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B'shalach - Finding Freedom Within by Brett Krichiver, Student Rabbi January 25, 2002 Moses might have stood at the foot of the sea, as the Egyptian horses rumbled towards the Israelites, and said, "I say to you, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.. . I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. . . This is our hope. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together. . . to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. . ." How curious that the words of Martin Luther King Jr. from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, come back to us each year as we read in our own history about our fight for freedom. For these could have been the words of our leader Moses, but instead they were spoken by the great Civil Rights Activist himself. This past Monday we joined with our larger community to commemorate a life devoted to his people's fight for freedom in the modern world. King truly changed the world with his message of freedom. The Song of the Sea, found in this week's Torah portion, is the celebration of our people as they taste freedom's sweetness for the very first time. As modern Jews, this emphasis on the importance of freedom as a core value frames our own relationship to tradition. We live as free Jews in a free society, and this freedom forms the very basis of liberal Judaism. But what do we learn of our freedom by reading the story of Moses and the people Israel? What can we glean from the retelling of the very birth of our nation? Remember that when the Israelites went into Egypt, they were quite a smaller group. Joseph leads his father and brothers to Egypt during the years of famine, and the small family enjoys good relations and privilege at the hands of a kind Pharoah. But then, the text tells us, a new Pharoah came to power, and the Israelites grew into a group of many thousands of people. From its very inception, our community is seen as a threat, and our freedom is taken away. So how long did it take us to regain our lost freedom? What lessons did we learn from bondage, and when did our journey to the promised land truly begin? The answer to these questions lies in a strangely worded section of the famous ten plagues story. Two weeks ago, before any plagues had come upon Pharoah and the Egyptians, God says to Moses, "I will harden Pharoah's heart, and multiply My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt." (7,3) Then we look back to the plagues as they happened: after each one the text says, "and Pharoah hardened his heart. . ." So how do we translate this story? Did Pharoah stubbornly refuse to follow God's will by hardening his heart against the tragedies which befell his people? Or was Pharoah merely a puppet, susceptible to the whims of the divine, as God unleashed the plagues one at a time, and then manipulated Pharoah's heart to refuse the command of Moses, "Let my people go!" We find that for the first five plagues, free will reigns, and Pharoah may be held responsible for his own inaction. But for the last five, God clearly reaches in, and the text states, "Adonai hardened Pharoah's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go out of his land." (11,1) The rabbis have struggled with this text throughout the centuries, because it seemingly contradicts the principle of human free will which is an axiom of Judaism. If Pharoah was not in control of his own actions, then why couldn't the Israelites have gone free without all the pain and turmoil? God must have known that the Israelites needed to reach a certain place, to realize something, to experience an emotional shift in order to be ready for their freedom. The lessons learned, the freedom gained, seem to be wrapped up in a single moment of clarity in the story. And here is where the lessons of Martin Luther King are the most powerful. What King taught his followers was the way of passive resistance. A way to explain this philosophy is that if something is yours, you take it, whether it is a seat on the bus or a place in the world. For Blacks in America, this very often meant feeling the wrath of the establishment as it resisted the change. For our ancestors, it meant taking on the Egyptian army, but the lesson is the same: asking permission from someone in authority only strengthens their authority. Whether the answer is yes or no, those who place their destiny in the hands of others, can never be free. Let us look more closely at the text. Ten times Moses approaches Pharoah and demands that he lets the Israelites go. Each time Pharoah says no, but eventually is convinced to change his mind. But the important fact is that each time a plague abates, he changes his mind again and the Israelites remain in slavery. Time and again this pattern is played out, Moses demanding, pleading, begging for his people's freedom, and Pharoah granting his permission, only to pull it back again at the last moment. What is the Israelites' reaction to this terrible power struggle? Each time their request is denied, they go back to the bargaining table, convinced that the next plague will surely sway the mighty Pharoah. Until the tenth plague. We are not given the reasons why, but we are told that when Pharoah beheld his own son lying dead in the palace, the victim of the tenth plague, the Israelites did not wait around for him to change his mind again. They simply decided that it was time to leave. And they left. Of course Pharoah changed his mind again, and sent his army after the Israelites, but they were not willing to go back to the bargaining table this time. Moses and his people had finally realized the most important lesson about freedom - that it can't be given to you by someone else, you must find it within yourself. By the tenth plague, our ancestors realized that they were playing a deadly game with the king of Egypt, and that if they wanted their freedom, they needed to simply take it. At this point in the story, Moses stops asking Pharoah to free his people, and he finally asks his people if they want to be free. The rabbis point out that the Israelites showed great faith and courage by following Moses out of Egypt. They threw off their shackles, and embraced their new destiny. Now it becomes clear why God needed to harden Pharoah's heart, so that he might not let the Israelites go before they had learned this important lesson. Moses asks Pharoah, time and time again, for something he cannot give. God leads us to discover our freedom, to discover that freedom cannot be granted from without, it must be grown from within. The word for the land of Egypt in Hebrew is Mitsra'im, which literally means, "narrow place." We must, each of us, find our own way out of the narrow places in our lives, and to the most precious gift from God, of freedom. In our own lives, we replay this scene over and over again. For each of us is trapped in the narrow place of stress, the oppression of loneliness, the slavery of what might have been. And we know that our liberation can only come from within, as we push ourselves to grow, challenge ourselves to break free from those things which hold us back. God may provide miracles each and every day, but until we find freedom within we can never begin our own journey to redemption. This week is filled with new beginnings. Tomorrow night we shall bless the earth which brings forth new sustenance for us each year, by celebrating the New Year of the trees, Tu B'shevat. Tonight we are filled with the Torah's sense of human renewal, as our people is born out of slavery, and begins its covenant with God at Sinai. Tonight we join together with the memory of Martin Luther King, who taught his people to stand together and sing, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I am free at last." This is also our own story, the Song of the Sea, when the Israelites learn to stand together, and sing their way to freedom. |