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Hope Deferred, But Keep Moving! Commentary on Parashat Va’era 5785
By Rabbi Dr. Laurence Edwards, Hebrew Seminary Professor Emeritus of Jewish Philosophy
On election night I saw Orson Welles’s great film of Kafka’s novel, The Trial, in which Joseph K. is arrested but never charged with a crime. He winds his way through an immense legal bureaucracy, symbolic of the anonymity of modern urban life—the civilization we have created for ourselves and that may yet do us in once and for all. Kafka’s tale is of one man crushed, in body and in spirit. At a certain point, Joseph K. wanders into the cathedral of the city and hears a sermon addressed just to him. This is where he hears the story of the “man from the country” who comes “seeking the Law.” In the film, Welles places this parable at the very beginning, as a kind of prologue. This man from the country is stopped by a doorkeeper who tells him that he must wait for permission to enter. As you may remember, the man waits his entire life, asking at the end of his days why he has not seen anyone else come in search of the Law. The doorkeeper yells in his ear, “This door was meant only for you, and now I am going to shut it.”
Unlike the parables of Aesop, which always come with a neat moral appended to tell us what it meant (don’t cry over spilled milk; don’t count your chickens before they hatch)—Kafka’s parables leave us dangling. We know this means something, but what? Is it absurdity and meaninglessness laughing at us? We all feel that sometimes. Is it simply a reminder (albeit with a strong dose of irony) that, no matter how insurmountable the obstacles may seem, we must keep moving forward? Don’t let them stop you! Go through that door! Live the life you are meant to live! Kafka preaching American-style go-getter optimism? (That seems like a stretch.)
Last week, Moses was minding his own business. Well, he was minding his father-in-law’s business, tending sheep, when a voice spoke to him from a bush. Here are some important things we know about Moses at that point in the narrative. He was a prince who had been plucked, almost miraculously, from humble origins; he was outraged by the cruelty of slavery, enough so that he slew the taskmaster and had to flee to the wilderness; he is observant and attentive enough to notice that a bush that is on fire is not burning up.
Moses is not the “man from the country” who comes to the city to “seek the Law.” He is the man from the sophisticated city, from the center of power, who flees to the wilderness to escape the “long arm of the law.” But the Law will find him, not at the imposing entrance of a castle, or a supreme court, or a law school, but on that very wilderness mountain where the little bramble bush was all aflame.
At the end of last week’s episode, God had sent Moses back to Egypt with a message that resulted in increased oppression. Moses asked, “Why did You send me? Things have only become worse.” And God says, “You’ll see.”
This week we begin to see the terrible, frightening working out of God’s promise:
וְהוֹצֵאתִ֣י אֶתְכֶ֗ם מִתַּ֙חַת֙ סִבְלֹ֣ת מִצְרַ֔יִם וְהִצַּלְתִּ֥י אֶתְכֶ֖ם מֵעֲבֹדָתָ֑ם וְגָאַלְתִּ֤י אֶתְכֶם֙ בִּזְר֣וֹעַ נְטוּיָ֔ה וּבִשְׁפָטִ֖ים גְּדֹלִֽים׃ וְלָקַחְתִּ֨י אֶתְכֶ֥ם לִי֙ לְעָ֔ם וְהָיִ֥יתִי לָכֶ֖ם לֵֽאלֹהִ֑ים וִֽידַעְתֶּ֗ם כִּ֣י אֲנִ֤י יְהֹוָה֙ אֱלֹ֣הֵיכֶ֔ם הַמּוֹצִ֣יא אֶתְכֶ֔ם מִתַּ֖חַת סִבְל֥וֹת מִצְרָֽיִם׃
I shall bring you out from under the oppressions of Egypt; I shall rescue you from their labors; I shall redeem you with an arm stretched forth and with powerful judgments. I shall take you to Myself for a people and I shall be for you God, and you shall know that I, Adonai your God, am the one who brings you out from under the oppressions of Egypt. (Exodus 6:6–7.)
This week, the first seven plagues; next week, the last three and the first observance of Pesach. We already know, because we have heard the story so many times, that the journey will be neither easy nor straightforward. It will involve both courage and complaint, defeat and victory, the 40-year-deferred promise of reaching the Land of Promise. And when the goal is finally reached, as we have noted many times before, the journey and the work are far from finished.
This week we marked the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., who also taught the journey, the promise, the forging ahead in the face of obstacles. Today the journey is still not finished. Dr. King understood—learned from the example of Moses—that one does not get to live to see the fruit of the struggle.
The same day that we remembered King, a new administration was inaugurated in Washington. Doors to America are slamming shut. Welcoming the stranger, a lesson repeated so many times in the Torah, does not seem to fit the present mood of America. But there are still those of us, inspired by Emma Lazarus and the Book of Exodus, who will continue to look for doors that can be opened. Kafka’s “man from the country” waited in vain his entire life for permission. Moses did not wait for permission, and neither did Dr. King. The struggle continues between two visions of America, two radically different readings of Torah’s central question: do we stand with Pharaoh or with Moses? Spring seems far away at this moment, but it is coming.
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