The message to Moshe is clear and totally absurd: “Go petition Par’oh, the master of constriction, to loosen up his grip. Use tactics of fear and intimidation. Meanwhile I will harden his heart.” -- To liberally paraphrase the Soul of the Worlds.
Have you ever found you voluntarily arrived in places to which you vowed you’d never go. Lately, I find myself in -- of all places -- a yeshiva, on a mountain top, in the Judean Hills. This, after having said years ago, with so much conviction, “I have not place in this Torah”. I walk past olive trees, dilapidated caravans, and bunny rabbits to attend classes given my rabbis on Torah and Talmud. (That’s right rabbits and rabbis on the same hill top. You can’t beat that with a stick.)
Taking one’s place in Am Yisrael can be intimidating. Given what we know about Jewish history, modern and ancient, and given the intense relationships between the Jewish people and other nations, between factions among the Jewish people, and between one Jew and another, there seems ample reason to cut out. To cry out loud, “I didn’t sign up for this role, I didn’t even audition for it! Get the casting director to recast it.” Perhaps you’ve seen the bumper sticker on all the cars at the Buddhist meditation center: “I’d rather be sheep herding in Midian.” Why bind ourselves to this mess?
Yona fled the call of the Name to bring a message he knew he would rather not bring. Yona fled by sea to capitalize on the idea that nevua (divinely inspired transmission, vision, instruction) doesn’t happen outside of the land of Yisrael. In Moshe Rabbenu’s case, it was a verbal exchange. “Me? Why me? No you’ve got the wrong guy, G!D. May I suggest a more suitable candidate.” -- To interpretively paraphrase Moshe Rabbenu. P.S. How does Moshe Rabbenu get nevua outside of Eretz Yisrael?
Yet at some point we are called, “Shemuel, Shmuel”, and the call is undeniable. It is the call of the infinite, and it’s the call that chooses us. The moment of hard authenticity comes in startling contrast to the American “reality”, to which many of us became accustomed, wherein we think we are “in control” and free. One day we wake up and realize that free in that context means free to purchase any one of the hair-care products, or SUVs, or Barbi-doll outfits, or greasy burgers, or super sugary soft drinks we have been programed to think we need to be a good-looking, happy-feeling, well-adjusted individual.
We get the call. And it is the call that comes from the space that is beyond our choosing, the space that decided we will wake up in the morning and we will know, somewhere in our consciousness, however blaring or attenuated the message, that we are Jews.
And we may or may not wonder what that means.
And if we ask ourselves what this means, we may answer ourselves that we are “supposed to” light some candles or something, OR we may merit to remember that we are and have been loved by an unending love, an unseen hand that has stretched out over the generations to place our awarenesses in these body, at these time, in these place, to do something, to be something that somehow is related to this word “Jew?”.
Jew? What’s that mean? Something about Heaven and Earth, and about the Fashioner of both of them, who forms us from dust of the ground and breathes life into us and places us in a garden, and about waking up this morning here. Where am I? And something about our ancestor cutting of his foreskin. Yes something about that… Something about acting on Radical Amazment. Something about being brought out of slavery. Something about our ancestors wanting to get so close to the Source of Life
Of his relationship to his Creator, Leonard Cohen (yes, the songwriter) writes in his Book of Mercy, Chapter 21: …He referred me to the crickets when I had to sing, and when I tried to be alone he fastened me to a congregation…
I’m awake and have said a blessing that I was not made a goy -- just like I blessed yesterday. I have given thanks for my opportunity to serve as a chosen son. I give in.
And what does it mean to give in to the transmissions of I WILL BE THAT WHICH WHAT I WILL BE?
Is that unutterable? Is that so personal, so intimate, so it can’t be placed into words? There is the thing itself… He puked in disgust when I swelled without filling. He sank his tiger teeth into everything of mine that I refused to claim…(Book of Mercy, 21)
And Moshe said to Life of the Worlds, “Who am I, that I should go to master of constriction, and that I should bring the children of Yisrael out of Mitzraim?” (Shemoth 3:11)
Resist though we might. The call persists. It’s parashat Shemot, it’s the call to return to our names and our soul-roots. Our names: our ancestors names: our soul’s addresses. Moshe was drawn from the water. The world we live in, mostly water, the food we eat mostly water, our own body mass, mostly water. Drinking, eating, eliminating, these are our souls’ flight patterns through territories of mostly water. Somehow emerges from the water the call to come out of the house of bondage. Moshe, Moshe come out of the sleepy forgetfulness and return to Zion, return to Eden, return to delight and harmony between Creature and Creation and Creator with an integrated heart.
I too once thought HaShem wouldn’t find me if I changed my address.
...He drove me through the pine trees at an incredible speed to that realm where I barked with a dog, slid with the shadows, and leaped from a point of view. He let me be a student of a love that I will never be able to give. He suffered me to play at friendship with my truest friend. When he was certain that I was incapable of self-reform, he flung me across the fence of the Torah. (Book of Mercy, 21)
I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Mitzrayim, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out from the hand of Mitzrayim and bring them up out of that land to a good land and a large, to a land flowing with milk and honey…Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Yisrael is come to me. (Shemot: 3:7-9)
This is our G!D Yisrael. This is our Source of Might. This is the one we call upon when we do call. He sends us out to redeem all the enslaved aspects.
Remember the little you? Have the picture in your mind’s eye? Remember when you were betrayed and frightened and beaten and embarrassed and harassed and hastled and teased? Remember when you were made to feel you were less then loveable? That’s when you were taken captive as a slave. Somehow we ended up here, and we know that our adventure is over because our crumpets of personal identity are crumbled and gone, and all we’ve left to us to bring us back to our selves is the trail of crumbs spanning the days of our lives.
But wait, there’s more, we have your ances-storys; you have a treasure map if we can only learn to decipher the symbols. Perhaps the legend reader is long since lost, perhaps there is no room in your heart for legend at all anymore. You think.
I can’t help you with your “Jewish issues” but I can tell you this, when you get the call, you can stammer about muttering “but, but, but” like our teacher Moshe does at first. You can get away in a ship like our vision-bringer Yonah does, at first. But the ship starts to sink and the “buts” turn into bushes that blaze.
May we soon merit to shed our slave-identities and return to Tzion as a new light shines upon her.
Eliyahu Dror
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Eliyahu Dror is a former student of Yeshivat Bat Ayin. He is currently working for the Yeshiva as Administrative Director. |