Parshat Bo: Exodus 10:1 -13:16 By Rabbi Denise L. Eger

In this week’s portion, Parshat Bo, the remainder of the plagues descends upon Egypt because of the stubborn hubris of the Pharaoh. This is an indecisive king.
He vacillates on his decision to let the Israelites leave. Pharaoh changes his mind several times and issues several different scenarios—from only letting the men leave to worship and thereby holding the women and children hostage to letting them all leave at once to oppressing the Israelite slaves even more.

With each plague—the last four outlined in this week’s section of Torah, the courtiers, Pharaoh’s advisors, play a role in propping him up as yes men are trained to do. Our Torah couches Pharaoh’s changes of mind and heart with the phrase “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Pharaoh’s heart was stiffened and he became entrenched in his world view. He was blind to signs and wonders of the first six plagues. He refused to admit that there could be a power greater than all of Egypt. Even though his own eyes and ears were witness to God’s power, might and glory.

Without just jumping to the idea that God wanted to merely manipulate the King of Egypt—perhaps our text is pointing to something deeper. Because in all of Jewish tradition we approach life and the world with the idea that human being have choices. God may point out the path, choosing life over death, choosing blessing over curse but ultimately each person has the free will to make her decision.

I believe this is no different for Pharaoh. He ultimately can choose the path of life over death for all of Egypt. But he fails miserably because with the increasing severity of each plague culminating in this week’s final plague of the death of the first born, Pharaoh chooses death and curse for his empire. Maybe that is fitting because in Egypt there was a culture that embraced a celebration of death. After all the pyramids are the grand tombs of royalty and the ancient Egyptian beliefs in life after death an important part of ancient Egyptian culture and religion. Yet this celebration of the culture of death plays havoc with the mind and the heart and reality whether in Pharaoh’s time or in our own.

But Moses and Aaron convey and warn Pharaoh of the tragic errors he is making. Even the Egyptian wizards and priests and courtiers advise Pharaoh differently. They have recognized that the first six plagues, blood, frogs, lice, wild beasts, cattle plague, and boils have wreaked havoc upon Egypt. Each of these plagues has brought a power and might that supersedes the magic and divinities of Egypt. Now the court advisors realize that Moses and Aaron and more importantly, the God of the Israelites mean business but are pointing to deeper values –values of justice and freedom and life.

And so we learn to perhaps open our own eyes and hearts to the signs and miracles that still surround us. We learn that we must overcome the expression in our own time that celebrates death—the violence that we are so inured to, the devaluation of our neighbors. Perhaps we might heed the messages of God’s power and presence in our lives if we open our hearts to it. And like Moses and Aaron who conveyed God’s truth to Pharaoh perhaps we ought not to be afraid to speak up and share our ideals, our ethics and our deeply held Jewish values that point the way to God’s blessing in our lives and in the world.

Parshat Va’era: Exodus 6:2 -9:35 By: Rabbi Denise L. Eger

And so the plagues begin. With this week’s portion Va’era, God has sent Moses and Aaron to begin the process to free the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery. This portion describes the first encounters of Pharaoh and Moses and Aaron his brother. But not before Moses and Aaron are coached by God in what to say and what to do.

God lays out the task before Moses at the opening verses of the portion. God places the pain of the Israelites into the context of the covenantal promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God explains and connects Moses to the patriarchs’ experiences of the Divine Holy One and tasks him with the job to encounter Pharaoh. “Go tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt to let the Israelites depart from his land” (Ex. 6:11). This is because God has remembered the covenant with the Israelites and heard their moaning. God is ready to make the covenantal promise real for the Israelites.

But why did it take so long? Four Hundred years since Joseph reigned over Egypt according to our sages. Some of our sages teach –that the suffering experienced under this Pharaoh was crueler than any other. In previous generations—though the Israelites lost their land and worked on behalf of the Egyptian royal houses they were still treated as valued workers. But this pharaoh was particularly cruel and evil. His order to murder the Israelite boy children threatened the future of the Israelite nation and the covenant. God had to act now to save the covenantal promise made with each one of us and our ancestors.

But God also in the personage of Moses had a unique and wonderful servant. Moses who grew up caught between two cultures—that of the Hebrews and that of the Egyptian courts was uniquely placed to translate God message to both groups. Moses, although tradition teaches had a speech impediment, was able to convey to both the Israelites and the Pharaoh the call of the Eternal and the promise of both destruction and hope.

Each of us is called to translate cultures daily. We go from the cultures of our homes and families and Jewish tradition to the larger world. We must navigate the vicissitudes of the workplace over against our Jewish ethical framework. And often they are in conflict.

And then the dilemma begins. How to decide? How do we choose what is right in a society that constantly wants to manipulate us into thinking every choice is relatively good –that it has to be good for you even at the cost of integrity, even at the cost of harming others, even at the cost of harming our planet.

Moses is our example. He is known as eved Adonai, God’s servant. He places not his own hubris and ego at the center but he places God’s plan at the center. Perhaps too—this time and age calls upon all of us to once again, place God’s teachings at our core –to guide us “even when no one else looking”.
The Great Baal Shem Tov said (Buber early masters. p. 48)

We say God of Abraham God of Isaac and God of Jacob. For Isaac and Jacob did not base their work on the searching and service of Abraham They themselves searched for the unity of the Maker and God's service.

So too Moses served God completely and fully all of his days—beginning with this week’s call. So let us take our cue from Moses, Eved Adonai, who like our patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob sought God and sought to serve God with all of their being.

Parshat Shemot: Exodus 1:1 – 6:1 By: Rabbi Denise L. Eger

The book of Exodus begins this week. The unfolding story of our people in slavery and their journey toward freedom is detailed in the second book of the Torah. But in Hebrew this book is called Shemot which means names. The opening verses remind us by a listing of names who came down to Egypt during Joseph’s time. Jospeh’s brothers and his father Jacob and their wives and children, totaling seventy souls came to live in the land of Egypt. The Torah not only preserves their names but this is an important opening for the book of our liberation and national formation. For these “names” of the 12 sons of Jacob will become the “names” of the twelve tribes that will make up the People Israel. These names are a link between the past and the future—the past in this case are the stories of Genesis and the future the story of our time in Egypt and the promise of freedom. Although 400 years will pass from the time Jacob and his sons came to Egypt to the events of the exodus from Egypt, our tradition preserves meticulously the tribes and clans of our people.

Names are an important part of our Jewish traditions. Whether we were born Jewish or we are Jews by choice our Hebrew or Yiddish names are an important part of our Jewish identity. Those of us who came from Ashkenazic backgrounds - European descent -usually name our children after recently deceased family members to honor their memories and to keep names within a family system. Those from Sephardic backgrounds sometimes name their babies even after those who are alive. Jews by choice often pick a biblical name of a personage in the Torah or Bible who inspire them. Or sometimes a Hebrew word has meaning, like Or which means light. Do you know your Hebrew name? Do you know if you were named for someone in your family? Do you know their story?

If you were named for someone you carry a special task to also know and learn about them. By sharing a Hebrew or Yiddish name you keep their memory alive even as you live your own life. You become a living link to your past and help those you are named for live in the future! A complex and wonderful idea—this is the Jewish way to time travel!

But most importantly this is a Jewish key to communal memory. And it is a special mantle that each Jew wears with his or her Jewish name.

Our names are used at the most important times of our lives—at our birth, Bat or Bar Mitzvah, each time we are called to the Torah, on our Ketubah –our wedding covenant, during a prayer for healing or other Mishabeyrach prayer and even at our death in the chanting of the El Maleh Rachamim prayer. Our names are the keys to our Jewish soul.

So as we read this week’s parasha, Shemot-let us use it as a time to remember our Hebrew/Yiddish names. If we have forgotten it –research it and find it out. Write it down. Learn about the person you were named for and feel yourself as a proud link in the chain of the Jewish people past and present and future.

Parshat Vayechi: Genesis 47:28 – Genesis 50:26 By: Rabbi Denise L. Eger

Parshat Vayechi is the last portion in the book of Genesis. It brings us the death of both Jacob and his son Joseph. On Jacob’s death bed he recites a kind of last will and testament. Not a distribution of his wealth but words of blessing and difficult truths about his sons. Some would call these deathbed words an ethical will.

Jacob calls his death bed words as a prediction of his sons’ future based upon their character and their history. He isn’t kind and isn’t prone to just stating fluff. But Jacob delivers what some would seem as harsh and bitter final words. We haven’t really known Jacob’s thoughts since the death of his beloved Rachel. Only that he doted on Joseph as a young man. But we haven’t really seen much of or heard of the details of his feelings or relationship with his other sons until now. One can only imagine the urgency Jacob must feel as death awaits him. Perhaps he is prodded by the memory of his own blessing by his father, Isaac.

Nevertheless, Jacob’s vision of his children is laid out as a poem. And of course these twelve sons become the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Some scholar’s teach that this poem attributed to Jacob is a much later addition to the text and may be from the time of the early formation of the tribes in the era of the Judges.

The famous Chagall windows in the Hadassah hospital in Ein Kerem, next to Jerusalem are based in part upon this section of Genesis and upon Moses’ blessing of the twelve tribes in Deuteronomy 33. He used many of the colors on the panes of glass that are described in Exodus as part of the High Priest’s breastplate.

The twelve windows that grace the synagogue were dedicated in the presence of the artist on February 6, 1962 as part of Hadassah’s Golden Anniversary Celebration. The artist depicted the twelve tribes using the imagery of Jacob’s “blessing”. Thus Benjamin’s window depicts a wolf; Zebulon has a ship; Dan’s window depicts a viper that is nipping at the horse’s heels. Chagall transformed Jacob’s words into beautiful art that have provided lasting images for the world.

You can still visit the Chagall windows and see for yourself the beauty of his art. Next time you are in Israel see this section of Torah come alive.