Parshat Shemot 5766
I suspect many of you here have heard the classic story of the little boy who came home from religious school with his own version of the Exodus. When his father asked him, "what did you learn today,” the boy answered, “our teacher told us how Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt."
Trying to be an attentive father, the man asked his son, “So what did your teacher say?”
The boy answered, "She told us that Moses was a big strong man who beat Pharaoh up. Then while he was down, Moses got all the people together and ran to the sea. When he got there, he had his Corps of Engineers build a big huge pontoon bridge. Once they arrived on the other side, Moses blew up the bridge while the Egyptians were trying to cross and the Egyptians all drowned!"
The father was shocked. "Is that what your teacher told you?" The boy replied, "No. But if I told you what she told us, you’d never believe it!"
Although Passover is still a few months away, we begin telling the story of the Exodus this morning in our weekly cycle of Torah readings. People are often confused by this – I’ve been asked more than a few times why we are reading about the Exodus at the wrong time of year.
Actually the Exodus is the pillar of Jewish life. We’re commanded to mention the Exodus not just on Passover but throughout the year. A day should not pass without us thinking about where we come from and how we got here. We mention the Exodus several times a day as part of our liturgy and the story of the Exodus figures prominently in most of our major holidays. On Friday nights when we recite Kiddush we proclaim that the Sabbath is Zicharon Lima’asay Vereshit, a reminder of the creation, and Zecher Li’tziat Mitzrayim, a way of recalling the Exodus from Egypt. As Jews we celebrate Passover every day.
Jewish ethical standards are based on this story. The Ten Commandments begins, “I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt.” Everything else follows from there. We are told no less than thirty six times in the Torah to show kindness to the stranger in our midst, “because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” The Exodus, then, is not just a story that we recall but a way of framing our lives and understanding our place in the universe. Because the time frame of the Exodus is associated with Passover we tell the story ‘at length,’ on the first nights of this holiday, but we are commanded to mention or at least recall the Exodus every day.
A few years ago Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles suggested that historically there is no proof that the Exodus took place. Given the importance of this story, you can begin to understand why so many people in the Jewish community were outraged by his statement. This wasn’t simply a statement like “there is no Santa Claus,” or “George Washington didn’t really chop down a cherry tree.” Without the Exodus there is no Judaism. Our way of life, our basic beliefs, and Judaism as a whole is based on this story and on the claim that God intervened in history and redeemed us from slavery. To suggest, as the little boy in the story did, that the Exodus is a wild fabrication is to doubt no only our religion but the very existence of God.
I have addressed the issue of truth vs. factuality before, so I won’t do so at length this morning. Still, I think it’s important to make a distinction between what is true and what is factual. Facts are based on discernable, provable or measurable data. For something to be a historical fact there must be evidence to prove that it actually happened. There are only three possibilities when dealing with historical facts: either it happened and they are true, or it didn’t happen and they are false, or we can’t know with any certainty whether or not it happened because we lack the information necessary to come to a definite historical conclusion. In other words, it might have happened. And then again, maybe it didn’t. We just don’t know. Truth, on the other hand, is not based on provable data or facts but on insight, faith, and how the statement of truth measures against our daily lives.
I love my family. I believe in God. All human beings are created equal. These are truths. I was born on August 7th, 1953. Israel is a political state founded in 1948. The Torah is the sacred text of the Jewish people. These are facts. I can’t prove the truths but I can easily prove the facts.
With this distinction in mind, I’d like to suggest two things. First I’d like to suggest that the story of the Exodus is true whether or not it’s completely factual. And second, I’d go one step farther – in the end whether or not the story of the Exodus is completely factual is really not so important. The factuality of the Exodus has never been the reason that we tell this story or believe in it. The purpose of the Torah, I would suggest, was never to prove historical facts but to reveal existential and spiritual truths for our lives. We can measure the truth of this story not because it happened but because it continues to happen again and again in our daily lives. We can also measure the truths because they are transformative – they influence and change our lives for the better.
But now I’ve said more than I wanted to on this complicated question. It is just too easy to digress into facts, history and the question of did it or didn’t it happen. When I listen to the reading of the Torah or I sit at the Seder table on Passover night historical facts don’t really matter as much as the spiritual truths that I learn by speaking of the Exodus. And that is something that children (and adults for that matter) have a hard time understanding. When I listen to the story of Yetziat Mitzraim it becomes my story that affects the way I live and how I make decisions. Personally, I believe on some level there has to be a core of historical core to this story but that is not the basis of its truth. And we may never be able to discern where the facts end and the truth begins.
With that in mind I want to focus for a moment on the opening verse of today’s Parshah: “These are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each person coming with his household.” At first glance it seems like a fairly perfunctory statement. Jacob and his family went to live in Egypt. This is how the story begins.
When we look more closely at this verse we find something most interesting. Some of the commentators point out that the word Haba’im, “who came,” is actually written in the present tense: the verse says, ‘the children of Israel “are coming” to Egypt.’ The expression should have been asher ba’u. The second half of the verse, on the other hand, seems to reiterate the same idea in different language but the same verb: eesh u’vayto ba’u, “each person came with his household.” Hizkuni, a thirteen century French commentator, points out that there is something strange about this sentence. He suggests that Israel didn’t really descend into Egypt until after Joseph died even though they were already living there – they were still “coming to Egypt” until the death of Joseph. Once Joseph was gone, the burden of Egypt fell squarely on their shoulders.
I have my own theory about why the verse is written in this way. We have two different types of statements in this sentence about “coming to Egypt.” One is in the present tense, “The Children of Israel are coming to Egypt,” as if to suggest that oppression and liberation are not historical facts but a constant process of change and growth in our lives. We are constantly descending into Egypt and finding our way out of the straits of oppression and sorrow that are afflicted upon us. The second statement is phrased in the past tense, “the families of Israel came to Egypt,” to remind us about our past. The first statement, then, is an eternal, existential truth while the second statement is meant to be taken as a historical fact.
The opening verse in Exodus is a profound statement about how we should tell the story of the Exodus and why. When we tell this story and we recall the Exodus each day, we do so on two different levels. We tell the story as a historical truth, as part of our lives and how we came to be. But we also tell this story on another level all together: it is not just our past but our present as well. The word Mitzraim comes from the Hebrew word Metzarim, which means the straits or the narrow places. Who here has not passed through tough times and narrow places in their lives that tested their faith? Metzarim is a place through which we must all pass if we are to enter the larger world and grow.
When we enter the world we pass through the straits of the birth cannel. And when we pass through times of trial and tribulation we grow in character and spirit. This is not reason for despair – it is part of our personal Exodus in which we pass from ‘darkness to light and from slavery to freedom’ in the words of the Haggadah.
We tell the story of the exodus not only as a people but as individuals in search of redemption and healing in our lives.
We tell the story of the Exodus then because it is just as true today as it was three thousand years ago.
We tell the story of the Exodus because slavery is just as much a threat today as it was in past generation. And genocide is as much a reality as it was in the time of Moses.
We tell the story of the Exodus not to grow bitter because of our suffering but to grow better because of our gratitude. We do so to deepen our sensitivity to the suffering of others and the divine call for justice.
We tell the story of the Exodus because there is no one who has not passed through tough times and narrow places in their lives – by telling our people’s story we can find the strength to face life’s trials and tribulations.
We tell the story of the Exodus because as Jews we believe that freedom is more than license. Freedom has a purpose and a meaning and with it comes responsibilities.
We tell the story of the Exodus to constantly remind ourselves that God cares about us, that we live in a sacred partnership with the Holy One.
We tell the story of the Exodus because if you don’t know where you come from how can you know where you are going?
Finally we tell the story of the Exodus not simply because it happened or because it is factual but because it is true and its truth is constantly present in our lives, in the choices we make, and in the commitments and promises we live by.
Shabbat Shalom
