January 17th: Shemot
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
Jewish Tradition identifies three primary characteristics of our relationship with God. God is our Creator. God is the Revealer of Wisdom. God is our Redeemer. Creation happens, of course, at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, though mystics see it happening continually all the time.
As for the Revelation—the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai—and the Redemption from Egypt, they are the focus of the Book of Exodus which we begin this week. Exodus in summary may be expressed this way: God frees us from Egyptian slavery and reveals to us the Torah at Mount Sinai—giving us freedom and holy purpose in one dramatic process.
The slavery which begins the Book of Exodus is, in some ways, a surprise. Things have been good in the Goshen section of Egypt for many generations. Joseph’s good offices for the sake of Pharaoh earn him honor and his Canaanite relatives a safe haven from the famine afflicting their land. But, as we read in Exodus 1.8-11: “A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And, he said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise, in the event of war, they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.’ So they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor…”
There is some foreshadowing, however. In Genesis 15.13, God appears to Abram in a dream: “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years; but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth.”
There is also Joseph’s prophetic statement which we studied just last week, in Genesis 50: “God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land to the land promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Joseph even arranges to be embalmed and taken with the Israelites when that future redemption comes.
Egypt ends up being a very bad place for the Israelites, but only after many years of good life there. This is, unfortunately, a pattern of Jewish history—and of human history in general. Life is not permanent, and the places we find good to live are not good permanently. The only thing permanent is God—and God’s call, and we are left to be flexible and innovative as we negotiate the temporary nature of everything.
Many of us have visited archeological sites in the Middle East—or read about them in books like James Michener’s The Source, and we have learned about the curious phenomenon of tel’s. Hebrew for hill, a tel is a hill formed by numerous layers of civilization. People choose a place to live for a variety of reasons—fresh water, fertile land, good hunting, defensive topography, and they live there, sometimes for many generations. Something happens, however, and the city dies: the survivors move away, and dust settles on the site, sometimes for hundreds of years. Later, another group finds the site desirable and builds their city there. They live on the site for many generations, but something happens, and they abandon the site. More dust collects, and their city too is buried. When this process happens over and over again—over a several thousand year history, the site gets progressively higher as city is built over city again and again. Digging into these tel’s found throughout the Middle East reveals layer upon layer of ancient civilization and give us all the benefits of archaeology. It also reminds us of the impermanence of our existence on earth—and of our resilience in adapting to new and different situations.
Though America is a comparatively new country in Jewish history, we have been here long enough to have made many moves. The history of our own congregation is indicative of that mobility. The original Jews in Central Pennsylvania settled in places like Lock Haven, Altoona, Lewistown, and Bellefonte. Just 100 years ago, Jewish students at Penn State attended mandatory chapel led by a rabbi who traveled weekly from Williamsport. Demographics have changed things, and now we are the most thriving Jewish congregation between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh—with many of the other congregations dwindling or out of operation.
Fortunately, our Jewish value of respecting our ancestors and our past has manifested itself in taking over the legacies of previous Central Pennsylvania congregations. We have the Torah scrolls from the Philipsburg and Clearfield congregations—and include their former members in our congregation. We also have the Yahrtzeit Plaques from Clearfield and include those names in our weekly Yahrtzeits. We have taken responsibility for the Jewish cemetery in Philipsburg and a Civil-War era Jewish cemetery in Bellefonte.
Fortunately, other congregations have taken up the same mantle, remembering the original Jewish communities that served our people in their sojourning in many small towns throughout America. I remember with particular fondness visiting Temple Emanu-el in Birmingham and seeing the Jasper Room, a meeting room filled with the sacred artifacts of the little congregation in Jasper, Alabama, where I served for two years. One can find similar remembrances in the Museum of the South Jewish Experience in Utica, Mississippi. The Ark is from the old Temple in Vicksburg; the chandeliers are from the old Temple in Canton, Mississippi. Windows and pews and Torahs reflect the many places where our people sojourned and where they sought God’s Presence.
Egypt was a fine place for many generations, but things changed, and we journeyed back to the Land of Israel. It was a fine place for many centuries, but things changed—in 586 BCE and again in 70 CE. Then, with God’s help and our own faith, we sought other places to live and pursue our holy mission—striving to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19) and a “light unto the nations” (Isaiah 49.6 and 42.6). Now, some of us are back in the Land of Israel, and others pursue our lives in other places, but the mission remains the same: to bring God’s wisdom to all the world and to show how life can be holy. In a world of impermanence, the only permanent things are God and God’s call to holiness.