(Go)
Exodus 10:1 -
SACKS
Heart of Darkness
“The plagues were not only intended to punish Pharaoh and his people for their mistreatment of the Israelites, but also to show them the powerlessness of the gods in which they believed. What is at stake in this confrontation is the difference between myth – in which the gods are mere powers, to be tamed, propitiated or manipulated – and biblical monotheism, in which ethics (justice, compassion, human dignity) constitute the meeting point of God and mankind.”
“You shall say to Pharaoh: This is what the Lord says. “Israel is My son, My firstborn. I have told you to let My son go, that he may worship Me. If you refuse to let him go, I will kill your own firstborn son.” (Exodus 4:22–23)
Whereas the first two plagues were symbolic representations of the Egyptian murder of Israelite children, the tenth plague was the enactment of retributive justice, as if heaven was saying to the Egyptians: You committed, or supported, or passively accepted the murder of innocent children. There is only one way you will ever realize the wrong you did, namely, if you yourself suffer what you did to others.”
“When God told Moses to say to Pharaoh, “My son, My firstborn, Israel,” He was saying: I am the God who cares for His children, not one who kills His children. The ninth plague was a divine act of communication that said: there is not only physical darkness but also moral darkness. ”
School’s of Freedom
“It is not difficult, Moses was saying, to gain liberty, but to sustain it is the work of a hundred generations. Forget it and you lose it.”
“The result was that by the time the Second Temple was destroyed, Jews had constructed the world’s first system of universal compulsory education, paid for by public funds:”
They reinterpreted it as follows:
Read not ḥarut, engraved, but ḥerut, freedom, for there is none so free as one who occupies himself with the study of Torah.5
What they meant was that if the law is engraved on the hearts of the people, it does not need to be enforced by police. True freedom – cherut – is the ability to control oneself without having to be controlled by others. Without accepting voluntarily a code of moral and ethical restraints, liberty becomes license and society itself a battleground of warring instincts and desires.”
The Covenant of Faith
“Unless children know how freedom was fought for and won – in the case of Judaism, unless they remember Egypt and the exodus – they will not understand the entire concept of law-governed liberty. They will not grasp the fact that Judaism is an infinitely subtle set of laws designed to create a society of free individuals serving the free God in and through the responsible exercise of freedom. Freedom lies in what we teach our children. That is what Moses told the Israelites on the brink of their release.”
“Famously, these four passages became the basis of the four sons of the Haggada. I want to focus in this essay on one of those sons: the rasha, the wicked or rebellious child. This is how the Haggada portrays him:
What does the wicked son say? “What does this ceremony mean to you?” To you, not to him. Because he excludes himself from the community and denies a fundamental principle of faith, you shall set his teeth on edge and say to him, “I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt” – for me, not for him. If he had been there he would not have been saved.1”
“On the face of it, the query seems innocent. The child is presumably not yet bar mitzva.2 He does not yet have obligations in Jewish law. He is therefore asking, rightly, “What does this law, to which you are obligated but I am not, mean?”
“What is significant, he says, is not so much the question, as the verb with which it is introduced. In the other cases, the child is described as asking. In this case he is described as saying. You ask a question, you do not say one. It is therefore clear that the child does not wish to know. Instead he wishes not to know. His question is rhetorical. He is not asking, but expressing cynicism: “What is this strange and meaningless ritual?”
“I suspect that the sages were responding to yet another word in the verse, namely avoda, “ceremony.” Avoda has a range of meanings often lost in translation. On the one hand it means service – what we are commanded to do for God. On the other, it means slavery – what the Israelites were forced to do for the Egyptians. Avoda is a key word in the opening chapter of Exodus:”
“Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is My firstborn son, and I told you, “Let My son go, so he may worship Me.”’ (Exodus 4:22)
In both cases the term used for “worship” is avoda.”
“The son is saying: “What advantage did we gain by the exodus? In Egypt we were avadim, slaves. Leaving Egypt we became avadim, servants. The only difference is a change of master. Then we served Pharaoh. Now we serve God. But that is a distinction without a difference. Either way, we are not free. Either way, we carry the weight of burdensome effort. Then we were subject to Pharaoh’s law, now we are subject to God’s law. But do not tell me that avoda means freedom. It means the opposite.”
“It is the point classically made by Edmund Burke: “Men are qualified for civil liberty, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites.” Society depends on a system of restraints, and these can be imposed from the outside by police, or from within, in the form of conscience. The less law is internalized as conscience, the more society – if it is to avoid anarchy – will resemble a police state. “It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions form their fetters.”5
Freud said much the same in his Civilization and Its Discontents. Civilization, he argued, is the capacity to defer the gratification of instinct, and the way this is achieved is by internalizing external authority through conscience or what he called the super-ego.6 That is one of the central features of a life lived according to halakha.”
“What is clear from this passage is that there are two components of Jewish belonging, not one. There is the acceptance of Jewish law (forbidden foods, the Sabbath and so on). There is also, separately, the acceptance of Jewish identity, namely a willingness to be part of the often tragic terms of Jewish history (“persecuted and oppressed”). The late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik called these, respectively, brit ye’ud (the covenant of destiny) and brit goral (the covenant of fate). Destiny is what we do. Fate is what happens to us. One is a code of action, halakha. The other is a form of imagination, the story we tell ourselves as to who we are and where we belong.”
“Emuna, that key word of Judaism, usually translated as “faith,” more properly means loyalty – to God, but also to the people He has chosen as the carriers of His mission, the witnesses to His presence.”
Letting Go of Hate
“Do not hate an Edomite, for he is your brother. Do not hate an Egyptian, because you were a stranger in his land. (23:7)
This is remarkable. The Israelites had been enslaved by the Egyptians. They owed them no debt of gratitude. On the contrary, they were entitled to feel a lingering resentment. Yet Moses insists that they should not do so. They should bear the Egyptians no ill will. Why? In this brief command we have one of the most profound insights into the nature of a free society.
A people driven by hate are not – cannot be – free. Had the people carried with them a burden of hatred and a desire for revenge, Moses would have taken the Israelites out of Egypt, but he would not have taken Egypt out of the Israelites. They would still be there, bound by chains of anger as restricting as any metal. To be free you have to let go of hate.”
“That means drawing a line over the resentments of the past. That is why, when a slave went free, his master had to give him gifts. This was not to compensate for the fact of slavery. There is no way of giving back the years spent in servitude. But there is a way of ensuring that the parting is done with goodwill, with some symbolic compensation. The gifts allow the former slave to reach emotional closure; to feel that a new chapter is beginning; to leave without anger and a sense of humiliation. One who has received gifts finds it hard to hate.”
Excerpt From
Covenent & Conversation
Jonathan Sacks
https://books.apple.com/us/book/covenent-conversation/id757843432
This material may be protected by copyright. Excerpt From
Covenent & Conversation
Jonathan Sacks
https://books.apple.com/us/book/covenent-conversation/id757843432
This material may be protected by copyright.
Excerpt From
Covenent & Conversation
Jonathan Sacks
HELD
Pharaoh
“Pharaoh is thus a living embodiment of everything that works to undermine the world. As Bible scholar Terence Fretheim puts it, “Egypt is considered a historical embodiment of the forces of chaos, threatening to undo God’s creation.”39 This is likely also why Exodus imagines God defeating Pharaoh by splitting water (Exod. 14:21–22)—just as God created the world in part by splitting water (Gen. 1:6–7). The defeat of Pharaoh is a victory of creation, and for creation. It represents the triumph of life over the forces of death.”
“God uses the forces of nature to enforce the moral law.”
“The two final plagues provide the best evidence, I think, for seeing the plagues as God’s undoing, or dismantling, of creation. In Genesis the process of creation gets started with God’s creation of light (Gen. 1:3). In the penultimate plague, God brings darkness over Egypt (Exod. 10:21–23), symbolically returning it to a state of primordial chaos. Here nature comes to reflect morality: Moral darkness yields natural darkness.”
“Perhaps worried that we will miss the connection, Exodus offers another subtle allusion to Genesis. Just as God had separated light from darkness in the creation story (Gen. 1:4), so here also God separates light from darkness: whereas the Egyptians are engulfed in deep darkness, “all the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings” (Exod. 10:23).”
“For Zevit, the main point of all this is to demonstrate to Israel that God—and not Pharaoh or anyone else—is lord of all creation. That is undoubtedly part of what takes place here, but we should not miss the point with which we started: Pharaoh has sown death and destruction, and he reaps what he sows. The “symbiotic relationship of ethical order and cosmic order”45 is real and deep; according to the Torah, the implications of that connection cannot be escaped.”
Receiving Gifts
“But other interpreters see something else at play. God’s assurance to Moses that “when you go, you will not go away empty-handed (reikam)” (Exod. 3:21) calls to mind the laws of the manumitted slave in Deuteronomy: “When you set him free, do not let him go empty-handed (reikam)” (Deut. 15:13).51 In Exodus, then, God enforces the law as set out in Deuteronomy: When a slave is set free, he is to be given a dignified economic start by his former owner.52”
“translations), actually has a semantic range that encompasses both “to borrow” and to “ask”; some scholars even suggest that it can mean “to ask for a gift” and maintain that that is what it means in our verses. R. Saadia Gaon (882–942), R. Hananel (990–1053), R. Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam, 1085–1158), and R. Bahya ben Asher (1255–1340) all insist that the Israelites ask the Egyptians for gifts rather than loans (commentaries to Exod. 3:22).57 Some scholars dismiss this as apologetics, but the fact is that “there is no indication [in the text] that a pretext was involved” in the Israelites getting gold, silver, and clothing from the Egyptians. “The text does recognize that such willingness on the part of the Egyptians to comply with their request is highly unusual, but attributes this response to the intervention of God.”
“As Durham understands the narrative, “the Israelites ‘ask,’ and the Egyptians, in a kind of trance of affection and trust caused by [God], freely give.” The point of these texts, Durham insists, is to portray God’s power: “That the Egyptians could be so picked clean is another testimony of [God’s] triumph over Pharaoh and all his gods and wizards.” From the Torah’s perspective, God’s act thus “needed no further justification, only proclamation.”
Excerpt From
The Heart of Torah, Volume 1
Shai Held
Torah - Portion by Portion
There are three strange items in this portion called Bo (“Go”). First, the Torah states that Passover comes in Aviv (“spring”), the first month of the year. But we know that the Jewish new year (Rosh Hashanah) comes in the fall.
Second, Adonai commands that the Passover lamb be roasted and eaten along with unleavened bread (matzah) and that the Israelites obey God’s commands. But later the Torah states that matzah was first baked when the Israelites hurried out of Egypt and did not wait for their bread dough to rise.
Third, Adonai gives laws about remembering the firstborn (later the Torah states that the lamb of the eighth day must be a first-born lamb). Adonai commands that matzah be eaten with the roasted meat.”
“For farmers and shepherds, the time of aviv (“spring”) started the new year with crops and new births. For the priests, the sound of the shofar (“horn”) on Rosh Hashanah and the sacrifices of atonement on Yom Kippur were more important. Much later in our history, as more and more Jews lived in cities, as synagogues replaced the destroyed Temple, and as new prayers and practices were added to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the fall holidays grew more serious and intense. The month of Passover (now called Nisan) remained the first month of the year; but now the High Holy Days, in the seventh month of the year, were fixed as the “official” Jewish new year.”
“It may be true that tefillin began to be used about the time that the Israelites left Egypt, but there is another reason they became a symbol of the Exodus. If you look at statues and paintings of ancient Egypt, you will see that the Pharaohs wore a lot of gold and silver jewelry. Most Pharaohs wore a circlet of gold or silver—a crown shaped like a snake with its head sticking upward—on their foreheads. And on their arms they often wore an armband. In Egypt, common Egyptians and slaves were always forbidden to wear any clothing like that of Pharaoh. But when the Israelites were set free by Adonai, they were commanded to remember the wonder of their Exodus by wearing “a sign” on their hand and a “reminder” on their forehead. Perhaps this was Adonai’s final way of saying: Pharaoh is conquered. Every person in Israel is equal to Pharaoh now, and we should always remember that!”
Excerpt From
The Torah: Portion-by-Portion
Seymour Rossel
Women’s Torah
“Freezing the Egyptians in darkness for three days while the Israelites enjoyed light, this ninth plague imposes a hiatus in Egyptian mastery that gives the Israelites a taste of the liberation to come. This temporary reprieve from slavery strengthens the Israelites’ confidence, and makes them eager for freedom.”
“In seeking freedom, one cannot overlook the importance of the inner changes that must accompany liberation. Women working side by side with men often still feel responsible for the bulk of household and parenting responsibilities. Those who are abused, once separated from their abuser, may not be able to envision a healthy relationship in the absence of abuse. These physical changes in status unaccompanied by a bold inner readiness for change keep the oppressed still locked in oppression.”
Excerpt From
The Women's Torah Commentary
Rabbi Elyse Goldstein
Men’s Torah
“Pharaoh represents the figure of a man who cannot admit failure and has to win at any cost. Every interaction becomes a challenge. He has to be right, and he will do whatever it takes to avoid looking foolish, fallible, or mortal. In his later years, Moses himself inherits this trait and pays dearly when, in Parashat Chukat (Numbers 20:2–13), he hits the rock at Meribah instead of speaking to it—disobeying God and sealing his own fate in the process. Whether acting out of anger, grief, fatigue, or hubris, Moses falls victim to the same demons that plagued Pharaoh: he could not allow himself to appear weak in front of his people.”
Excerpt From
The Modern Men's Torah Commentary
Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin
A Year with the Sages
In actuality, two holidays are observed in Nisan in remembrance of the Exodus. Both have agricultural origins that extend back far beyond the actual Exodus. The Pesach, the holiday of the birth of the new lambs, is observed by the Pesach sacrifice of the evening of the 14th of Nisan. Matzot, the feast of unleavened bread, the holiday of the new wheat harvest, is observed for seven days, from the 15th through the 22nd.
Both holidays were given historical significance connected to the Exodus. Matzot reminds us of the Exodus itself; the Israelites ate matzot in their hurry to leave Egypt (see Exodus 12:17–19,39). Pesach reminds us of God’s protection of Israel at the critical moment before the Exodus. In the verses cited above, the recurring repetition of the Hebrew root p-s-ḥ is meant to explain the symbolic meaning of the sacrificial lamb by informing us why it is called the Pesach. What that meaning is, then, depends on the meaning of the root p-s-ḥ, and that is a matter of conjecture. Translators have used either “to pass over” or “to protect.” If it means “to pass over,” it implies that God went[…]”
“The early Sages were troubled by two aspects of these verses. The first was the very idea of God telling Israel to place a sign on the houses so that God would see it and not smite the Israelites. Therefore, they stressed the words “for you.” The sign meant something to the Israelites; it was intended for their benefit. By following God’s instruction, they would earn merit. It was not there to convey information to God.”
“Given a choice, I would certainly side with those who understand Pesach as indicating “protecting” rather than “passing over.” Protecting is a positive action—saving a life. Passing over is passive—not doing harm. I would rather think of God as protecting and assuring the people’s survival in difficult circumstances.”
Excerpt From
A Year with the Sages
Reuven Hammer
Five Books of Moses - Alter
“from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the slavegirl…behind the millstones. Of all the catalogues to indicate the comprehensiveness of the plague about to be enacted, this is of course the scariest. Cassuto locates the phrase “the slavegirl behind the millstones” in an Egyptian document and suggests it may have been proverbial in Egypt for the lowest of the low; this would be another instance of an authentic touch of Egyptian local color in this narrative.”
“This month is for you head of months. The reasonable inference of many scholars is that this calendric announcement reflects a moment in early Israelite history when there was at least one other competing system that designated a different month as the beginning of the year. (The Talmud later would speak of four different new years, and subsequent Jewish practice sets the beginning of the year in the early fall month of Tishrei, evidently making the calendar correspond to the agricultural cycle rather than to a historical event.) The point of beginning the annual sequence of months with the one in which the Exodus occurred is to coordinate the annual cycle with the event of liberation that is construed as the foundational act for the nation.”
Excerpt From
The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary
Robert Alter