified with the power and glory that they represented. Surely, any person – any nation – that could create such splendor would last forever. Surely, anyone who was a subject of this person was also guaranteed the benefits that come along with the package. Yet, with each plague things became less and less certain. With each plague the ground beneath us began to shift and tremble. With each plague, our certainty began to diminish. Now, after the last two plagues we realize that it is all an illusion and that our future is gone. Though our eyes can see, it is as if we have been plunged back into that deepest darkness of the ninth plague yet again. However, this time we don’t know if we will ever emerge again into the light.

Then, we suddenly come to a realization that awakens us. It even makes us laugh a bit. This grand revelation is , simply put, ‘this is life.’ This is what it’s about. Existence is not about certainty, glory, or any of the things represented by palaces and the external trappings of Pharaoh and his court. Life is about not knowing what the next moment will bring. Life is about simply acknowledging and living in the present. Some of us come to this realization easily and early. However, for most of us it takes being plunged into darkness and ends with the death of the dreams and fantasies of the future upon which we have obsessed and built our lives. Only then do we come to the realization (if we do at all). Yet, once we realize this truth, we are actually relieved. Once we realize the truth, we can stop being Mitzrim – constricted ones – and instead become Israelites … B’nai Yisrael, those content to struggle with forces Divine and human.

And what are the Israelites doing while all of this is happening to the Egyptians? We are not certain from the text what they are doing during most of the plagues, but we can imagine that they might have just been sitting, waiting, and watching, while realizing that all of this was out of their control. However, we know that during the tenth plague they were sitting in their homes observing the first Pesakh seder. They were enacting a ritual commanded to them by Moses, on God’s behalf, by which their descendants would commemorate this night in perpetuity. They may have had their sandals on and their staffs at their side so that they could leave when the time came, but they also realized that the coming of that time was out of their control. Therefore, they sat, they ate, and they waited. Though we tend to emphasize the fact that the people left in haste, and so had no time to let the dough rise, the Torah tells us even before the meal takes place that they are to eat unleavened bread. The people were commanded to eat no leaven – which according to many represents “puffed up” human pride and hubris – even before they leave in haste.

One can imagine that Israelites simply sat where they were, ate what was before them and praised God from a place of humility. While all around them death and destruction engulfed the Egyptians. Then Pharaoh lets out a cry that the Torah tells us “reached all of Egypt” when his first-born dies. The future that he had built and planned for is no more. Even then, the Israelites remain seated in their homes celebrating the Passover. They remain where they are acknowledging and celebrating the present, knowing that the future is simply an unknown. All they have is the present. If there is to be a future, it is in God’s hands and they will know it only when it becomes the present.

When the final plague ends, the moment arrives when the future becomes the present. God makes them aware that it is time to move from their place. Yet, before that, God commands them that from now on their first-born will always be consecrated to the Divine. This is an instruction to them to remember that the future, represented by the first-born, is in God’s hands – however one chooses to understand that term.

We cannot control the future. We cannot control anything, any more than could the Egyptians. All we can do is experience the present. We can attend to and feel within our souls what is happening in the moment, no matter how painful or difficult it may be, just as the Egyptians did during the plagues of locust and darkness. We can sit wherever we are and recognize the chaos that is ensuing all around us, as well as the uncertainty within us, as the Israelites did during the final plague.

Our other choice is to take the path of Pharaoh, always believing that we are in control, that we know what the future brings and that our world is in our command. If we choose this path then, when everything comes crumbling down around us, as it inevitably will, we will be unable to feel the darkness of that moment or sit there in the midst of the chaos. Rather, we will only be able to do as Pharaoh did and let out a scream that could reach all the corners of Egypt, and all the corners within ourselves, as everything that we thought we had created and controlled dies around us, and we die along with it.

Still, once again, this provides us with an opportunity. At that moment when we feel all that we can do is scream and sink to our knees, we can also choose. We can either accept the impermanence and uncertainty of life or we can once again begin to build our illusions of permanence and control of the future. Each moment provides us with choice. Each moment provides us with an opportunity. Each moment is all we have. Now we simply need to decide.

Shabbat Shalom.

The LGBT Religious Archives Network (LGBT-RAN) honors Shaun Jacob Halper with the 2009-10 LGBTReligious History Award. Halper’s paper, “Fashioning Gay Jewish Identity in Interwar Prague: The Case of Jií Langer (1894-1944),” was selected by the review jury to receive the award.

Halper is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at University of California Berkeley doing pioneering work in Jewish gay and lesbian history. His paper takes up the long-neglected life and work of a gay Hasid in interwar Prague, Jií Langer, who wrote on the problem of Judaism and homosexuality and articulated, as Shaun has argued, what may be one of the earliest cultural articulations of homosexual-Jewish consciousness and identity in the historical record.

The award will be presented to Halper at LGBT-RAN’s annual dinner on Saturday, May 8, 2010, at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. You can read the full announcement about Halper and the LGBT Religious History Award here.

Halper’s paper was selected by the jury from among eight papers submitted in this fifth year of the LGBT Religious History Award.  Click here for info about past honorees and guidelines for submissions for the 2010-11 Award.

This week’s parashah is Va’era (Exodus/Shemot 6:2 – 9:35). In this parashah the conversation between God and Moses continues as God gives Moses further instructions on how to bring about the people’s redemption. However, Moses seems a bit reticent. He claims that Pharaoh and the people will not listen to him because he is of “uncircumcised lips.” The implication being once again that he is unable to speak clearly and that his speech is not complete or whole. In short, he is not up to the task.

This reaction is something to which many of us can relate. So many times in our lives, we may feel unequal to the task that lies before us. We fear that the task is too great. Yet, one might imagine that even if Moses felt unworthy he would have trusted God’s judgment and God’s ability make the correct choice. Nevertheless, Moses does not respond that way.

Moses tries to convince God that God has the wrong man. It is for this reason that some commentators believe that Moses is one of three characters in the narrative that block God’s message of redemption. As discussed in Aviva Zornberg’s The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus Pharaoh, the Israelites, and Moses all try to block God’s communication.

Pharaoh and the Israelites are both described in the Torah as “not listening” to God. Pharaoh has no excuse, except that he’s Pharaoh and, as he says in last week’s parashah, “Who is God that I should listen to God’s voice?” (Ex. 5:2). The people’s only excuse is that they have “shortness of spirit and hard labor.” And so they are deaf to God’s redemptive call.

Moses, on the other hand, tries to block God’s message by stating that he is an unfit messenger. Moses tried once already to be God’s voice and Pharaoh laughed in his, and, by extension, God’s face (see Ex. 5:2). Why should Pharaoh listen the next time and why should the people listen after seeing their labor increase after Moses’ first request of Pharaoh?

However, Zornberg points out, Moses does not base his reluctance to speak on the actions of Pharaoh, but rather on his in ability to make people listen. He is of “uncircumcised lips” and neither Pharaoh nor the people will listen to him. The great Hassidic master of the 19th century, the Sefat Emet, interprets Moses’ cry to God as saying: “They (Pharaoh and the people) would not listen, THEREFORE, I am of uncircumcised lips.” This interpretation turns the usual on its head. Rather than speech creating, or failing to create, listeners, it is listening, or the lack thereof, that creates the inability to speak!

If Pharaoh and the people are unwilling to listen, then it is as if Moses is unable to speak. In other words, if a prophet speaks in a desert and there is no one there to hear him (or willing to hear him) does he really say anything? Moses’s answer to this seems to be an unqualified No!

The Zohar (mystical commentary on the Torah) calls this phenomenon “the exile of the word.” “The dynamic of language, of communication, has failed [and] this failure is the profound meaning of exile; it encompasses the inability to hear and the inability to speak…The ears of this generation [of slaves] do not, cannot respond to living language. For this reason, Moses will not, cannot speak.” (Zornberg, p. 84)

Moses is therefore faced in this parashah with the dilemma that faces so many leaders of social change throughout history. If the people are unwilling or unable to hear the message does one continue to attempt to deliver it? In our narrative the answer is yes. But that answer comes from God. If it were up to Moses redemption may never have come, or certainly it would have come at a much later date. God is the power that makes for redemption in this narrative, but God is also the power that ultimately gives Moses the power of speech even in the face of the deafness of Pharaoh and the people.

However, I believe that God also gives the people the ability to hear. Pharaoh’s unwillingness to even consider that there could be any power greater than he is what prevents Pharaoh from being able to hear up until the moment when the sea is closing in around him. But the people do eventually listen and hear. At least temporarily.

It is said that when we truly communicate with one anther we can see the face and hear the voice of God. But the corollary to that is that when we communicate it is God that gives us the power to truly hear and to truly speak. God is the power that makes for speech and for understanding. Without that connection to the divine flow that links us one to the other we may speak, but our words have less meaning; we may hear, but our hearing is less attuned. That is an important message of the parashah and this particular commentary.

Though this certainly has a mystical ring to it, I also believe that it is in keeping with my understanding as a Reconstructionist (albeit one with strong mystical leanings!) of the role of God in the world. For God is the power that connects us to each other and the power that works through us to create the ability to speak and to hear clearly, both metaphorically and literally. If we stop and pay attention to all that is going on within and around us Divinity is the source or our ability to connect with the universe.

Pharaoh was unable to understand this, and it ultimately brought about his destruction. The Israelites were unable to comprehend this until they were no longer enslaved, though even then they had difficulties and needed constant reminders. Moses finally understood this after his encounters with God in this week’s parashah and especially after the exodus and the revelation at Sinai.

We each have the ability – and responsibility – to bring Divinity into the world through our paying attention, speaking carefully and interacting honestly with others. The choice is ours. We can ignore this responsibility, as did Pharaoh, or we can eventually understand and accept. This can happen through using speech and actions as catalysts for change, as in the case of Moses, or via our ability to listen and to follow, as happened with the Israelites.

As the kabbalists might say, speech has been exiled too often in our history. It is up to us to make certain that it remains firmly put and that it continues to be redeemed and to bring about redemption now and in the future.

This week’s parashah is Shemot (Exodus/Shemot 1:1 – 6:1). The saga of slavery and redemption that we remember each year at the time of Passover, as well as now during the Torah reading cycle, begins with this parashah.

The narrative opens by reminding us of the names (Shemot) of the sons of Jacob/Israel. Then we read that the Israelites multiplied greatly in Egypt. In fact, the Torah tells us that they “swarmed and multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them (1:7).” This increase in population is the reason given by Pharaoh for his decision to enslave the people.

Many commentators have wondered why it was necessary to give any reason for the enslavement. After all, Abraham was told in Bereshit/Genesis 15:13 “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.” If the enslavement was portrayed as part of “God’s plan” then Pharaoh needed no reason for his persecution of the Israelites. And yet, the Torah text provides us with precisely that.

In her excellent and compelling book on Exodus The Particulars of Rapture (which I HIGHLY recommend) Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg writes that the concept of the Israelites ’swarming’ over the land is viewed in two different ways. The majority of midrashim (rabbinic exegetical tales) comment that the increase in the Israelite population represents a victory of life over death and serves as a reminder of the eternality of God and God’s promise that the people shall be numerous. Jacob and his sons, including the great Joseph, may be dead, as the opening lines remind us, but the people itself lives and flourishes. This is all due to God’s promise and serves as a reminder of the Divine presence. Life and God are eternal and the proliferation of the Israelite people is proof of this.

However, Seforno (16th century, Italy) is holds a minority opinion that views this description of Israelite growth as a condemnation. The phrase “and they swarmed and multiplied and increased very greatly” is likened by him to the swarming and increase of insects. Actually, the root of the Hebrew verb “to swarm” (sh-r-tz) is also the root of the word for insect. Seforno condemns the Israelites by claiming that the people, which once consisted of individuated and highly evolved persons such as Jacob and Joseph, has now deteriorated to the point where they were simply a mass of “unindividuated ‘insect-like’ conformists, whose whole effort is to assimilate to their surrounds…”(Zornberg, p. 19). In other words, Seforno

As I read this interpretation I rejected it immediately. It reminded me too much of the those who would readily blame the Holocaust on the assimilation of the German-Jewish population or who blame any number of contemporary “ills” on the perceived assimilation of Jewish society today. In blaming the victims it would appear that Seforno is relieving Pharaoh of responsibility for his actions. And yet, as I stated above, if this was part of God’s plan, why does anyone need to be blamed? Why can’t we simply take the slavery as a “fact” and move on?

The answer is simple. If we were to do this we would miss the opportunity to learn anything from this central story of our people’s religious mythos. In her analysis of Seforno’s commentary Aviva Zornberg points out that his interpretation “has constructed a narrative of failure, guilt, punishment, where the biblical text seemed to give us only the facts of suffering…” However, Zornberg continues, Seforno “invites us to reflect on the ways in which slavery, persecution and alienation … are generated by human beings…and - in the same vein - on the meaning of redemption, exodus, freedom. In doing this, he stands in a tradition of commentators who read the Exodus narrative psycho-spiritually, from the point of view of the victim who seeks redemption, in the intimate as well as the political sense.” (Zornberg, p.21).

In reading Zornberg’s analysis my feelings about Seforno’s original commentary were turned around. Rather than viewing his remarks as simply blaming the victim I was instead able to view them as a way of giving the people responsibility for their growth and redemption. For in order to say that we play a role in bringing about our own redemption we must first admit that on a deep level we play a role in our own enslavement. believed that the people were being punished for their assimilation, as represented by their ’swarming’; the punishment for this was slavery.

If we interpret Mitzrayim (Egypt) as meitzarim (the narrow/constricted places), as do numerous commentaries, then being caught in the snares of slavery in Mitzrayim represents how our own spirits are caught in the snares of the narrowness of our self-enslavement. Slavery then comes to represent how we constrict ourselves by becoming part of the assimilated masses rather than standing up for who we are and what we believe. I am speaking here not simply of the concept of religious and cultural assimilation, but of the assimilation of the individual into the swarm of humanity. For this is what causes us to turn our backs on what it means to be a unique individual created in the image of God, yet also part of a greater community.

Therefore, if, as Seforno posits, we become part of the swarm by simply merging our individual selves with the communal “self’ of society then it is up to us (with the help of the Divine that flows through each of us) to bring about our redemption. We achieve this by separating ourselves from the communal swarm and instead becoming individuals dedicated to caring for our world, our people and ourselves in our own unique ways rather than simply being like ‘everyone else.’

This is a message of the story of slavery and redemption that I had never considered when reading this story in the past. However, I think speaks to us today in the 21st century, when assimilation, acculturation and being ‘part of the swarm’ seems to be a force that is gaining more strength. This commentary calls on us to strive for the sense of individuality combined with communal responsibility that was at the heart of the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement and the various movements for social change and justice today. These efforts stand in opposition to the idea of merging with the masses and swarming that was at the root of so many dark times in American history from the Salem witch hunts to the McCarthy witch hunts and up until today. And it is a call that I believe it is important for us to heed at this, and every, time in our history.

However, what can prevent us from becoming part of the negative swarm? How do we maintain our sense of unique godliness and individuality in the face of the numerous forces urging us to join the masses and be just like everyone else - which in the end means being like nothing? The answer would seem to be that we must have a clear sense of self. We need to have a strong ego. We need to be sure of who we are. Yet, perhaps that in itself a is dangerous misconception. For in the end it is merely a trick of the ego itself, and the ego wants nothing more than for us to believe that we are who we are and that we will never change. For this keeps us ensnared and reliant upon the ego to tell us who we are. It also separates us from others and from Divine flow in the universe.

This may be the opposite of swarming, but it’s effects are just as damaging. For in feeling so secure in who we are, we forget that who we are is ever-changing, and that it is dependant upon how we connect with others and the world around us. This is how reliance on ego keeps us separated from others. It also keeps us separated from God by making the ego itself into a kind of god. All the overemphasis on the power and importance of the self can ultimately lead to enslavement, just as the mob mentality and lack of individuation found in the swarming phenomenon does the same.

Whether by swarming as part of the mob or separating ourselves with the help of our ego, either extreme leads to enslavement and despair. The only way to prevent us from going to either extreme is to remember that the ultimate center of our existence is God and the Divine flow that connects us to all other human beings and to the world around us. For this sense of connection and oneness can only lead to compassion for all and promises to release all who are enslaved, no matter who or what the master might be. If we remember this and keep this at the center of our being, then we will remain on the path towards righteousness. And it is this path that will ultimately lead to the redemption of our world and enable us to split the seas of oppression and injustice that hold us back so that we may all cross to the other side where freedom awaits.