Change And
Transformation
D’var Torah for
Shabbat Shemot
By Rabbi Boaz D.
Heilman
January 3, 2018
The more things change, goes the saying, the more they stay
the same. Though things may seem to,
nothing ever really changes. We see the
same stories repeating through the generations, the same mistakes made, with lessons
still unlearned.
And yet, is it really so? Is change imaginary, something we
only think we see?
The belief that nothing changes goes back to the earliest
time of human thinking. Even as far back as the Book of Ecclesiastes we read,
“There is nothing new under the sun.” But the Bible does not doom us to eternal
boredom. Repetition can lead you to greater understanding. Think practicing a dance move, or perhaps the
movie Groundhog Day, where Phil, the
weatherman, is doomed to repeat his mistakes day after day until he finally
makes a breakthrough and starts fixing things rather than breaking them. It’s Hollywood’s version of Tikkun ‘Olam, the Jewish teaching that repair
of the world is both possible and necessary.
Though history is rooted in the past, things can, and do in
fact, change. Every dawn brings something new into the world, something that
was never there before: New babies are born; new thoughts and new ideas emerge.
New technologies arise, shedding new light on the way we see ourselves and the
world around us. And we change. We aren’t merely cogs in
some perpetual-motion machine, plugged in, occasionally repaired, until at last
we fail and are replaced.
Our very humanity enables us to bring change into our lives
at every moment, with every breath we take.
Even our religion has changed since it first appeared,
nearly 4000 years ago. Periodically, historical
events have force us to rethink and redefine our relationship with God. In
Jewish history one can see an ongoing process of persecution and destruction inevitably
followed by rebirth and regeneration.
Each new eon raises difficult questions that demand new answers. Our sacred
texts, from the Torah through the Talmud, to the various medieval commentaries and
down to the questions and answers of our own day—collectively known as Responsa—our
texts serve as a mirror through which we can perceive and understand the ongoing
evolution of our faith.
Even within the Torah itself, our first and most fundamental
text, we can already discern at least two distinct eons. The first is the period of the Patriarchs—Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. In their stories we see the struggles of men trying to figure
out what it means to believe in a single God. In a benighted world where people
called both objects and ideas gods, Abraham’s understanding that there is a single
force that extends beyond the material world, beyond human grasp and
comprehension, was revolutionary. Freed
from prescribed dogmas, the Patriarchs and Matriarchs sought for themselves and
their children new, uncharted paths through the wilderness to this almighty,
infinite, eternal God.
The God that this first generation of Jews perceived was a
one-on-one entity. Each saw a vision
particular only to him- and herself. In Genesis,
the first book of the Torah, Israel was the name given to one—and
only one—individual: Jacob. Exodus, the second book, picks up several hundred
years later, with Israel now the name of an entire people. Much else in the world had changed too. The major power in the world was no longer
Mesopotamia, but rather Egypt, and even this empire was on the verge of
collapse, with a new star rising elsewhere.
Shemot—Exodus— begins with a listing of the names of Jacob’s sons. As brothers of Joseph, who had saved Egypt
from utter collapse, the brothers and their families were at first honored and
respected. However, in the ensuing 400
years their status changed. A new
power—Greece—was emerging. The Greeks
brought with them a new way of seeing the world, new philosophy, new art, a new
religion, all supported by a vastly superior army. Fearful, and for good reason, the latter-day Pharaoh
issued harsh and restrictive measures meant to keep his kingdom stable. But it wasn’t meant to be. The ancient Egyptian empire was about to be
brought to its knees, though not by an army, but rather by a single individual.
Moses wasn’t a prince by birth. He was born to a nation of slaves, part of a clan
whose role was to reinforce during difficult times, through story and song,
Israel’s belief in the God who had promised to redeem them.
Pharaoh decreed genocide against the Jewish people,
commanding the killing of all newborn males. However, pockets of resistance
arose: Shifra and Puah, the Jewish midwives, defied Pharaoh’s orders. Jewish mothers hid their babies. Even Pharaoh’s
own daughter—unnamed in the Torah but given by the Rabbis the name of Batyah
(Daughter of God)—resisted, taking her place in a secret underground railroad
whose purpose was to save Jewish children, thus becoming the first recorded
Righteous Gentile.
As the rebellion grew, it became clear that what was happening
was more than ordinary political unrest and upheaval. Something new was coming into the world: the
Jewish People, and along with it, a new vision of God. No longer only the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, this was the God of all Israel. It was a new,
improved version of the ancient religion, a Judaism 2.1.
The Book of Exodus is thus much more than merely a story of
miracles and wonders. Exodus dares us to refute the ancient belief that change
is impossible. It challenges us, instead, to work to improve the world, to make
life better, to be agents of change where accepted beliefs fail.
Through the Commandments, Moses eternally linked God and
Israel. By transforming a nation of slaves into a Kingdom of Priests, he
changed history forever. Empowering each
of us, from prince to pauper, to participate in the act of bringing holiness
into the world, Moses brought freedom not only to himself, but also to his
whole people and, by extension, to all humanity.
It’s a lesson that bears repeating.
© 2018 by Boaz D. Heilman
No comments:
Post a Comment