by Sivan Rahav-Meir
We recently finished reading the Book of Exodus, started the Book of Leviticus, and we will soon be sitting down at the Seder table. What are the take-aways from those great days? What can each of us personally take from them? Since the start of Corona, each week I am lucky enough to teach my dear AMIT students, and I am learning as much as I am teaching. Here are just a few of the things we learned together this year:
1. We are a people. The first to reveal this secret to us is the wicked Pharaoh, who declares in the ears of his people: “Here is a people!” Up to that point we may have felt part of a large family, a group of tribes, but Pharaoh like many of our enemies over the years, knows the truth: it is one people, special and united. He decides to fight us and thus reminds us who we are. From Hezbollah through Hitler to anti-Semitism in the U.S. today, our haters know very well that we are all one people. But do we remember—particularly during periods of calm and we are not fighting wars?
2. A leader does not have to be charismatic. Moshe Rabbeinu takes the stage of history and we learn him to be stuttering, heavy-mouthed and heavy-tongued, deaf-lipped. Would we choose such a leader today? While Pharaoh tries to make his people see him as a demigod (for example, he does not go to the bathroom near the inhabitants of Egypt, but secretly goes to the Enlightenment), Moses, by contrast, is not ashamed of his weaknesses and limitations, and that is precisely why he becomes such a powerful leader. The interior is much more important than the exterior. I wish we remembered that. Will we ever be able to look beyond the external image of people and see the soul and personality?
3. The Exodus from Egypt is a globally significant event. The book “Netivot Shalom” reads: “All the mission for which man descended into the world is for the sake of bringing himself out of Egypt.” This is not a historical event but a topical event. There is a message here: everyone should go from slavery to freedom. To be enslaved to G-d and Torah only, and not to any other “Egypt.” What is our Exodus from Egypt? How should we move from slavery to freedom in our personal lives?
4. The giving of the Torah is the second globally significant event. After learning how important freedom is, we learn how important it is to fill it with content. We did not leave Egypt just to walk in the wilderness, without commitment, but to receive the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Victor Frenkel said that alongside the “Statue of Liberty” the “Statue of Responsibility” should also be erected. Exodus is the Statue of Liberty. Matan Torah (giving of the Torah) is the statue of responsibility. We fill our state of freedom with eternal messages: I am the Lord your God, you shall not murder, honor your father and your mother, remember the Sabbath and on and on. To what extent does the giving of Torah guide our lives today? How can we better connect to Mount Sinai, even now?
5. The tabernacle—this world demands our practical commandments. The Book of Exodus devotes hundreds of verses to the construction of the spiritual center of the people in the wilderness. Because the goal is not only to leave Egypt and receive gifts (the parting of the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments, food from heaven, a well of water) but to receive the most important gift—responsibility. Start doing it ourselves. To turn from passive to active. The People of Israel have received countless commandments, and to this day it is the heart of our Judaism—to keep the commandments of G-d and build a tabernacle everywhere in this world, in our heart, in our home, in our communities and of course finally in the Land of Israel. How does each of us build an abode in his own life? What is our personal tabernacle? What is our attitude to practical mitzvot (commandments), are they just folklore or something more serious and substantial?
Wishing you a happy and kosher Passover from Jerusalem!
