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Parsha by Gura

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Parshat Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16)
10th of Shevat, 5761

We are never quite satisfied with the stories the way we have them. Hollywood in particular is determined to add "depth", "background" and "human interest" to our stories. Cecil B. DeMille in his "The Ten Commandments" and Steven Spielberg in "Prince of Egypt" need, obviously, to visualize ancient Egypt. They also needed to create more "human" dramatic tension.

So, they have Moshe and Aaron stride into the opulent settings of Pharaoh's palace, witnessed by Pharaoh's now-named minions. To give the story some contemporary resonance, they emphasize the personal conflict between Moshe and Pharaoh: half-sibling rivalry to account for Pharaoh's ever-hardening heart.

Our text, conversely, is austere in extreme. We've few concrete clues inside the text of where Moshe and Aaron confront Pharaoh: we know they go to his house (hence palace), but we're not told how, or fro! m where, or where the palace is located, or how they got in. As is typical of Biblical narrative, the illuminations of detail we expect are almost complete absent. We know next to nothing about the internal lifes of the main characters. Previously Moshe did not hesitate to press G-d about his inability to fulfill his role. Here nothing is said of Moshe's thoughts, feelings, anxieties, fears, hopes. Aaron is all but anonymous.

What G-d tells us of himself is, at best, ambiguous. "YH-WH said to Moshe: // Come to Pharaoh! // For I have made his heart and the heart of his servants heavy-with-stubbornness, // in order that I may put these my signs among them // and in order that you may recount in the ears of your child and of your child's child // how I have been capricious with Egypt, // and my signs, which I have place upon them -- // that you may know that I am YH-WH." (10:1-2, Everett Fox translation)

What Fox translates as "capricious with Egypt" (hit'alalti b'm! itzrayim), Artscroll following Rashi reads as "made a mockery of Egypt" (Stone Edition, edited by R. Nosson Scherman) or "I have amused Myself with Egypt" (Sapirstein Rashi Edition, by R. Yisrael I. Z. Herczeg). In notes, R. Aryeh Kaplan cites Ibn Ezra's take as "dealt wantonly with..." and Radak as "did fearsome acts with...".

So, oddly, even where we think we're getting some idea of the internal life of a principal character in the unfolding drama of Exodus, we are fooled. We expect to understand the players' motives, we've seen too much method acting to avoid that expectation. On that account, we are endlessly disappointed with biblical narrative.

We shouldn't think of this as a "failure" in the story. The text consciously doesn't care about that information, or our need for that information. The straight, plain-spoken narrative, unbounded by the individual's emotional drama, drives a larger, more compelling drama, a national drama.

Nehama Leibowitz points out "...Rashi's first words in his commentary to the Torah are in the form of a question as to why the Scripture did not begin with the first precept given to the Children of Israel, a precept that occurs in this sidra (Ex 12:1). There are not less than twenty precepts in our sidra according to the Rambam's enumeration." (Studies in Shemot, pg. 178).

Rashi's comment, in brief, asks why the Torah began with the creation of the universe rather than with the command to the Jewish people that "this month shall be for you the beginning of the months, it shall be for you the first of the months of the year." (Ex. 12:1)

It is self-evident to us that the Bible should begin at the beginning (or, as I believe the Caterpillar commented to Alice, "Start at the beginning, read to the end, then stop"). On the contrary, it is Rashi's question that is confusing: what the presumptions that lead him to think that the commandment to count this new-moon as the first month of the year ! is more important in some way than creation of the universe ex nihilo?

Chapter Twelve in general, but particularly verses 1 to 20, seems to be a real rupture to the dramatic line developed in the previous chapters. The roiling, three way, head-strong confrontation between Pharaoh, G-d and G-d's agent, Moshe, is suddenly broken off for a elaborate series of instructions about the calendar, the provisioning and execution of the Paschal sacrifice, and the details of Hag Ha-Matzot.

Some of this material bears directly on the coming climatic escape from Egypt. Most of the material memorializes the event before the fact, an absurdity for human beings, but obviously appropriate considering the Source.

We are in the habit of making distinctions that, one can argue, Rashi didn't make. We clearly distinguish between faith, nation and tribe, the three-part facets of Jewish identity. This distinction is a modernist distinction, one that draws from many different sourc! es: political theory, anthropology, philosophy, general humanistic studies and the like. Such distinctions also recognize a particular reality of our world: As Jews, our sense of family often transcends national borders: I count relatives of the second and third order in at least five countries. Our sense of tribe connects us even when we cannot speak the same languages.

This ideas are in some way superimposed. They don't necessarily feel organic, or integral to our Jewish identities. More often than not, we will identify one particular factor, Jewish national identity, historic language, faith, extended family, as the locus of our identity.

But here, for Rashi and in our text, the three strands were immutably bound together. What is a nation? Certainly it is shared space; it is also shared time. Perhaps the difference between the French revolution and the American revolution was reflected in their different conceptions of the calendar. America kept the English! calendar and the cultural connections with a then-bitter enemy. The French attempted to jettison the old calendar and imposed a new one. They obviously failed, as the Soviets failed to create a "new soviet man".

But G-d did not fail: G-d created a new nation, even before they had left the old one. Revolutionary nations become real both by their visions and by their acts. In the United States, our forefathers declared their independence: that independence took the form of a revolutionary war. Both events have been memorialized in both place (Independence Hall, Washington DC, Boston) and in time (the 4th of July).

For Rashi, the peak experience of creation is the birth of the Holy Nation that will bear G-d's name. We might paraphrase Rashi to ask: why not start at THE critical event of human history, the birth of the holy, Jewish nation-people?

In chapter 12, G-d sets the stage for the nation to be born. He let us know what was in store for us, what the n! ature of the two way commitment would entail.

How is a slave restrained in slavery? By demoralizing that person so that they have no sense of self, and no sense of a greater self. A thoroughly demoralized, atomized person cannot resist an enslaver.

What seems to us a picnic menu is, for the demoralized slaves of Egypt, a meal of unity and liberation, a memorializing act in both time and space. "Speak to the whole community of Israel and say that on the tenth of this month each of them shall take a lamb to a family, a lamb to a household. But if the household is too small for a lamb, let him share one with a neighbor who dwells nearby, in proportion to the number of persons; you shall contribute for the lamb according to what each household will eat." (Ex. 12:3-4).

These were demoralized, atomized, isolated slaves. Only 12 chapters previously, when our story opened, every new born male child was to be killed. Each family, each tribe was threatened with e! xtinction. Moshe was confronted by self-serving slaves, who could not identify a friend. Now they are commanded to transcend the self. They are instructed as part of the whole community of Israel. They are to labor together, as a family, as neighbors, as a community, as a nation. It is these small structures, these human ties that build a nation. The academic scholars may want to parse the various source materials that were combined together to create this text: the theology and philosophy transcend the academics. We all know that it is the little acts of daily life that blossom into relationships. Here G-d creates a sacred whole out of the self-conscious use "little acts". From that will grow the sacred nation, the nation destined to bring G-d's name into the world.

May G-d grant rest and respite to the victims of natural disaster in India and El Salvador.

Shabbat Shalom.

Dennis