Shabbat Shemot
On Monday, we commemorate Martin Luther King’s legacy.
It’s hard to imagine what he’d think about our world today. In some ways, it’s more broken than he could have imagined: public schools becoming increasingly segregated; attacks against racial and religious minorities growing more frequent.
But in other ways, it is more full of hope: we are more connected than ever, more poised to protect each other. LGBTQ people, and racial minorities see themselves represented positively on television, and in political leadership.
King’s legacy pointed the way toward realizing our dreams of a better world, a world ripe with the possibility of redemption. And for King, the only way to build that world, was to challenge the status quo, to engage in acts of civil disobedience.
So it is all the more remarkable that this week, we read the earliest recorded act of civil disobedience: a new Pharaoh comes into power who fears the Israelites. He humiliates them, forcing them into back-breaking labor. And then he plots their genocide, commanding the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill any Hebrew boys they deliver.
But the midwives, the Torah tells us, feared God more than Pharaoh. They didn’t obey the unjust rules of this earthly king, but held themselves accountable to a higher moral code: “they did not do as the king of Egypt…told them” (Shemot 1:17).
Shiphrah and Puah’s civil disobedience eventually led the rabbis to declare: “It was through righteous women that Israel was redeemed.” (Exodus Rabbah 1:12).
Our tradition acknowledges, there are times when there is a clear conflict between what is legal – the decrees of politicians and legislators; and what is just – the higher moral codes of our religious and ethical traditions.
It is at times like these we are inspired by those who realized the only way to redeem the world was to challenge the status quo in the name of a higher authority.
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Another thing Martin Luther King and the midwives had in common is that they were both dreamers.
They had the uncanny ability to imagine a better world, even in the darkest of times. Yes, we could say the midwives were simply carrying out their duties, that Dr. King was simply preaching the gospel.
But, in the dark times they lived through, they put their lives on the line. Invested in the hopes that the generation after them would have opportunities they themselves couldn’t possibly imagine.
This Shabbat we praise the dreamers in our midst, the people who are willing to fight for a better future even if it means being disappointed. Even if it means having their hearts broken. Even if it means not living to see it.
May they inspire us to tend to our own dreams. To truly accept Shabbat’s invitation to live – just for a day — as if the world was whole, so we can work toward that world when a new week begins.
Shabbat shalom.