PARSHAT SHMOT

(5768)

 

HEARING OUR CALL

“When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush, Moses! Moses! He answered, here I am.”

                                                            (Exodus 3:4)

 

The burning bush is at the center of this week’s reading.  Moses had settled down to a comfortable life as a married man, a father, and a shepherd.  Then he sees a bush which is burning but not consumed.  God calls to Moses from the bush.  Go before Pharaoh and tell him to let the Israelites go.  Moses finds every excuse not to go.  Nobody will believe him.  He stutters.  There must be somebody more qualified.  But Moses has received his call and he has no choice but to go forward.  As the prophet Amos teaches, “My Lord God has spoken, who cannot prophecy” (Amos 3:8).

The events of this portion were not a one time occurrence.  Each one of us sometime in our life experiences what Moses experienced.  We feel a call.  We hear a voice.  It often resonates deep within our soul.  There is something we must do with our lives, a mission we must begin.  It may be something big – a journey to a far off place, a new career or business, a new relationship.  It may be smaller – a project for a charitable cause, an article we must write, a new skill we must learn, a spiritual commitment to our faith.  It may be major and life transforming – taking in a foster child or going back to college.  Or it might be small – a new change in life style.  But when we feel the call, we must respond.

Like Moses, we also come up with excuses.  The excuse may be old fashioned sexual, racial, or ethnic stereotypes.  “This is not a job for a woman.”  “Men do not go into that profession.”  “People of our kind do not pursue this kind of work.”  (To my fellow Jews, I quote my colleague Rabbi Mark Zimmerman who spoke in our synagogue last Shabbat.  “Jews can go into any profession they want, except perhaps being a professional football or basketball player.  But they can own the team.”)

The excuse I hear most often from people who are reluctant to follow their calling is age.  “When I was young I would have pursued my dream.  But now I am too old.”   I remember a letter a correspondent wrote to one of the advice columnists, perhaps Dear Abby.  “When I was young I dreamed of being a doctor.  But now I know that by the time I finish Medical School in four years I will be in my late forties.”  Abby’s answer, “If you do not go to Medical School, how old will you be in four years?”  Age does not matter.  I realized this each week as I pursue my PhD studies.  My fellow students could be my kids.  Most of my professors are younger than me.  But I am hardly the oldest student.  There are some graduate students well into their senior years.  I am convinced ongoing learning keeps them young.

Another excuse I hear for not following one’s calling is money.  “I would love to pursue this dream, but how can I afford it?”  It is a difficult question and there are no easy answers.  Somehow you must have the faith that if there is something you must pursue, something God wants you to do, God will make the resources available.  More than once in the synagogue an idea has come to me for a project.  But the project was not in our budget – how could I possibly afford it?   Suddenly out of the blue a surprise donation came across my desk.  “Rabbi, use this for a worthy project.”  It is amazing how God provides when we least expect it.  If that is true for our congregational life, it is also true for our personal lives.  Perhaps there is a mentor, a sponsor, someone to help us accomplish what God put us in the world to do.

Over the years I have returned many times to the theme of our personal calling, our personal mission.  We are not in this world by random chance.  We are born into a particular family, into a particular time and place, with particular talents and inclinations, for a purpose.  We may not experience anything quite as dramatic as a burning bush that is not consumed.  But many of us, at various times in our lives, feel a deep inner calling.  There is something we must accomplish while we are in this world.  Like Moses, we can find excuses.  But like Moses, in the end we must pursue our calling.  When God calls to us from within the depths of our souls, we must answer with the words of the Bible, “Here I am.”

 

 

PARSHAT SHMOT

 (5766)

 

MUNICH

 

“Then Pharaoh charged all his people saying, every boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

                                                            (Exodus 1:22)

 

            I went to see Steven Spielberg’s newest movie Munich.  In truth, I went in expecting to hate it.   I found it more moving and less anti-Israel than I expected.  But then, could the man who made Schindler’s List and who is a committed Jew really make an anti-Israel movie?  I think the movie was much more about how violence creates the breakdown of civilization.  It brought home through Spielberg’s storytelling and Tony Kushner’s writing talent the moral ambiguities of Israel’s fight against vicious enemies.

            The movie begins with the murder of the eleven Israel athletes at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972.  Although it happened more than thirty years ago, I find the tragedy of that moment still fresh in my mind.  The heart of the movie is a fictionalized account of what happened next, although “based on true events” according to the opening sequence.  Golda Meir sends a team of agents led by Avner (played by Eric Bana) to avenge the deaths by murdering the Palestinians involved.  What begins as a simple morality tale, vengeance against evil, turns much murkier as the story unfolds.  Murder leads to murder, with double crosses and violence on both sides.  Avner begins to doubt both the efficacy and morality of his mission.  Without giving away the ending, I will say that his love of Israel is called into question.

            Was Israel justified in murdering the agents who carried out the Munich massacre?  One could ask the same question today.  Is Israel justified in targeted assassinations against the terrorist leaders responsible for bombings of busses and cafes?  For that matter, is the United States justified going after terrorist groups who planned the 9/11 attack on our soil?   One could easily argue that all of these acts are justified, particularly if they prevent future terrorism.  But what the movie tries to show is how quickly the veneer of civilization disappears as violence intensifies.  Murder leads to murder in an ever escalating violence, and suddenly the lines between good and evil are not so black and white.

            There is a thin veneer between civilization and anarchy.  The morality which prevents humans from harming one another can be so swiftly destroyed.  Here in my community of Fort Lauderdale we are dealing with a painful issue, an issue which made national news this week.  Three teenage boys went on a rampage, beating up homeless men.  Two men ended up in the hospital; one died.  Fortunately the three boys were identified and arrested before they could commit more acts of evil.  They are young people who bragged to their friends about their attacks on the homeless.  Now they will likely spend the rest of their lives in prison.  To these boys, the homeless ceased to be human.   How quickly civilization breaks down?  How easy is it for evil to boil to the surface?

            History teaches that people are certainly capable of great evil.  In last week’s Torah portion the Israelites were the honored guests in Egypt.  In this week’s Torah portion, four generations later, the Egyptians order all Israelite newborn boys cast into the Nile.  So it is in every generation.  Suddenly evil appears, human beings murder other human beings, and the society spirals downwards into anarchy.  What was true in ancient Egypt is equally true today.

            How do we maintain our civilization when there is such potential for evil?  I believe that is part of the role of religion.   Religion, if practiced properly (and that is a big if), makes us better human beings.  It teaches us to open our eyes to the other.  In the movie, one of the Israeli assassin team shares the well-known classical Midrash from Jewish tradition.  The Egyptians were drowning in the sea and the angels started singing.  God reprimanded them.  “My children are drowning and you sing praises.”   Even the Egyptians are God’s children.   The Midrash ends there, but in the movie it is not over.  The Israeli assassin continues his own version of the Midrash.  The angels argued back with God; when God’s children are as evil as the Egyptians, they deserve to drown.

            The Egyptians treated us with great evil.  Yet later the Torah would teach, “You shall not loathe an Egyptian; because you were a stranger in his land.”  (Deuteronomy 23:8)  We build civilization when we see the humanity of the other.  Never is it more difficult than when the other is the enemy.  And yet, God expects of us nothing less.

           

           

 

 

PARSHAT SHMOT

 (5764)

FRODO AND MOSES

 

"God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses, and he answered, Here I am."

(Exodus 3:4)

 

I finally was able to see the third installment of The Lord of the Rings at the movies, called The Return of the King.  I have been a fan of  J. R. R. Tokien's great trilogy since I first read them as a teenager.  It was a joy to see powerful film making as the story was transferred to the screen.  (However, one caveat - if one is filming a three and a half hour movie, there ought to be an intermission in the middle for those of us who cannot sit that long.)

The story is one of the great myths of literature.   A reluctant hero, in this case the Hobbit Frodo, is called away from his day to day peaceful life and sent on a difficult quest.  He overcomes numerous obstacles, both external and internal, to successfully complete the quest -  (in this case, to destroy the ring.)   He is successful, but even in his success he is profoundly changed.  He can never go back and live the life he once lived.

The story of Frodo the Hobbit and the ring is a classical myth.  By myth, I do not mean something make believe.  On the contrary, a myth teaches profound truths about the human condition.  A myth may not be literally true, but it reflects a real human truth.  A person is called on a quest, reluctantly leaves, faces great personal dangers, eventually succeeds, and is forever changed by the experience.

In a sense, this week's portion is built around the same myth.  (Again, a myth is not necessarily a falsehood.  It may be literally true, but it always reflects human truths.)  Moses was a very successful family man, married, working as a shepherd, raising two sons, far from his birthplace in Egypt, and seemingly satisfied with his life.  One day he spotted a bush which burned but was not consumed.  He approached the bush to see what a wonder it was.  God called to him from the bush, sending him on a quest.  He would appear before Pharaoh, and lead the Israelites out of Egypt from slavery to freedom.  Moses tried every argument to avoid the quest.  He stuttered and could not speak, the people would not believe him.  He begged God to send someone else.  But when God sends you on a quest, it is difficult to say no.

Over the coming weeks, the fortunes of Moses will go up and down.  Pharaoh responded to Moses’ plea by making the lives of the Israelite slaves even harsher.  At times Moses despaired of ever completing his task.  But in the end, he led the Israelites out of slavery to freedom, let them to Mt. Sinai, and became the great lawgiver.  However, he was also profoundly changed by the experience.  In a few weeks, we will read how Moses' face gave off rays of light, so people could not look at him directly.  He never became a family man again.  (According to the Midrash, he actually separated from his wife, and he was never much of a father to his two sons.  In fact, a few years ago I wrote a piece about Moses called The Anti-Family Man.)   It is the same story as Frodo and the ring.  This should not be surprising, for J.R.R. Tolkien was a deeply religious Christian, who saw his epic as reflecting truths about good and evil in the world.

There is something universal about this myth.  Each of us is all called to a quest or mission in our lives.  Often we have to leave what is familiar or comfortable to succeed at our particular mission.  We face obstacles and setbacks, and are often discouraged.  In the end, we succeed.   However, the quest itself changes us in profound ways.  We are never the same person we were before we began our mission.

    Our particular quests may not be the material for great works of literature.  We may not be called to destroy a ring of evil, or to lead a people from slavery to freedom.  It may be something simpler, raising a particular child, starting a particular business, doing some act of goodness in the world, pursuing some God-given talent or gift.  But in pursuing our particular quest, we come out changed.  Perhaps that is the reason why this myth is so appealing.  In the end, The Lord of the Rings is not about Frodo and the book of Exodus is not about Moses.  Both are about us.

 

 

 

PARSHAT SHMOT

(5763)

 

ROOM FOR ANGER

 

AHe turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.@                             (Exodus 2:12)

 

Is there room for anger in the world?  Recently I read a book review of a new book by a writer from one of the Eastern spiritual traditions.  The book speaks of the importance of serenity and the evil of anger.  The book offers a utopian view of a world with no anger.

The book reminds me of an ancient Rabbinic legend.  The rabbis captured the evil inclination (our fundamental appetites, including our appetite for anger) and placed the inclination in a barrel. For three days nothing happened, no chicken even laid an egg.  (Yoma 69a)  We need our appetites, including our appetite for anger.  This is clearly demonstrated in one of the most important scenes from this week=s Torah portion.

Moses walked out among his people, and came across an Egyptian taskmaster beating an Israelite slave.  Moses looked this way and that way, but saw nobody. In a moment of anger, Moses rose up and slew the Egyptian, hiding his body in the sand.  The word went out of Moses= deed, and Moses was eventually forced to flee from Egypt.

The exact words of the Hebrew are that AMoses looked this way and that way, and saw that there was no man.@   People were around when these events took place.  Egyptians were present, but saw nothing evil in an Egyptian beating an Israelite.  After all, the Israelites were mere slaves.  Israelites were around, but none had the courage to act.  A wrong was being perpetrated, but nobody was willing to stand up for what was right.  As Hillel so aptly taught, AIn a place where there is no man, strive to be a man.@  (Avot 2:5)  (Note B By the word man, we are not talking about gender here, but the willingness to stand up and do the right thing.)

This was the moment when Moses proved his ability to lead the Israelites.  He was not willing to tolerate oppression or injustice.  Later he would stand up at the well to rescue Tziporrah and her sisters from intruders.  Moses used his anger to stand up against evil.  At the center of Moses vision for the Jewish people is the need to fight oppression wherever it is found.

What would happen if there was no anger in the world?  People would see injustice and calmly go about their business.  Serenity would rule.  Nobody would work to end oppression, to fight for the underdog, to help those in need.   People would see a bully harassing the weak, and calmly walk by.  Nobody would stand up for justice, and the world would remain a place of evil.

God made anger for a purpose.  Anger motivates us to fight injustice.  Certainly anger must be controlled.  Eventually out-of-control anger would lead to the downfall of Moses, when he cried out against the people and hit the rock with his staff.  But controlled anger, anger directed towards fighting evil and oppression, is key to perfecting this world as a kingdom of God.

Perhaps this view of anger demonstrates something deeper, the difference between Jewish tradition and the popular Eastern spiritual traditions.  Eastern traditions focus on escape from this world.   (What does nirvana really mean?)   The Jewish spiritual tradition concentrates on perfecting this world.  In a tradition that concentrates on this world, there is room for controlled anger.  It is the only way we humans will be motivated to fight injustice. 

 

PARSHAT SHMOT

(5762)

 

THE COURAGE TO DISOBEY

 

AThe midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.@                                                                     (Exodus 1:17)

 

A major news story broke here in Florida last week that even made national headlines.  A local cemetery Menorah Gardens faced legal action for unlawfully removing bodies so that new bodies could be buried in the same places.  Sometimes the bodies were buried on top of one another, and sometimes according to allegations, the remains were dumped in the woods.

At a cemetery were I have performed countless burials, it is hard to conceive of this disrespect to the living and the dead.  Greed blinds the eye.  I pray that if the accusations prove true, the cemetery and its corporate owners face the justice they deserve.

Having said that, an issue bothers me.  Why would employees obey orders to dig up human remains and rebury or discard them?  When someone gives an illegal or immoral order, one is permitted to disregard the order.  And if that causes someone to put their job on the line, that is the consequence of being a decent, moral human being.

A man once came to me for counseling.  He was an accountant who faced a dilemma at work.  He was asked to keep two very different sets of books, one with accurate numbers, the other with numbers fixed to show government authorities.  He said that by keeping the books this way, he was breaking the ethical demands of his profession and putting his own good name on the line.  However, he also told me that the job paid well, he had a family to support, and accounting jobs were hard to come by.  What should he do?

I told him that I understood his predicament.  Then I said, AYou need to get up each morning, look in the mirror, and ask yourself, are you happy with whom you see?  Can you face your children and see yourself as a role model?@  He told me Ano.@  AThen you need to quit and find another job.@

We are not obligated to follow our boss=s orders if they are illegal or immoral.  Nor are we obligated to follow government orders if they go against a greater law.  This was the great lesson of such teachers as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.   There is an ultimate authority then demands our loyalty, and when some lesser authority makes demands that contradict the higher authority, the lesser authority must give way.

Civil disobedience is one of the lessons of the first chapter in Exodus.  Shiphrah and Puah were two midwives who helped the birth of Hebrew babies.  (It is unclear from the story whether they were Hebrews or Egyptians.  The story is even more powerful if we assume they were Egyptians.)  Pharaoh commanded them to kill all male babies born, and to allow only female babies to live.  The women refused.  When Pharaoh challenged them, they replied, ABecause the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, they are vigorous.  Before the midwife can come to them, they have given birth.@  (Exodus 1:19)  Pharaoh backed down from his order.

Not everyone who stands up to authority is allowed to survive.  The Nazis killed anyone suspected of harboring or rescuing Jews.  Nonetheless, on the walkway to Yad ve Shem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, there are rows and rows of trees planted for righteous gentiles who put their lives on the line to rescue Jews.  Many of them were deeply religious Christians who felt that rescuing Jews was part of their faith.

To stand up to authority takes courage.  Certainly it takes courage when one=s livelihood is on the line.  And how much more so, it takes courage when one=s very life is on the line.  Yet brave individuals from Biblical times until our own day have stood up to authority, whether their boss or the government, and refused to carry out an illegal order.

Where do people get the courage to put their livelihoods, and sometimes their lives on the line?  To paraphrase the popular Hebrew National commercial, sometimes people need to say, AI answer to a Higher Authority.@

 

PARSHAT SHMOT

(5761)

 

ANTI-FAMILY MAN

 

AAn angel of the Lord appeared to (Moses) in a blazing fire out of a bush.  He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed.@

(Exodus 3:2)

 

I saw an enjoyable movie recently called Family Man.  Nicolas Cage plays a very wealthy stock trader enjoying the good life of a single man in Manhattan.  He has fine suits, an expensive car, a luxury apartment, and a string of one night stands.  He is so obsessed with his career that he forces his entire staff to work on Christmas because a large merger is eminent.

Cage=s life is turned upside down when he wakes up in a parallel world.  He has married his college sweetheart, is the father of two children, and is living a middle class life working in his father-in-law=s tire store.  The trappings of the rich Manhattan life are as far away as the moon.  One does not have to go to many movies to guess which life style Cage will choose in the end.

As I watched the movie, I thought about this week=s portion.  It might be called Anti-Family Man.  Moses is living the comfortable suburban life in Midian, far from the cultural center of Egypt.  He is married, with a child and one on the way, and working in his father-in-law=s business as a shepherd.  Moses= life is turned upset down when, in the middle of his shepherding duties, he comes across a burning bush.  The bush burns but is not consumed.

God speaks to Moses out of the bush.  He must leave Midian, go down to Egypt, confront Pharaoh, and lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  Moses argues with God; he is absolutely content with the shepherding, suburban life style.  But shepherding flocks is not Moses= calling.  God had a mission for Moses back in Egypt, and when God calls, Moses must listen.

At first, Moses does take his family along on the return trip to Egypt.  In fact, Moses= wife Tziporrah circumcises their son on the way.  However, in the end, the family returns to Midian and Moses continues his mission alone.  They are reunited much later.  Family would never again be important to Moses.  In fact, the midrash teaches that Moses separated from his wife.  We hear absolutely nothing about Moses= two sons, and can assume that he was not an ongoing presence in their lives.

Those of you who read my messages on a regular basis know that finding our mission in life is one of my most important themes.  God gives each of us a unique calling to perform during the days we live on this earth.  Our calling may not come to us out of a bush like Moses.  But it does burn within us and is not consumed.

Those of you who read my messages on a regular basis know that our commitment to family is one of my most important themes.  My most recent book God, Love, Sex, and Family focused on this issue.  Our spouse and our children desperately need our ongoing presence their lives.

This raises a difficult question.  What if our commitment to family conflicts with our commitment to our life mission?  How do we balance our unique calling to do God=s work in this world with our unique role as husband or wife, father or mother?  What happens when family commitments prevent us from pursuing our dream?  On the other hand, what happens when pursuing our dream causes us to neglect our family?

I am not looking for a facile answer.  It is easy to say that on our death bed, we all wish we had spent more time with our family.  (I often quote this.)  However, I have met people with wonderful family lives who have told me on their death bed, they wish they had pursued some inner calling.

In the movie, Cage slowly falls in love with his family.  However, he still dreams of moving to Wall Street and pursuing the career in finance.  He is offered a job at his old Wall Street firm, but his wife does not want to give up her comfortable house in New Jersey to move to Manhattan, nor lose her husband to a three hour a day commute.  In a beautiful scene, the wife played by Tea Leoni told her husband, if this career is what he wants, she will go with him   As much as she loves her suburban life, she loves him more.

Can we support our family members as they pursue their individual callings?  Can we say to our spouse, I believe in you?  Perhaps that is the way to walk the tightrope between our life=s mission and our family.  Moses could not walk that tightrope.  Can we?