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Monday, January 25, 2016

Parashat Yitro 5776 Dual Loyalty

Echoes of Eden
Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Yitro 5776
Dual Loyalty

Hearing of the wonders that had transpired, Yitro, Moshe’s father in law, arrives in the Israelite encampment in the desert. He is genuinely happy to hear of the wondrous events that had brought about the Israelites’ reversal of fortune, transforming them from lowly slaves into free people. Yitro joins Moshe, Aharon and the elders in a thanksgiving feast.

When the celebration ends, Yitro observes Moshe and is struck by his son-in-law’s enormous workload. Yitro, the leader (“kohen”) of Midian[1], knew something about leadership and public service. He knew that Moshe could very quickly be overwhelmed and “burned out” by the enormity of the responsibility. This over-extension strikes Yitro as a terrible strategy, and he suggests a system in which the burden may be divided and, whenever possible, delegated.

The wisdom of Yitro’s suggestion is immediately apparent, and his proposal is incorporated into the Israelite camp’s basic structure.

As an aside, we might pause to appreciate the irony of the situation: Moshe and Yitro would never have met had Moshe not fled Egypt - and his escape was precipitated by a very pointed question hurled at him accusingly: “Who appointed you judge over us?”  Upon seeing two Jews struggling, Moshe jumped into the fray – only to be accused of overstepping his authority. Now, Moshe had become the authority, the sole arbiter of justice, the judge for all Israel.  

And so, Yitro assesses the situation and proposes a method for curtailing Moshe’s workload, delegating responsibility and sharing authority – with one exception. There is one aspect of Moshe’s position that will not be shared: Moshe alone will continue to stand between the people and God. The difficult questions that rise through the lower courts will be brought to the Almighty by Moshe for clarification and adjudication.

You are going to wear yourself out, along with this nation that is with you. Your responsibility is too great. You cannot do it all alone. Now, listen to me; I will advise you, and God will be with you. You must be God's representative for the people, and bring [their] concerns to God. (Shmot 18:18-19)

Moshe has a dual role: He is both God’s representative and the people’s representative, and it may be this dual role that explains why the story of Yitro’s arrival is inserted at this particular juncture.

According to tradition, Yitro arrived in the Israelite camp months later - after Yom Kippur, in the fall –whereas the following portion, the Revelation at Sinai and all the events described in the next several chapters, transpired in the spring.[2] Ostensibly, the reason Yitro’s arrival is recounted at this point is because it is, in a sense, the continuation of the Exodus and the splitting of the sea: The report of the great miracles and triumphs the Israelites had experienced had reached Yitro in Moav, spurring him to visit and pay his respects.

However, there may be a deeper, more substantive reason to insert Yitro’s visit at this point. Yitro apparently had a uniquely clear grasp of the nature of Moshe’s role. Having himself served in a position of leadership, Yitro was able to see the day-to-day operation of the Israelite camp from a more removed perspective, akin to that of a systems analyst or organizational consultant. The judicial structure Yitro suggests is predicated on his very discerning and insightful understanding of Moshe’s essential role. And what more important juncture to clarify Moshe’s dual role, as God’s representative to the people and the people’s representative to God, than on the eve of the Revelation at Sinai? Indeed, in the events that immediately follow Yitro’s arrival (Chapter 19), in Moshe’s most celebrated role, he brings the Word of God down to the People, and represents the frightened, awe-struck nation when they are afraid to hear the Word of God. Moshe is far more than an ambassador, representing one side of the dialogue; he faithfully represents both sides, with both precision and compassion. It is this role that continues until the end of Moshe’s life.

In the story of the Exodus, Moshe’s role had been secondary; God spoke through him, Aharon spoke for him - even his own “magical” staff took a more prominent role in the plagues and miracles. But at Sinai, Moshe’s role becomes perfectly clear. Moshe is far more than a judge, far more than a neutral messenger of God’s instructions. From this point on, Moshe is both the “Servant of God” (a description that eventually becomes his epitaph[3]), bringing the Torah down from heaven, and, at the same time, the defender, protector, representative and teacher of the Jewish People. At Sinai, Moshe becomes, for all time, Moshe Rabbenu – Moshe, our teacher, leader, and master. Yitro was the first to identify Moshe’s dual role, and the first to give it practical expression, in preparation for the events that would soon unfold.

For a more in-depth analysis see:





[1] See Rashi and Unkelos, Shmot 2:16.
[2] Rashi, Shmot 18:13.
[3]Dvarim 34:5. 

Echoes of Eden

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Audio and Essays Parashat Yitro

Deconstructing Tu Bshvat

 

Monday, January 18, 2016

Parashat B’shalach Heavenly Bread

Echoes of Eden
Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Bshalach
Heavenly Bread

The road from Egypt to Mount Sinai was not an easy one. The difficulty was not only due to the nature of the terrain the Israelites had to cross, or even the fact that their former masters pursued them in a murderous frenzy; the basic logistics of the care and feeding of such a large populace proved to be a formidable challenge. Having Divine logistical support proved quite advantageous, as they made their way under the protective cover of clouds of glory, the sea split miraculously at their approach, and their drinking water flowed from a rock.

While all of this help was, quite literally, a Godsend, there was one type of assistance that went beyond their physical needs, providing sustenance that was spiritually transformative as well: the manna. The manna fell every morning, six days a week, with a double portion on the sixth day; on the seventh day, no manna fell. The lesson of Shabbat was “hard wired” into the food they ate, giving their most basic physical sustenance religious significance.

Although Shabbat was first introduced in the early verses of Bereishit, we have no evidence that the Divine perspective on creation to which Shabbat bears witness – that God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh by ceasing to create - had somehow trickled down to human awareness or practice. Before they left Egypt, did the Jews know about the Sabbath day?

There is a rabbinic teaching (Sh’mot Rabbah 1:28) that the Israelite slaves were granted a weekly day of rest in Egypt. On the advice of an Egyptian prince named Moshe, Pharaoh instituted a six-day workweek for the empire’s slaves, as a means of increasing their productivity. It is altogether possible that no one, Egyptian or Israelite, suspected that this day of rest had religious significance, not to mention religious origins or motivation: Pharaoh would most certainly not have acquiesced to Moshe’s suggestion had he known that he was granting a religious freedom.

But what of the slaves themselves? Did they see their day of rest from the toils and tribulations of slavery in physical/social terms, or as a religious/spiritual necessity? Once freed, did they conclude that their new society had no need for a day of rest because they were no longer physical laborers? Their new reality was so completely different to the reality they had known in Egypt: Their food fell from heaven, and the “work” they had to do to access the manna only vaguely resembled standard agriculture. They “harvested” fresh produce each day without the back-breaking tilling and sowing, planting, pruning, and myriad other laborious tasks that every farmer knows so well. In fact, their food did not even grow from the ground; it came down from heaven. In a sense, there was something almost “Eden – like” about their existence. Was there a need for a day of rest in this idyllic existence, they might well have wondered?

The manna gave a clear and resounding answer: Yes, even in the desert, protected and sustained by miracles, there is Shabbat. Apparently the Shabbat experience in the desert was designed to be very different from the Shabbat they had known in the dark days of slavery. In Egypt, the most important element of the seventh day had been the cessation of labor; the spiritual and theological experience of emulating God and giving testament to His act of Creation was arguably eclipsed by the sheer relief from excruciating physical labor.

In the desert, when they are free almost entirely of physical constraints, God comes into focus. The manna is the ultimate teaching aid: The first lesson is that all food ultimately comes from God. Consider the slave mentality: They had, for hundreds of years, been building great edifices for the Egyptian empire. Despite the misery of their lives, they were able to see the tangible results of their labor, and to draw a direct correlation between effort and result. Though they did not benefit from their accomplishments, they were able to measure their progress and perhaps even take pride in what they had built. But the slave can feel alienated from God; slaves do not sense a partnership with the Almighty. On the other hand, the farmer, whose livelihood is dependent upon the cooperation of “nature,” is acutely aware of each and every one of the problems that can destroy a crop. The farmer has a far more organic sense of partnership with God, and a far more natural need to pray, to communicate with his or her “senior partner.”

In the desert, the Israelites were not farmers; they had no need to do work of any kind - and yet, they “harvested” the manna. Their sustenance would still be the result of a sort of partnership with God, and the method through which their physical needs were met served as both a respite from the years of servitude and an introduction to the new reality that awaited them in the Promised Land. The desert experience allowed them to internalize the concept of a partnership with God, and to prepare themselves for the reality that awaited them in the Land of Israel – a reality that combines physical and spiritual sustenance; a reality which taught them to look heavenward for sustenance.

Through the manna, they learned the most basic lessons: God created the universe and everything in it in six days and rested on the seventh. He alone is the source of all sustenance, both physical and spiritual, and on Shabbat, when we give testament to God as Creator and Sustainer of the universe, we recharge not only our physical strength, but our spiritual resources as well.

For a more in-depth analysis see:

Echoes of Eden


Sunday, January 17, 2016

Audio and Essays Parashat B’shalach

Audio and Essays Parashat B’shalach

New Echoes of Eden Project:

Audio:

Parshat B’shalach / Doubt

Parshat B’shalach / Faith And Prayer

Parshat B’shalach / Crossing the Sea; a people divided

Parshat B’shalach / Purification

Parshat B’shalach / Lessons along the way

Parshat B’shalach According to the Vilna Gaon

Pharaoh's Responses to the Plagues

Essays:

The Long Shortcut

Parshat B'shalach 5770 - From Logic to Metalogic

Parshat B’shalach: The Eleventh Plague

The Tragedy of Lessons Not Learned

The Holy Habitation

Laws


Sunday, January 10, 2016

Parashat Bo Total Eclipse

Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Bo
Total Eclipse

Something had changed; the earth had begun to shift under Pharaohs feet. Perhaps it was brought about by the crushing force of plague after plague, or perhaps the fear of what was yet to come had begun to take its toll. Either way, the cracks in Pharaohs facade had begun to show: Pharaohs servants were now telling their master what to do:

Pharaoh's servants said to him, 'How long will this [man] continue to be a snare to us? Let the men go, and let them serve God their Lord. Don't you realize yet that Egypt is lost?' (Shmot 10:7)

It is unclear what the status of these people is: Are they Pharaohs close advisors, government officials, or lowly members of the palace staff? Either way, it is highly unusual for anyone, no matter what their standing in the Egyptian hierarchy, to offer unsolicited advice to Pharaoh and not just advice, but advice based on the understanding that Pharaoh has been vanquished by a superior power. These advisors must have been desperate; nothing short of utter despair would have caused them to throw caution and protocol to the wind and to speak out in this way.

On the others hand, it might be argued that their brazen speech indicates a shift that is far deeper than mere desperation. After all, just as people are capable of becoming accustomed to slavery, they are capable of adapting to plagues. We might imagine that the Egyptians had become desensitized, and had managed to adapt to the new normal, developing emotional and cognitive callouses that would allow them to withstand the pain. In that case, perhaps this outburst was not the speech of people beaten into submission by the cumulative effects of seven plagues; rather, there was something about the next plague that Moshe had predicted that was more frightening, more menacing, than anything they had already experienced. Something was different this time: As opposed to all of the preceding plagues, this is the only time that Moshe and Aharon were summoned back to the palace for negotiations after the warning was issued. If we pay close attention to Pharaohs words, we can pinpoint the source of that fear:

Moshe and Aharon were brought back to Pharaoh. 'Go serve God your Lord,' he said. 'But exactly who will be going?' 'Young and old alike will go,' replied Moshe. 'We will go with our sons and our daughters, with our sheep and cattle. It is a festival to God for [all of] us.' 'May God be with you if I let you leave with your children!' replied Pharaoh. 'See Evil (raah) will confront you. That is not the way it will be: Let the males go and worship God, if that is really what you want!' With that, he had them expelled from his presence. (Shmot 10:8-11)

At face value, the negotiations seem to center around the question of who should pray. In Pharaohs view, only the men should be allowed to worship God; women and children have no part in religious life. Moshe demands that each and every member of the Israelite nation must participate in the religious experience, that the festival of worship can only be observed as a People. Men and women, young and old: every Israelite has an equal part in the worship of God, and no one will be left behind. The Jewish concept of service of God is gender-neutral, age-neutral.

Upon closer inspection, we are able to detect a veiled threat in Pharaohs argument: If the entire Jewish People attempt to leave Egypt to worship their God, they will be confronted by evil. What is the nature of this evil? The Hebrew word used to describe it is raah which is often translated quite simply as something bad. Rashi (10:10)offers another interpretation, citing a tradition that raah is related to a celestial entity of the same name. In fact, the most powerful deity in the Egyptian pantheon was none other than Raa, the sun god. Pharaohs threat was no vague premonition of unpleasantness: He invoked the power of Egypts most terrifying deity against Moshe and the Israelites, warning that Raa would confront them and destroy them if they dared leave Egypt en masse.

What set Pharaoh and his servants off? The plague Moshe had predicted, the eighth plague, was locusts. To the eye of the modern reader, this plague promised economic devastation caused by destruction of their food supply. However, it is altogether likely that financial ruin was a secondary problem:

If you refuse to let My people leave, I will bring locusts to your territories tomorrow. They will cover every visible speck of land, so that you will not be able to see the ground, and they will eat all that was spared for you by the hail, devouring every tree growing in the field. (Shmot 10:4-5)

The warning Moshe conveys is equally potent: The Egyptian sun god, Raa, would be eclipsed by the locusts. This threat was far more frightening than mere financial hardship: It was theologically devastating. To the minds of the Egyptians, blotting out the sun with a swarm of insects would indicate the absolute impotence of Pharaoh, on display for one and all to see. This is why Pharaoh summoned Moshe and Aharon, engaged them in conversation, offered to compromise for the first time. This is why Pharaohs minions felt that all was lost. The disappearance of the sun, the eclipse of their godhead, would turn their world upside down.

And yet, despite all that was at stake, Pharaoh was unwilling to abandon his position. He was unwilling to admit that the power Moshe represented was greater than his own. He preferred to bite the proverbial bullet, to contend with the locusts rather than admit defeat, but neither Pharaoh nor his servants could fathom what would happen next. The next plague would be a direct response to Pharaohs veiled threat of the power of Raa: Darkness, complete and utter obliteration of the sun, suffered only by the Egyptians and not by the Israelites. It was no coincidence that the final plague, the death of the firstborn, would also be visited upon the Egyptians in the dead of night, forcing Pharaoh to seek out Moshe and Aharon in the darkness and attempt to save himself. The common denominator among the three final plagues is darkness; the sun god is eclipsed, stripped of power and importance. While this observation may be lost upon modern readers, the Egyptians were shaken to their very core.

How were these messages perceived by the Israelites? They were freed not only of their physical slavery, but of the spiritual and mental shackles that had constrained them as well. Step after step, as each successive plague brought the Egyptians and their belief system lower and lower, the Israelites were raised to new heights of physical and philosophical emancipation, and they began to understand that the God of their fathers, the Creator and Master of the Universe, had set the stage for the fulfillment of their unique national destiny.

As midnight struck and the Egyptian firstborn perished, Pharaoh frantically groped his way through the darkness, searching for Moshe. According to tradition, Pharaoh commanded Moshe perhaps begged Moshe to take the Jews and go. In their first act as a free people, the Jews refuse. They do not leave Egypt at Pharaohs command; they will not run out under cover of darkness. The Exodus must wait until the morning; the Israelites will leave with dignity, in broad daylight, as all of Egypt looks on, and not like thieves or runaways. More importantly, they will leave when the sun shines, so that no one can ever claim that they slipped out when the sun god was off duty. As the Israelites make their triumphant march to freedom, Pharaoh and all the impotent gods of Egypt are left behind, relegated to the dustbin of history.

For a more in-depth analysis see:

new book A River Flowed from Eden 

Echoes of Eden - Completed