Vaera 2010

This past Shabbat at Musaf, I taught a class about Moses Maimonidies’ principles of faith. The Rambam, living in the 12th century, created the ideal of a religious Jew; one who believes in God, the Torah, reward and punishment, the coming of the messiah, with what he called, perfect faith. The students in the class, along with their teacher, had significant problems with the concept of perfect faith: we all have doubts --we live in a modern world where religious belief is often seen as irrational: as an emotional crutch, in some cases, just plain silly.

There is science, today, that threatens the truth claims of religion. There is even the science of religion.

Biblical archeologists, for example, have searched for clues to the historicity of the Bible. After decades of exploration, most of them contend that the characters in the Bible from King |Solomon on, that is, from about 930 BCE forward, definitely existed as historical figures. But before King Solomon, there is little archeological proof of the Bible’s stories: and that leaves the existence of our main character today, for example, Moses, in doubt. Apparently, there is no real proof of the Israelite’s enslavement in Egypt, no proof of the plagues, no proof of the crossing of the sea of reeds, or of a people wandering in the desert for 40 years, or of the existence of a person named Moses.

For the faithful, the claims of the archeologists can be very distressing. For fundamentalists who believe that every word of the Bible is literally and historically true, it can be devastating.

How do we deal with the Biblical archeologists? Here is my approach: I believe with a perfect faith, that all the stories in the Bible are true, but some are true both spiritually and historically; and some are true, only spiritually, which I believe, is more than good enough.

So we come to the miracles of the ten plagues that begin in our Torah portion this morning. Blood, frogs, lice, boils and so on. Did they happen just this way in Egypt? Were there Jews suffering from the yoke of a evil Egyptian king who made them build pyramids? To me, that really isn’t important; what is important is the moral lesson we learn from the story, and here, I think, is that e lesson.
God told Moses to go the people and tell them about God and tell them about freedom. But the people didn’t get it.

We read in the text, “v’lo sham’u el moshe mikotzer ruach v’avodah kasha” the people of Israel did not listen to Moses because of impatience of spirit caused by hard servitude. (Exodus 6:9).

The people didn’t listen to Moses and they could not hear God because their lives were filled with spiritual darkness. They had been enslaved: they were victims of tyranny, they were victims of fear. The evil ways of Egypt had enslaved them both physically and spiritually: God had become too remote: their false god had become the Pharaoh: who was also the false god to all the Egyptians. The one true God heard the cry of His people, but the people could not hear God crying for them.
So God decided to intercede in human history and create dramatic and miraculous displays of physical power to get the Israelites’ attention. Most people think that the plagues were to impress Pharoah and the Egyptians. Not so. God could have leveled the Egyptians with the blink of an eye. God was not concerned with the spiritual state of the pagan Egyptians because they would eventually come to disappear from history leaving nothing to western civilization but a few pyramids and some hieroglyphics. God didn’t create the plagues for the Egyptians, He created them for the Israelites because God was desperate to connect with his suffering people. For God had a plan for the Jewish People. According to God’s plan, the Jews would make an everlasting contribution to the world; they would be God’s partners in bringing light, and goodness and justice and righteousness to the people of the world.

So we have the plagues. The plagues themselves are very interesting: they were created to educate. As any good parent knows, a parent displays parental power and discipline not to overwhelm their children which just leads their children to one day rebel. Rather, parents discipline with power to educate and teach their children the proper path of behavior.

So it was with God. The slave people could not help but be impressed with Egyptian power, so God would bring the plagues upon Egypt to show the Israelites that Egyptian power was all facade. For the Egyptians, the river Nile was the source of life: it flooded each year leaving silt on the earth which fertilized the ground from which the Egyptians grew their crops. The Egyptians worshipped the Nile: it’s power, beauty and grandeur. The Nile no doubt impressed the Israelites too. So God turned the water to blood. In a single stroke, He killed the Nile. Human beings are not to worship rivers. Water and crops and sustenance come from the grace of God, not from the grace of pagan river gods. So God killed the river to teach this lesson.

Similarly, the second plague of frogs. The Egyptians saw their pagan rites, their temples, their dwellings, as clean and pure. Despite the tyranny, the slavery, the lack of concern for human life, the Egyptians saw themselves as righteous and clean. So God showed the Israelites the truth about the Egyptians. They were not clean and pure; their culture was morally corrupt, rancid, and spiritually filthy despite the wondrous dwellings they lived in. So God brought the frogs with mud and muck on their feet to fill the dwellings of the Egyptians with filth. The frogs covered everything. The houses, the people, the beds. Through this plague, God showed in external form, the internal truth about the moral decay of Egyptian society.

And each plague showed something similar. The gnats, the beetles, the boils, the hail: every aspect of so called Egyptian greatness was attacked and revealed to the Israelites for the facade that it was. The Egyptians were nothing without God. Their grandeur rested on a foundation of straw. With the mildest of divine winds blowing upon it, the whole wondrous Egyptian structure began to teeter on the brink of total destruction. And hence, the Israelites were impressed with how truly unimpressive the Egyptians really were.

Then we come to the ninth plague, the plague of darkness. Here was the penultimate lesson for the Israelites. We read in the morning prayers, psalm 30: “histarta panecha, hayiti nivhal,” when you hide your face from me, oh God, I am terrified.” The ninth plague of absolute darkness revealed the whole truth about the spiritual state of the Egyptians. There was no divine light in their society. God’s presence did not penetrate the evil and corruption of a culture that would enslave and debase human life. And the darkness was terrifying. Life without God’s light is a living hell of randomness, evil, meaninglessness, and emptiness. When the Egyptians saw the truth in the ninth plague, even they were terrified. God’s light does not shine into the lives of people who are unwilling to receive it. Evil keeps God away: goodness and justice bring God in. The Israelite dwellings had light during the ninth plague. And the light that they had allowed them to prepare to leave: to leave the evil, to leave the spiritual slavery, to find their way to freedom. Even in the midst of great evil, God’s light can penetrate to those whose eyes are open to see. And that light can redeem them. That light can guide them to freedom.

It took a great deal of effort, but God finally impressed the Israelites. He reached them, finally, and they ultimately saw the greatness of God.

So what can we say to the biblical archeologists who cannot find the historical proof for the exodus from Egypt? From my perspective, I say to them, so what? The historicity of Moses and the exodus is of little importance to the Jewish people and to the people of the world. What is important to us is what the Torah is telling us from the story; what the Torah is telling us about the nature of the world, and our place in it; what the torah is telling us about good and evil, about tyranny and freedom. The truth of the story is in its powerful moral lesson. And once we grasp the lesson, despite what the archeologists say, the story can transform our lives and indeed, change the world. And from my perspective, that is whole point; it’s what we are doing here; it’s why we are a people of faith.

Shabbat shalom.