"Let My people go!"
(Exodus 5:1)
Shevat 2, 5781/January 15, 2021
Rivers of blood, invasions of frogs, lice, locusts, pestilence, devastating storms... The ten plagues which beset Egypt over the course of one year are horrifying to contemplate. Lives and livelihoods were being lost. People were forced to lock themselves in their houses to avoid annihilation... Is it beginning to sound terrifyingly familiar?
For the past twelve months the entire world has been buffeted about by one cataclysmic catastrophe after another. The Corona virus, which has earned the infamous honor of being the most destructive of all the plagues which have been visited upon humanity over the past year, has wreaked unprecedented havoc on the modern world. But a quick review of events over the past year reminds us that natural disasters, political violence and mob anarchy have all darkened our days and night. Governments have been toppled. Presidents have been felled. How have we arrived at this Egyptian-like nadir in history?
In this week's Torah reading, Va'era, we witness the first seven of the ten plagues that the G-d of Israel is raining upon Egypt. The methodical and repetitive manner in which each upcoming plague is announced by Moshe to Pharaoh, Pharaoh's dismissive response, the arrival of the plague itself, Pharaoh's plea to Moshe to remove the plague and Moshe's agreement to do so, it itself, mind-numbing. "Let my people go!" was all that Moshe was asking. A three day journey in the desert to make offerings to G-d! Pharaoh would not hear of it. Even when his top advisors, his necromancers and magicians wavered, Pharaoh would not be moved. Why?
The answer is found, not in this week's Torah reading, but in last week's: When first confronted by Moshe with the message, "So said HaShem G-d of Israel, 'Send out My people, and let them make offerings to Me in the desert,'" Pharaoh responded with the fateful and fatal answer, "Who is HaShem that I should heed His voice to let Israel out? I do not know HaShem, neither will I let Israel out."(Exodus 5:1-2)
If Pharaoh cannot recognize the reality of HaShem, then there is nothing to talk about. One does not respond favorably to a demand made by what one considers to be a non existing non entity. So for Pharaoh there truly was nothing to talk about, no One to say yes to: No G-d.
When one doesn't acknowledge the reality of G-d, then one cannot possibly recognize the image of G-d in which we are all created. Not only does G-d not exist, but human dignity, human rights and human freedom also do not exist. Pharaoh did have his moments of enlightenment, brought on by desperation, when he asked Moshe to appeal to the G-d that he did not acknowledge, but these moments of illumination were fleeting. Refusing to admit to the reality of G-d, Pharaoh painted himself, one plague after another, into a corner with no escape.
When one doesn't acknowledge the reality of G-d, and therefore does not recognize the image of G-d in his fellow man, then his fellow man becomes an enemy, a target to be eliminated or enslaved: cancelled! If this sounds eerily familiar, well, it should. The world today is caught up in a whirlwind of deligitimizing the other - the ones who don't see it our way or look like us. We have become strangers, filled with suspicion and fear, and all because we, like Pharaoh, have become blind to the image of G-d that we all, each in our unique way, share.
Would that we could all journey just three days into the desert, to reunite with our knowledge of G-d, our love of G-d and our gratitude toward G-d. What a difference that would make! By worshiping G-d we will reawaken our awareness of the spark of G-d in every one of us, even in the ones who see things differently from us. The world today is marching toward a Pharaoh-like precipice, a point of no return, a very unhappy ending. But we have read the book, we know how it ends, and we still have a chance to open our eyes and our hearts, to recognize the G-d Who created us all in His image, and to put an end, at last, to the plagues that we have brought upon ourselves over the past twelve months. G-d is calling: "Let My people go!"
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