The Difference
Between Greatness And Arrogance
D’var Torah for
Parashat Va’era—Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
By Rabbi Boaz D.
Heilman
January 12, 2018
Exodus, the second book in the Torah, contains some of the
most dramatic and spectacular moments in all literature. It is, after all, the story of the birth of
the Nation of Israel. Among other
scenes, here we find the burning bush, the ten plagues, the parting of the Red
Sea, and the giving of the Ten Commandments. And that’s just the first half of the book!
The gripping story of the freeing of the Israelite slaves has
been set and reset countless times, in song, painting and sculpture, in liturgy,
spirituals, movies and even an opera. In
fact, every year, at the Passover Seder, we retell this story, often adding to
it the account of our own family’s survival and how we, our parents or our
grandparents, made it across deserts and oceans to our own day, to our own time
and place.
Over the millennia, the book of Exodus has served to inspire
and give hope to millions of impoverished, downtrodden and enslaved people in
their search for freedom and dignity.
Moses, the hero of this story, has been the model for generations of
people who saw in him a paradigm for their own struggles. What makes Moses such a good example is not
that he was a perfect man. He
wasn’t. He had both physical and
emotional problems to overcome. Nor is
his fame rooted in noble or miraculous birth.
He was not born to royalty. At
most one could say that his family and clan had dedicated themselves to being
teachers, with their goal to foster and reinforce faith and hope. There was no such thing as Judaism in their
time. There was no Shabbat, no Torah, no
Ten Commandments, no Hanukkah or Passover.
All that the ancient Israelites had to hang on to was an age-old memory
of long-ago ancestors and a promise made by God to redeem them from slavery.
It’s hard to keep hope alive when you are overwhelmed by
misery. Even as Moses reminds his people
of God’s vow to lead them to freedom and to a Promised Land, they do not listen
to him. “They did not heed Moses,” reads
the text, “because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.” But Moses is not put
off by their refusal. He understands the soul of the oppressed and presses on
with his message of hope.
Moses’s determination, the resolve he showed when facing
Pharaoh, was equally hard won. Power did
not come naturally to him. Not destined
for the throne of Egypt, decision-making was not part of his training. Moses was a man conflicted within
himself. A stutterer, a descendant of
slaves, he somehow found himself raised in the lap of luxury, catered to by
servants whose whole purpose in life was to make his life easier and more
comfortable. Fearful of the anger he
felt within himself, frustrated by his own powerlessness, Moses at first flees
from responsibility. However, as the
story progresses, we can see him gaining strength and confidence. Moses overcomes his anxieties. Learning to control his anger, he redirects
it instead towards the real source of his pain: Pharaoh.
The Torah describes Moses as the most humble of men. Not so, however, was his opponent. Pharaoh was born to great and unquestioned power. He could not see or understand the pain of
the oppressed. In Pharaoh’s world, he
was a god. He was the law and above the
law. He could wield power at will; he
could command life and death, with nary a court or judge who would ever dare stand
up to him or challenge his edicts. Pharaoh’s
power extended to the heavens as well as to the lowest depths of the
netherworld. He could do no wrong.
What were people, mere humans—let alone slaves!—to a man of
such outsized ego?
Some see in the story of the Exodus a struggle between
Pharaoh and God. And yes, in the larger picture, that is true. There IS a greater law in the universe, far
greater than any of us mortals can grasp or understand. Call it entropy, call it God, call it Justice,
it’s really one and the same.
But really, this story is not about God. It’s about people and human emotions. It’s about power, strength, courage,
compassion and faith.
Though the Torah does present God as the great force behind
everything, its lessons are really for and about people. If there is one moral
that the story of the Exodus holds out for us, it is that we are free to choose
who we will be and what our role in life is going to be. It isn’t your birth that determines whether
you will be winner or loser, it’s the choices you make in life. It isn’t the empire, or power, or money you
might inherit from your father that will determine your greatness, but rather
the strength you find within yourself to be compassionate and just, and the
courage that impels you to proclaim liberty to the oppressed, even if it costs
you your life.
This week we will celebrate the birth of Martin Luther King,
Jr., a man who clearly modeled himself after Moses. Like his Biblical hero, Martin was not born
to royalty, but rather to a poor sharecropper family from a farming
community. His handicap was not only his
skin color, but also his lifelong depression that stemmed from the discrimination
he saw around him. The Rev. King’s
oppressor, however, was more than any single person. It was an entire culture, which saw people
like him, people of color, as inferior beings.
Like many others of his generation, Martin Luther King could have acquiesced
and become part of the system. He could
have remained silent and risked nothing.
But instead, he chose to rebel.
Like Moses, Rev. King summoned his faith and courage to demand freedom
and equality for his people. Overcoming
fear, he stood up to an almost overwhelming institution that had existed
unquestioned, unchallenged, for hundreds if not thousands of years. Like Moses, he challenged a system that
believed in its own superiority, a system that held as law—both human and
divine—that some people were more worthy than others merely by reason of the
color of their skin. In doing so, Rev.
King upheld the truth of the story of the Exodus—the truth that history is made
by people, by individuals like you and me, who are not afraid to stand up for
their convictions, who believe in the eternal laws of justice and morality and
who are not afraid to challenge long-held notions of arrogance and prejudice.
This year, the convergence of Martin Luther King Day and the
reading of the Exodus story from the Torah could not come at a more critical
moment. We are witnessing today a steep
rise both in racism and in anti-Semitism—the delegitimization of the people,
religion and Land of Israel. Today we
see a surge in the power of huge corporations and self-interest groups while
the gulf between rich and poor continues to widen. Both in our own country and all over the
world, there are still many Pharaohs who believe that their word is supreme
law, who subjugate their own people and oppress others out of ignorance and
fear.
The truth of the Torah is demonstrated and made evident by
the actions of human beings. The course of the future will be determined in no
small measure by the choices we make today.
We can acquiesce, or we can rise up against hatred and prejudice
wherever we see them. My hope and prayer is that we follow in the footsteps of
Moses and Rev. King, two men who showed us the path towards a future where all
humankind, and indeed all life, can exist in harmony and peace, with dignity
and justice for all.
© 2018 by Boaz D. Heilman
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