A Rock Known By Many Names: Va'eira

A Rock Known By Many Names

D’var Torah for Parashat Va’eira (Exodus 6:2—9:35)

                                 By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman        

History is made of layers piled one on top of another.  Like a rock that has been cut open and shows the geological striations that formed it, so does the study of history give us a glimpse not only of the past, but also of the mindset of the people who lived in any particular region or eon. 

A visitor to the Timna mines near Eilat, Israel, will learn that copper has been a prized metal going back at least six thousand years.  Forged in intense heat, the valuable ore was extracted from the rock in which it was embedded.  Then it was fashioned into jewelry and weapons, replacing stone as the preferred tool of ancient human beings.

Within a few hundred years, metallurgists learned to mix tin with the copper, producing bronze and initiating a period generally known as the Bronze Age.

Around the year 1600 BCE, iron replaced bronze, and yet a new page opened in human history.  Soon, however, the technology of combining iron with carbon, resulting in steel, was perfected, and modern civilization as we know it today came into being.

Copper may have turned inexpensive through the ages, replaced by a series of other metals, one stronger than another; yet it never ceased to be prized.  Archeological artifacts found in Timna give evidence that copper was mined there by the Edomites as far back as the 10th century BCE, then by Israelites (possibly under King Solomon, after whom the mines are named today), by the Romans as late as the 2nd century CE, and then by various Arab tribes until the ore became too scarce and the mines were abandoned.

It’s a cold history when viewed objectively, but when layered against Jewish history, it comes alive again.

At one region of the mines, a place of spectacular geological edifices today called Solomon’s Pillars, Egyptian carvings were discovered.  Not far from there, at the foot of the sheer, red cliffs, archeologists uncovered a temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor, where many of the miners of a particular period worshipped.  Dating back to the 6th century BCE, only a few hundred years before the Exodus, some of those miners may well have been Hebrew slaves.

Judaism consisted of little but ancient stories in those days.  Competing with many other gods and rituals, the belief in a God who, many centuries ago, promised deliverance—but had not yet delivered—was not a very popular religion.  Promises of hope can only hold out for so long before desperation and hopelessness set in.  And for a people long used to slavery and subjugation, there was little reason to hold on to a useless faith.

And yet, at that very same time, whether caused by drought or some other natural plague—locust, perhaps, or the onset of any number of mysterious and often fatal diseases—the ancient Egyptian civilization was slowly but surely crumbling.  Slave rebellions and popular unrest destabilized society and undermined the established hierarchy.  New, attractive, cultures were on the rise in Asia and Asia Minor.  Their influence was spreading by sea and land, gaining momentum and causing—no surprise to any student of history—a backlash of tyranny, oppression and cruelty as the ancient pharaohs attempted, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to stave off the total collapse of the ancient system.

It was a time of signs and portents, of visionaries and prophets.  As the authorities tried to crack down on these doomsayers, many were imprisoned; many others were killed along with their followers.  Blood flowed freely in the streets, mingling with the waters of the Nile and putrefying the canals that irrigated Egypt’s deserts.

Yet, despite the persecution and repression, the process of liberation, once begun, could not be stopped.  Long-forgotten tales of redemption were once again being told, gaining new strength with each retelling.  Belief in the God of Abraham surged, with many flocking to hear words that resounded with grandeur and expectation.

Suddenly new pride was discovered in ancient identity, as families began to trace their histories as far back into the past as they could.

The new ideology, based on equality and justice, caught fire in the hearts of a people used to degradation and poverty.  But it also caused a freezing chill to set in the veins of the once proud and mighty, the overlords who had for so long thought themselves supreme and invincible.

Suddenly a new people appeared on the stage of human history.  Once called Hebrews, they became known as B’nai Yisrael—Israelites.  Once few and afflicted, they became as numerous and luminous as the stars in the sky.  Once seemingly abandoned by their God, they were suddenly uplifted again.  Once doomed to destruction, they became eternal.

It was a transformation that had never been seen before, yet one that has accompanied Jews all along their history.  Like the ore once excavated in the mines of Timna, our people were often surpassed in power and strength.  Yet our value has never diminished.  The beauty of even-Eilat, the turquoise stone that, set in silver or gold, is the centerpiece of exquisite jewelry, can never be dulled or diminished.  It is as timeless as our God, as endless as eternity itself.

It contains the very energy of creation, ongoing, eternal and unequalled.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman