As we begin to read of Israel working at bricks and mortar, of their lives being decided for them, we should notice within our own lives bricks and mortar. The bricks – the building blocks of who (we think) we are. The mortar – how we try to make those parts of who we are, which don’t necessarily fit, fit together. When pushed lightly, we go into construction mode, building walls of identity “that none may penetrate.”
The Izhbitzer points out something interesting – the midwives actively defy Pharoah’s decree that they kill all Israelite newborn males. They choose not to, and give Pharoah a relatively thin excuse, and he lets them live. Maybe he should just kill all midwives! But instead they live, and, not only that, Hashem “makes them houses.” It seems that defying Pharoah’s orders, for all of Israel, might also be that easy. But those midwives had something the rest of Israel did not: Fear of G-d. As the Izhbitzer writes, the fear of Hashem actually brings to a person a settled mind, whereas fear of another person brings an unsettled mind. The settled mind is like a house, a place to be at home. The ones who have a settled mind get houses, places of comfort, of family and interaction and warmth. But those who do not have the fear of G-d, but instead fear other humans, they end up with buildings, but buildings for other people, that don’t bring a sense of “home”, of relationship, of warmth.
There’s an interesting and rare word in the parsha. It says “And the Egyptians worked them be-parech.” One possible translation of this word is “harshly.” But the Gemara Sotah 11a interprets it as peh rach – soft mouth. As Rashi explains there, they lured them toward work with soft words and promises of reward until the work became habitual to them. Defying the vision of Egypt forcing Israel to work, we find an image of Egypt gently coaxing Israel to work. It is far more subversive to engender in someone a desire to be a slave than to force them to work.
If we want this cycle through reading shemot to be a liberation for us on the level of Passover, we must ask exactly how we are slaves. We must ask to each other and to the who’s we think we should be, to our pain, and to our dreams. How did we get seduced into thinking we needed to be a certain way? What rewards are we looking for? Do we want people to think we are fun, or cool, or attractive? How do we spend our time? Is someone, or society at large, oppressing us, forcing us to be a certain way? Or were we taken with soft words? Are we convinced?
The book of Shemot means, literally, names. And one can only notice a lack of names throughout the beginning of the parsha. “And a man from the house of Levi took a daughter of Levi…” “And the woman gave birth to a son, and she saw that it was good” “and his sister stood by to see what would happen to the child…” I believe, Moshe is the first “important” child to be born in the Torah who is not given a name. This can be seen as oppressive – slavery takes away even our identity. Or it can be seen as an opportunity – we are finally free, for a moment to not be a name, to not have an identity and a mission and a sense of who we are supposed to be. We can finally go about our business.
Robert Bly, in his book “Iron John”, describes this descent into slavery as absolutely necessary for the development of a person/people. He compares it to the time in a person’s life when he sheds or loses identity, becomes a dweller of the ashes, down and out, away, lost. There is a real and necessary comfort here, that one need not be “someone” for a while. One may dis-integrate, so that their real identity will emerge much in the same way as a seed that disintegrates to become a flower.
We must allow ourselves to experience dis-integration so that what lies beneath may emerge as Israel emerges from Egypt. Shabbat Shalom.
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder
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Rav Gavriel Goldfeder is one of the first semicha recipients of the yeshiva. A graduate of Drew University in Religious Studies, he came to Bat Ayin after stints in other yeshivot and found a spiritual and intellectual home. Here he met his wife, Ketriellah, who was a student in our short-lived Women's Yeshiva. Upon graduation, Gavriel took the position of rabbi of the Aish Kodesh Congregation in Boulder, Colorado and together with Ketriellah and their growing family, they are busy creating (in Gavriel's words), "a community infused with Torah values, passion for learning and prayer, consideration of one another, and action, as well as deep celebration of the joys of life." |