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Sunday, January 10, 2016

Parashat Bo; Lectures and Essays

Parashat Bo; Lectures and Essays
Lectures:





Parshat Bo / In Order To Tell Our Children



The Evolving Haggada (Hebrew)






Parshat Bo / Polemic Against Egyptian Beliefs
http://rabbiarikahn.com/audio?id=375

Parshat Bo / Transcending Time Space And Matter

Matzah of Lot
http://rabbiarikahn.com/audio?id=38


Chametz (not) fit for man and dog


Essays


Of Matzot and Mitzvot

Shabbat HaGadol

Around Midnight

Time for Freedom

The First Born

The Wicked Son in the Passover Haggadah

The Dignity of Mitzvot - Parshat Bo

Rabbi Yehuda gave them Signs


Monday, January 4, 2016

Parashat VaEra Devolution

Echoes of Eden
Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat VaEra
You Say You Want a Devolution
  
Hard work is one thing, servitude quite another. Hard work is respectable, respected, and laudable; slavery is humiliating, dehumanizing. When a person is treated like chattel, the divine spark with which every human being is endowed is eclipsed. More often than not, this is true not only in the eyes of the enslaver, but in the eyes of the enslaved: Compounding the physical burden, slaves may develop psychological and emotional scars as the slave mentality seeps into their self-image and they begin to believe that they are unworthy, subpar human beings.

In order to implement his plan to enslave the Jews, it was important for Pharaoh to dehumanize his victims. Thus, the Jews birthrate is described from the Egyptian perspective, in language that would have made Goebbels grin: They multiply like vermin (vayishretzu). (Shmot 1:7). From this starting point, the murder of the males could be easily couched in politically correct terminology: This would not be infanticide; it would be pest control,  extermination. This dehumanization was so pronounced and so firmly entrenched that the Jewish midwives used Pharaohs own bias against him: In explaining their failure to comply with his orders, the midwives claimed that the Jewish women were like animals, that they gave birth in the wild, as it were, before the midwife arrived, and without any assistance. (Shmot 1:19) Captivated and convinced by his own anti-Jewish propaganda, Pharaoh accepted the midwives excuse as a reasonable explanation.

As the story of the punishments and plagues visited upon Pharaoh and his people unfolds, this theme of dehumanization comes to the foreground of the narrative in reverse: The plagues may be seen as a process designed to turn the tables on Egyptian society and to punish Pharaoh and his people for their dehumanization of the Jews. Slowly, relentlessly, the Egyptians themselves are reduced to the level of animals and the higher their original station, the more dramatic the fall proves to be.

Pharaoh was a self-anointed deity. He presented himself as god of the Nile the life force of Egypt:

Thus says Almighty God: Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great crocodile (tannin) that lies in the midst of his streams, who has said, My river is my own, and I have made it for myself. (Yehezkel 29:3)

For the Jews, the affliction of the Nile may have been perceived as Divine retribution for the murder of their innocent babies, but the Egyptians may have seen this plague very differently: The transformation of the Niles waters to blood was a severe strike against the power of Egypt the Nile and, by extension, Pharaoh, the god of the Nile. For Pharaoh himself, this first plague began the process of devolution from deity to man, and with subsequent plagues, from human to subhuman. Pharaohs fall would be the furthest and the hardest of all.

Other elements of Moshes confrontation with Pharaoh point to the steady devolution and eventual dehumanization of the Egyptian monarch. The verse from the Book of Yehezkel quoted above gives an additional clue to this general theme: Yehezkels prophesy refers to Pharaoh as a tanin (crocodile) the same word used to describe the miraculous omen performed by Aharon. When Moshe instructed Aharon to throw down his staff before Pharaoh, it was no coincidence that the omen took the form of the very creature Pharaoh chose as his symbol. The message was unavoidable: Pharaohs specious claims of power and supernatural ability were no more than smoke and mirrors. Aharons tanin swallowed up all the others (Shmot 7:12), just as the power Moshe and Aharon represented would soon swallow up Pharaoh and all his minions.

The omen of the tanin is, in fact, an evolution of a sort: At the burning bush, Moshes staff was transformed into a nachash (serpent); now, standing before Pharaoh, in a reversal of the events in the Garden of Eden, the serpent becomes a crocodile; its legs are (at least partially) restored. The primordial serpent had caused man to sin by claiming that eating the forbidden fruit could make him like God. The serpent was punished by being stripped of its human features; specifically, the serpent lost its voice and its legs. With each successive plague, Pharaoh, whose symbol was a serpent with legs (a tanin or crocodile), who saw himself as a deity, would lose not only his claim to divinity but his humanity as well.

As the plagues build up to a crescendo, confusion reigns - particularly when the Egyptians bring their cattle into their homes for shelter. (Shmot 8:20) Egyptian society, the hierarchical construct par excellence, the economic and political structure visually represented by the pyramid, is upended: Who is the master and who the slave? Who leads and who is led? Who is human and who is animal? In this context, Pharaohs eventual loss of free will comes into sharper focus: The ability to make conscious, intelligent decisions is a human trait, whereas the animal world is for the most part driven by instinct. Pharaoh had enslaved others by labeling them as sub-human. Gods response is to bring Pharaoh down, one rung at a time: First, Pharaoh is stripped of the trappings of divinity in which he had cloaked himself. Then, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, he is stripped of the symbols of humanity that he has forfeited through his own dehumanizing behavior. Pharaoh loses the quintessential defining trait of humanity, free will. When this final devolution is complete, the road to Pharaohs doom is a short one indeed.

For a more in-depth analysis see:
for “Echoes of Eden” Sefer Shmot click here




Sunday, January 3, 2016

Audio and Essays Parashat Vaera

Audio and Essays Parashat Vaera

New Echoes of Eden Project:
You Say You Want a Devolution

Audio
The Path to Transcendence

Deserving Freedom

Manifestation of Hashem's Names - P' Vaeira

Losing Our Religion


Moshe's Inspiration



The Plague of "Frogs" and Kiddush Hashem

Knowledge In Exile (The Haftorah)
The Haftorah for Vaera - the exile of Knowledge

Moshe And Aharon

The four Expression of Redemption and the Brit Bein Habitarim

The Four Cups Of Wine

The Staff

The Exodus and Elusive Perfection

Essays:
Lessons in Leadership
As published in Jerusalem Report

Pharaoh’s Conundrum

The Fifth Cup

Frogs

Pharaoh's Heart

And His Name Will Be One


Monday, December 28, 2015

Parashat Sh’mot 5776- We Are Family

Echoes of Eden      
      Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Shmot
We Are Family

In a sense, the entire first book of the Torah is a book of sibling intrigue, involving competition, jealousy and even murder. As Abels bloodied, lifeless body lies on the ground in a lonely field, God calls out to Cain and asks, or perhaps demands, Where is your brother Abel? Cain responds cynically, Am I my brothers keeper? The answer, of course, is a resounding YES! We are, indeed, responsible for our brothers and sisters, our immediate and extended families.

At various critical points throughout the book of Bereishit, this lesson seems to have been forgotten. Vicious cycles play themselves out over and over: More hatred, more jealousy. Even when violence is narrowly averted, it is a constant threat. Yosef, who was a victim of his brothers ire, forces this problem out of the shadows of the subconscious and up to the surface, orchestrating the situation in which Yehudah, the very person who had spearheaded the violence against him, morphs into the protector of his brother Binyamin. In the final chapters, despite everything that has been said and done, Yosef takes care of his brothers  - much to their surprise. The book of Bereishit comes to a close with this chord of conciliation and brotherly responsibility.

Now, a new book begins with a particularly tender scene: Miriam, Moshes older sister, goes to extraordinary lengths to look out for her younger brother. She is unwilling to simply turn her back and walk away as Moshe is placed in an ark and set adrift on the Nile. When her brother is rescued by Pharaohs daughter, Miriam steps in with an offer to help find a wet nurse who is willing to care for this infant. Conveniently enough, not only is Moshe temporarily returned to his mother, but she is paid to fulfill her hearts deepest desire: to nurse and nurture her son. All of this is made possible through Miriams love.

As a result of Miriams concern for her brothers welfare, Moshe is returned to his home and family, and in addition to his mothers milk, he receives a rudimentary Jewish education and a very strong sense of Jewish identity that manifests itself years later: When Moshe leaves the comfort and security of his home in Pharaohs palace and goes out to seek his brothers, he witnesses an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Jew:

Now it came to pass in those days that Moshe grew up and went out to his brothers and saw their suffering, and he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man, one of his brothers. (2:11)

In a scene so similar to - yet so different from - the Cain and Abel scene, once again a life is taken. This time, it is taken to defend a brother who was being beaten to death, whereas Abels death was senseless and morally indefensible, the result of anger and jealousy.

In a very real sense, Moshes unique gifts as a leader and savior of the Jewish People shine through in this early scene: He defends the weak, rescues the victim, and takes an unequivocal moral stand. But there is another message in this episode that should not be overlooked: The person Moshe rescued was an anonymous Jew, not only to us but to Moshe as well. This unfortunate slave was, in fact, a stranger to Moshe but Moshe saw him as a brother. Moshe had gone out in search of his brothers, and he felt an unshakeable sense of kinship and responsibility toward this unnamed Jew and every other member of his People. Apparently, the lesson Moshe learned from his sister had sunk in: Never turn your back on a brother or sister. Brothers do not harm one another; they most certainly do not kill one another, nor do they sell their siblings into slavery. Moshe, the beneficiary of his sister Miriams love and devotion, in turn seeks out brothers to aid and protect. This is the foundation of Moshes identity, and it becomes the cornerstone of his personality as the greatest leader of the Jewish People.

As readers, we would do well to pause and consider these spiritual giants, the men and women who populate the Book of Shmot and lay the groundwork for the redemption of the Jewish People. In particular, we might contrast their words and actions with the pathetic behavior so often found in Bereishit the jealousy, the callous disregard for the welfare and rights of others, the selfishness, egotism and ingratitude that results in exile and destruction, discord and death. The contrast highlights the fact that Shmot is not merely a new book; it is cause for new hope. It is the story of the emergence of a new nation - a nation that is a family, a nation whose members take responsibility for one another, a nation that can only thrive when no brother or sister is left behind.


For a more in-depth analysis see:

Echoes of Eden