RABBI’s PESACH MESSAGE, 2010:Who redeemed whom from
Egypt? Our Passover story puts God
in the leading role. Traditional Judaism presents a supernatural God that
intervenes in the laws of nature and in human affairs. God is
transcendent; the realms of heaven and earth, divine and human, are quite
separate. Suffering and exile is our portion; compassion and supernatural
power and deliverance are God’s. We need salvation but God does not.
So, God redeemed the suffering Israelites from Egypt. Right?
Myths, we know, are deeper than they appear. They carry messages heard by
different parts of our consciousness, those parts that are open and able to
receive them. They are, perhaps, reflections of deep internal dynamics;
hence they resonate. And as for rituals, they allow us to re-member, to
re-enact and participate in the drama, to pay attention. Perhaps they
even help us act out the internal dynamics. Each time should be
fresh, and they are, as one contemporary haggadah
puts it, “as relevant as we allow them to be.”
We are told that God sees and hears and feels the joys and sufferings of
Israel. But that is the joy or pain of an empathic onlooker.
Perhaps it goes deeper than that, and the two realms are not so separate,
distinct and distant. Rabbi Akiva introduced the revolutionary idea that God
actually identifies with Israel, and
the fate ofone is tied to the fate of the other. So, “The Shekhinah descended into exile with them.” The Divine
Presence was with us in Egypt.
Akiva also taught that salvation is a divine
need as well as ours! From his time until now, there is a consistent
theme in Jewish commentary that we (God and Israel) need each other. And,
it is not necessarily conditional upon Israel’s merit. “Redemption is Mine and
Yours!” Instead of, “I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians”
(Exodus 6:6), it can be read as “I will be freed with you…” by changing the
vowels.
What does it mean, then, when we enter the myth and say “God redeemed us from
Egypt?”
Mordecai Kaplan’s reconstructed God was not a Supernatural Being, but a
process, a “Power that makes for salvation.” “Salvation” is understood as
the realization of the full potential of every human being. Freedom is a
necessary condition for this kind of fulfillment, so the story is about our
discovery and realization of the fact that oppression denies our creativity,
potentiality, compassion, loving kindness and growth.
This “Power” is not a puppet master pulling the strings, nor a coercive force. (So
the ten plagues are not so much punishment as inevitable consequences of
denying or resisting the drive for fulfillment.) This “Power that makes
for salvation” operates within us and
through us, not on us. It is the best part of our selves that calls us to the
awareness of our own oppression and that of others. And it urges us, as
an internal compulsion, to act on that awareness.
I like to think in terms of partnering with this “Power that makes for
salvation.” I call it the “Godliness” of which we are all capable.
I like to think that human actions have transcendent (meaning ultimate
and even redemptive) value, which is quite different than speaking about a
transcendent God. Instead of Isaiah’s “So you are My witnesses, declares
the Lord, and I am God,” Rav Kahana says, “If
you are My witnesses, then I
am God, but if you are not My witnesses, then I am, as it were, not God.”
All of this is to suggest a fresh approach to Pesach this year. The
purpose of the exodus was to arrive at Torah on Sinai. I submit that weredeemed
our Godliness. When we cry out, when we insist that suffering and
injustice is not okay, when we seek to free ourselves from all kinds of
servitude and idolatry…we activate the “Power that makes for salvation” within
us. When we learn and live Torah, the potential can be actualized.
When we set for ourselves the task of redemption, then we redeem
God (“as it were”).
This year, let’s tell about, and sing about, and participate in this “Power
that makes for salvation.” Not just tonight or tomorrow, but every day.
Click here to read "Sacred Seams" a special article written by Rabbi Geoff Basik for the Baltimore Jewish Times.
Darkness Before Dawn: "Descent for the Sake of Ascent"
In the cold and darkness of winter,
our tradition offers us Chanukah
lights and fun and triumph and joy, and food.In the warmth and bright light of summer, our tradition offers us what?Tisha B'Av, the Ninth of Av, and with it the memory and wounds of
profound sorrow, and fasting.On the one
hand, the joy that comes from a re-dedicated Temple and connectedness.On the other, the "pit" of destruction of
that Temple and disconnect from God/liness.
We would all prefer a life
of unalloyed joy and celebration, and a religion that keeps us in such a
place.But we know that this is only one
side of human experience and that we must, in the profound words of a midrash, "know
how to weep."Our life-cycle
rituals and holy days of communal celebration or commemoration provide us with
the wisdom maps to navigate both simcha
and sorrow.
What growth and development would
there be without challenges, troubles, hardships, struggles and failures?What joy would there be in "return" if we
never left?How would we appreciate the
good if we never experienced its absence?Reality is a dynamic between wholeness and brokenness.Living fully means embracing, and balancing,
both.
The High Holy Days, which are all
about "return/teshuvah," are framed
by tears and joy, and by two different "houses."The season begins with the destruction of one
house (the Jerusalem Temple), and ends with the construction of another, the sukkah, built in "the time of our
joy."The entire trajectory is from Tisha B'Av to Sukkot; from grief to joy, death to rebirth, estrangement to
reconciliation.
The story is told (pardon the cliched
stereotype) of a man who forgot his wedding anniversary, which brought his wife
to tears.Seeing this, he resolved to be
the most attentive and caring husband he could be, and so he was from that
point on.And it was that day, the day she was distraught,
that became the most important and cherished day for her.
We ignore or neglect the "down" side of
life, and history, at a cost.There is,
fortunately, an appointed time for acknowledging our tragedies, losses,
dislocations, pain, suffering and grief.It is so important that
Ecclesiastes teaches, "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the
banquet hall..."Our people's collective "house of mourning" is our gathering on Tisha
B'Av.
If we hope to emerge from the High Holy Days in uplift, with a sense of
connectedness and wholeness and joy, then it makes sense to allow for the
sadness and loss and alienation we have come to know.Only by acknowledging our vulnerability can
we move to healing and strength.
The invitation, then, is to join us
and sit on the floor, listen to the plaintive singing of "Lamentations," talk
about what was lost that we want to recover, and begin the healing
process."Yerida l'tzorech aliyah""Descent for the sake of ascent"
Kol HaLev 6200 N. Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21212 www.kolhalevmd.org
