Shabbat Table Talk

Parashat Beshlach
Erev Shabbat, 18 January 2008
Week of 13 to 19 January 2008
Torah portion: Ex. 13:17-17:16
Haftarah: Jdgs. 4:4-5:31
Sunday Readings for 20 January: Isa. 49:3,5-6; I Cor. 1:1-3; John 1:14,12.

I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, so that I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. And they did so. (Ex. 14:4).

What a disturbing sentence! God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, and then destroys all his army. Not only this but Moses and the Israelites rejoice by singing:

I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

Worse still, feeling privileged because the enemy has been destroyed, the Israelites claim God for themselves:

The Lord is my strength and my might,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

God has delivered the Israelites but at what cost!

Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he cast into the sea;
his picked officers were sunk in the Red Sea.
The floods covered them;
they went down into the depths like a stone.

Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power—
your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy.
In the greatness of your majesty you overthrew your adversaries;
you sent out your fury, it consumed them like stubble.

At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up,
the floods stood up in a heap;
the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea (Ex. 15).

The rabbis were as unhappy about this text as you are if you are, reading it on a simple peshat (literal) level. So they did what must be done with problematic texts. They reinterpreted it. They created a midrash (a story) where angels confront Moses and the Israelites for singing and not weeping over the destruction of their enemies. Through the angels God asks the Israelites, “How can you sing when my children, the Egyptians, are drowning.”

Since then, when Jews celebrate the exodus from Egypt and remember the 10 plagues, they spill a drop of wine for each of the destructive plagues from their overflowing wine glasses, as if to say, “How can our joy at deliverance be complete if others are dying, even if they are the enemy!”

God loves all of humanity. God wants every human person to be in an I-Thou relationship with the divine self. “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD” (Ex. 7.5; 14.4; 14.18). A depth of meaning is contained in these words. The word LORD is the English translation for the four-lettered Hebrew word, YHWH, known as the tetragramaton. This four-lettered name comes from the verb “to be.” In other words, God is Being; God is the Life Force of all that is alive. If God caused the destruction of the Egyptians who are part of creation, God destroyed part of the divine self, something that is unthinkable (despite what appears to be the peshat, literal reading). Furthermore, God’s name of YHWH is also connected with God’s attribute of Mercy (while Elohim, God, is connected with God’s attribute of Justice).

In last week’s parashah God had another name, El Shaddai, translated as God Almighty (Ex. 6:2-3). But that is a poor translation, too. The Hebrew word, “shaddai” means “breast.” Hence, El Shaddai means the God of Breasts. God is present to all, the Mother who nourishes the whole of creation. All those—without exception—who desire God, and those who don’t know God, are nourished at the divine breast. Jewish households remind themselves of God who is El Shaddai by attaching a mezuzah to the doorpost upon which is inscribed the Hebrew letter shin, the first letter of shaddai. As a mark of affection for God they kiss it when leaving and re-entering the house.

And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD. God loves the Egyptians. Despite everything that happened to the Israelites in Egypt, their lasting memory of them is one of gratitude and love. Egyptians saved the Hebrews in a time of famine (Genesis 42); Hebrew midwives, Egyptian women delivered the babies of the Hebrew women and saved them from death (Exodus 1); when the Israelites left Egypt, the Egyptians gave them silver and gold and clothing (Exodus 12). So despite tyrants like Pharaoh, or a man like Napoleon, incapable of having a personal relationship with anyone, stories abound of God’s and Israel’s love for the Egyptians. In the Book of Deuteronomy, it is written, “You shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land” (23:8).

Indeed, because of tyrants whose hearts only harden with requests for change, many good people do suffer and die. Yet hope is not lost. Death is the end of life for a person, but it is not the meaning of life. God will raise up leaders who will make a difference: a Moses, a Miriam, the midwives, and countless nameless ones. “Those who say that we die every day, that every moment deprives us of a portion of life, look at moments as time past. Looking at moments as time present, every moment is a new arrival, a new beginning” (Abraham Heschel).

For Reflection and Discussion: [1] Do you rejoice when your enemy is destroyed or comes to shame? Do you judge a whole people by its leaders or its government? [2] How do you deal with problematic texts in the New Testament? Do you believe that a text is capable of multiple interpretations, that authentic interpretation is revelation? [3] “A bible is simply an object. The words in it are frozen until encountered by a reader.” Do you agree with that statement? [4] Do you elevate your own religion by denigrating another?

Bibliography: The Chumash, Stone Edition (New York, 2003); Goldstein, ed., The Women’s Torah Commentary (Woodstock, 2000); A. Heschel, ed. S. Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Legacy (New York, 1996); Y. Leibowitz, Accepting the Yoke of Heaven (New York, 2002); Plaut, The Torah, A Modern Commentary (New York, 1981).

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This week’s teaching commentary was prepared by
Maureena P. Fritz, NDS, BEd, MA, PhD; Bat Kol, Jerusalem.