Parsha Shemos: Gd Knows

 Parsha Shemos: God Knows

Dedicated to a refuah shelaima for Chana Zelda bat Gittel Yita, Batya Dina bas Chava Tzivia, Chaya Sarah bas Esther Leah, Moshe Aaron ben Necha Itta, Binyamin ben Simcha, and Yaakov ben Esther Malka.

 

In the first parsha of the Torah, we learn how Hashem made man in His image…and, alas, ever since then it seems that man has been trying to do the reverse – make God in man’s image. Ok, it’s a bit of a pithy thing to say, but, in many ways, not so far from the truth. Even today when Western society has moved far away from statuesque idolatry or that Greek pantheon, most people tend to have an understanding of Hashem that reflects God as they want or expect Him to be. Sometimes that is the all-loving, all-forgiving, “if I’m just a good person God will accept me” deity, and sometimes it’s the fire and brimstone deity who will punish those who cross a person’s moral line.

 

Hashem is all-knowing, of course. And Hashem does reward the righteous and punish those who deserve to be punished. The calculations for all of that, however, are well beyond our means of understanding…and understanding that is critical criteria for this week’s parsha, Parshas Shemos.  Parshas Shemos – well, indeed, sefer Shemos and, in truth everything thereafter – is a testament to the difference in how we mortals view the world and Hashem’s comprehension of all the moving pieces and His understanding of what, ultimately, needs to happen and is thus “good.”

 

The parsha opens with a recounting of the names of the 70 who came down with Yaakov to Egypt, and here we must remember that when Yaakov hesitated to come, Hashem told him it was what he should do. But was it good? We see quite quickly into the parsha that it really wasn’t what one would say is for the good because the Egyptians turned on Bnei Yisrael rather quicky once Yosef’s generation had passed.

 

One of the primary factors of the events in Mitzrayim (beyond, of course, the foretelling of the oppression by Hashem and it being the means of forging the nation) was Pharoah’s belief that he could shape his world. He wished to kill Jewish boys because an astrologer gave him a foretelling, and he believed that he had ability to thwart it. He believed that he could remove himself from infanticide by trying to recruit the Jewish midwives to do it, but their better nature could not be turned. He believed that he could ignore Moshe because, as he himself declared: He did not know Hashem.

 

In contrast, however, there is Moshe. The Torah tells us that when Moshe was born, his mother saw that he was “good” (Shemos 2:2). Of course there are lots of interpretations of what that means, but perhaps it is an allusion to his innate connection to the Divine.  Think about the fact that only his youngest years were spent in an environment of kedusha, when he was nursed in his mother’s house. The Torah only first records him interacting with any Israelites is when he stops the taskmaster from killing a slave, and he stops him by striking him with, as the Midrash tells us, the actual name of Hashem. This is an incredible level of connection for someone who had no one to teach him the ways of Israel, which makes it even more perplexing that Moshe does not immediately agree when Hashem instructs him to go back to Mitzrayim.

 

When Moshe asks Hashem what he should tell the Israelites when they ask for Hashem’s name, the response is more than just a message for Bnei Yisrael. It is a message for every person… “And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh,” continuing, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh sent me to you.’” Ehyeh-asher-Ehyah – I am that I am or I will be what I will be…

 

Moshe, with his inborn special connection to Hashem, cannot alter the path that Hashem wants to occur. None of us can. We can judge the world all that we want. We can look at individuals or whole groups of people or situations and declare that they are wrong, that they need to be different, but we are mere mortals. To be frank, we know nothing except what we see and what we feel, but Hashem… Hashem doesn’t just know everything, Hashem IS everything.

 

And while for the moment you may nod your head and say of course, it’s an incredibly difficult idea to hold in one’s mind.

 

I wish you all a beautiful Shabbas, and let us all come to truly accept that it is all Hashem.

 

Parshas Vayechi: Touching on Temporal

 Dedicated to a refuah shelaima for Chana Zelda bat Gittel Yita, Batya Dina bas Chava Tzivia, Chaya Sarah bas Esther Leah, Moshe Aaron ben Necha Itta, and Binyamin ben Simcha.

 The perception of the passage of time is one of the most puzzling elements of being alive. There are days that feel unending, and weeks that go by in the blink of an eye. One can look back at a year that just passed and wonder how it is over so quickly while, at the same time, feeling like events from the beginning of the year happened in a different era. This odd temporal distortion that we all do seems to be a significant facet of this week’s parsha, Parshas Vayechi.

 For those who are fans of science fiction, the term temporal is not so mysterious, although in such reference it often is used in time travel scenarios. It is, in truth, a rather complicated word in that its essential meaning in relation to time is of something finite and specific to a set of time, but that it is used for situations inferring moving in/out of time periods shows that it rings with something far more philosophical.

 Parshas Vayechi is very much a parsha about time, but time in a very biblical framework. Everything that occurs in sefer Bereishis echoes through Jewish history yet to come but is powerful in its own time as well.

  The first section of the parsha is Yaakov on his sickbed calling Yosef and Yosef’s sons to him so that he may bless them specifically. The action is occurring in one time period, but it is an action that will affect to Jewish people for the rest of history as he adds these grandsons into the framework of the shevatim.

 The second, and primary, section of the parsha is Yaakov’s blessings to his sons, and, when read carefully, one notices here a true temporal split. Yaakov in the prophetic state of blessing his children, speaks in future, past, and present tense. Some sons are critiqued for actions in their past, while others are given hints to the future. For Yaakov Avinu on his death bed, timing had little significance, but time had tremendous significance.

 The third section of the parsha is about death and burial, which is the ultimate reminder that our time is certainly not eternal. Through his instructions for burial in Maaras Hamachpela, Yaakov is actively tying his earthly existence to the spiritual chain of his forefathers and making certain that their great accomplishments in bringing the spiritual down to earth will not be tainted.  According to numerous mepharshim, Yaakov was so specific about the burial place in order to protect it, for it was well known that Esav still felt entitled to it. It was for this reason that he specified that he had already interred Leah there – he had already prepared it in advance, with some mepharshim even suggesting that he had dug his own space in advance.  

 It is the final section of the parsha, however, that has, perhaps, the most to offer on the business of time. Yosef does not even bother to try to be buried immediately in Eretz Canaan.  He lets the royal staff prepare him in their usual fashion (embalmment), and his funeral was the done with the fanfare like one of the great nobles of the country – which he was. But Yosef is aware that Hashem has lifted the Jewish people out of any normal pattern of time or mazal, and he makes his brothers promise to take him with them when they leave Mitzrayim.

 When you really think about it, it’s a weird request. He’s going to be dead. His brothers are all older than him (except Binyamin), so they too will not live much longer… It is quite obvious, therefore, that he is not talking to his generation. In making this promise for the future, Yosef is making time fold in so that he is alerting the generations of Bnei Yisrael to come that time as we see it has little meaning. He has perfect faith that his body will not remain in Mitzrayim. He has perfect faith that redemption will come, that Bnei Yisrael will return to the land promised to them through Avraham Avinu.

 The idea of time travel is alluring and appealing. It is natural to wish to turn back time and fix the errors of our ways (whether our own or those of the distant past), and it is quite normal to harbor a deep curiosity with what the future will look like. Alas, as far as scientists have yet proven*, only Hashem has the power to truly be in all three tenses at once. Yet while we may not be able to fix the past or see the future, Hashem makes it clear that the impact of the Jewish people is rarely limited to the here and now.

 Wishing you all a beautiful Shabbas.

 

*just kidding, not comparing scientists!