Some years back, I took a rare excursion into theological language during a series of three talks I gave over three years at the annual OHALAH conference.[1] I suggested then that the disagreement between Pharaoh and Moshe was similar to one we are now experiencing. Moshe argued that the erratic weather and plagues that Egypt was experiencing signalled a fundamental game changer while Pharaoh argued that these were unconnected events and did not challenge the fundamentals of the Egyptian world view. In our telling of the story, Moshe was vindicated. The paradigm shift which we associate with the patriarchs and matriarchs, namely that there is only one God with whom one can have a relationship, moved to a new level. The Israelites, extrapolating from the unusual sequence of events, came to believe that not only is all of creation one interconnected entity, but that they were being called to partner with the Holy One to participate in fulfilling a higher purpose. This is what Reb Zalman insisted is fundamental to our world view in Renewal is Judaism Now![2]
We might say that one central characteristic of idolatry is the drive to create a world founded on safety and predictability. Weather forecasting, pension plans, assumptions of a life span to which we are entitled, and many other examples point to our personal and collective difficulties with political chaos, economic uncertainty, and invisible challenges to our health. Yet, this uncertainty was a given for most of human history. Until the most recent past, no one could be sure that they wouldn’t die in next year’s plague or that their financial assets wouldn’t disappear in a shipwreck. Let’s call to mind all the stories we know that are founded on this uncertainty.
Further, we have become unaccustomed to and judgemental of the cost of resisting the changes we are being called on to make. Whether it is Haredim in Israel or Evangelicals in North America, putting ideology ahead of the interaction between ideology and data contributes to amplifying suffering and pain. And we know that this suffering is not distributed equally but rather falls heavily on the least fortunate.
Like it or not, and I don’t, Egyptians paid heavily for the obstinance of their leader. I imagine that most of them didn’t “deserve” it. Nor do any of the people who have succumbed to this virus deserve what has happened to them because of the failure of current leadership to heed the data and prepare for the pandemic that epidemiologists have been warning about for many years (with likely more to come). Still, as R. Amy Grossblatt Pessah wrote recently, “at the end of the day, as much as we like to think that we are in control, we are not.…After all of our preparations, might we be able to make space for surrender? Not in the sense of giving up but rather in the sense of giving over.”[3]
I don’t celebrate the plagues the Egyptian endured; I accept them as the price they paid because their leader failed them. And it’s not just that he failed them – Moshe warned him over and over again and he refused to put the lives of his people ahead of his need to secure his power. My second cup cannot be full, for that which was good for us was bad for them.
One year, decades ago, I led a ma’ariv service in the Philadelphia home of R. Art and Kathy Green. When we came to mi chamocha, I said that I looked forward to the day when my redemption would be part of everyone’s redemption. Art said, maybe that’s why we say in birkat hamazon, may the Merciful One grant us a day which is completely good.
May this Pesach mark the beginning of our recommitment to building a world which all good.
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1 The full text of this excursion is now the final chapter in the book Integral Halachah available in the ALEPH ReSources Catalogue.
2 Also available in the ALEPH ReSources Catalogue.
3 You can access this blog at: https://medium.com/@agpomegranate