by Jonathan Kaplan

Scholar-in-Residence, Ruach Israel Messianic Synagogue
Needham, Massachusetts

At the beginning of this week's parasha Moses and Aaron walk into the palace of the greatest ruler in the world and demand that their people be allowed a week off to celebrate a festival in the desert to their God. Their request was more than a plea for a little more food or some extra sleep. Pharaoh knew it. These Hebrew slaves were asking for nothing less than the overturning of the entire Egyptian world. They wanted the liberation of slaves essential to Pharaoh's egotistical building programs. They called for freedom for a creation that was groaning under Pharaoh's constant manipulation of the sands of the Sahara and the life-giving waters of the Nile. Pharaoh, the nameless master of all of Egypt, was the embodiment of the forces of chaos which work against God's plan of justice for all creation. God's command, "Let my people go," meant the end of chaos and the recreation of the world according to God's pattern of justice.

 

Moses, Aaron, and all of Israel seem to think liberation will come quickly.  All it will take is for them to present God's commands to Pharaoh. Pharaoh will let the Israelites go. But liberation isn't easy. It doesn't come quickly. Israel, Egypt, and all of creation are trapped in Pharaoh's system of control.  God's commanding word - koh amar Hashem - will have to come to Pharaoh ten more times followed by ten plagues before Pharaoh will relent and let God's people go.

The first four plagues come in quick succession. God pollutes the Nile with blood through Aaron's rod - choking off life and discrediting Hapi, the god of the Nile. God makes frogs to swarm over the entire Nile and all over the land - leaving the Egyptians with the chirping reminder that the Egyptian god Heqt does not control fertility; the God of Israel does. God infests the land with swarms of lice most likely breeding on the dead frogs and rotting fish. The lice are then followed by swarms of insects - 'arov' - who carry deadly viruses. Then, Pharaoh seems to relent and offers to free the Hebrews. God mercifully holds back the plagues.

But Pharaoh's heart is rebellious; he refuses to let God's people go. God sends dever, or a mysterious pestilence, against the livestock. Then, God commands Moses to thrown handfuls of soot into the air. This soot brings boils on the skin of all Egyptians who come into contact with it. Egypt is revealed as a festering land of disease and pollution. Pharaoh loses control of his empire, now an empire of death. The Nile, the source of Egypt's life, is dead. The livestock are decimated. The people are infected with mysterious diseases. Pharaoh, the one who is supposed to be the Lord of All Egypt, cannot do a thing to stop it.

On the eve of the seventh plague - hail, the plague in which the sky itself falls down, God commands Moses to present himself before Pharaoh, and say to him,

'Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. For this time I will send all my plagues upon you yourself, and upon your officials, and upon your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But this is why I have let you live: to show you my power, and to make my name resound through all the earth. Yet, you are still exalting yourself against my people, and will not let them go.'

Exodus 9:13-17

Pharaoh knew what was up! Pharaoh knew what Israel's freedom meant! Israel's freedom meant their deliverance from an oppressive and deadly system, the release of creation from bondage, and their liberation to live, worship, and serve responsibly in God's recreated world. Pharaoh's heart-heartedness is not a product of misunderstanding but of resistance to God's liberating word.

In America, the ideals of liberty and justice are close to our hearts.  We celebrate them on July Fourth. We speak of them when we see injustices committed against neighbor. But when we jabber on and on and on about liberty, what do we really mean? Do we mean free enterprise? Do we mean the freedom to chart our own course in a sea of competing voices?  Do we mean the right to do as we please (just as long as it doesn't hurt someone else)?  Is this what God means by liberating the Israelites from bondage in Egypt?  Is this what God means by working liberation for Israel and the whole creation through Messiah Yeshua? Are we really free to do what we want?

As freed people we gather in our synagogues and churches every week in the midst of our Egypt to worship our God. Our festival of worship is not only a celebration of God's mighty work of liberation. It is not only the offering of song and sacrifice to show our love for God. Worship service is about freely committing ourselves to serving God and our neighbor. Worship is fundamentally about serving. Interestingly enough, there is no difference in Hebrew between worship to God and service in the public sphere. The word for both is 'avoda'. Worship and Service are one and the same. The way we worship is the way we are meant to serve. When we worship together, we speak of a different reality. We imagine what the world is like under God's control, an alternate reality of life and abundance. We enact this world in our sanctuaries through the way we greet, care for, and nurture one another.  Here, we speak of a world of life and liberty in society of death and chaos.  Here we celebrate a festival to our God.

But this is only half of the "so what"; why we are freed as a people. If we only worship God here and serve Pharaoh when we cross the threshold, we are still captive. The difficult challenge of God's freedom is living it out across the threshold. All of us are called to live out God's freedom in the world. To resist the powers of the nameless Pharaohs in our world. To live out the reconciliation given to us. To work for justice where there is none.  To speak of God's world of life and liberty. To invite others to join us under God's liberating rule.

Shabbat shalom!