Healing the Divide (Shabbat Vaera)

This week, we reflect on the long road toward freedom.

Pharaoh refuses to liberate the Israelite slaves, despite horrible plagues that strike him and his people. The Bible tells us Pharaoh’s response, rather than relent or seek counsel, is to harden his heart, double down on his worldview.

He summons sorcerers and magicians, to help him maintain his illusion of power. When Aaron comes before Pharaoh to demonstrate God’s ultimate power, Pharaoh orders his magicians to manufacture a likeness of what God does through Aaron. These are “alternative facts”, not the real thing. But they’re enough for him and his loyalists.

Last week, many of us watched, horrified, as the President of the United States incited a radical crowd of militia groups, to break into our Capitol, to use force to override the will of the people. Many of those who took part in or enabled this assault are now paying a price.

Sadly, it takes great hardship, loss, even bloodshed, for Pharaoh’s people to finally have a change of heart.

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After Pharaoh lets the Israelites go, they gather to cross the Reed Sea. As they do, an erev rav, a “mixed multitude” gathers with them to travel to the Promised Land (Ex 12:38). According to the 11th century commentator, Ibn Ezra, this group includes Egyptians – some of whom, we imagine, had previously been loyal Pharaoh!

How do our ancestors start anew after they leave Egypt, build a just, free, and civilized nation despite knowing some amongst them have previously pledged fealty to a tyrant?

Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, in a recent interview with Krista Tippett, suggests: as we start a new chapter in our country’s history, as we renew our pursuit of justice, freedom and equality at a time when half our nation has been loyal to a tyrant, we should not focus on the worst thing some people may have done but, rather, on these people’s humanity.

In that interview, Stevenson says:

I do think it’s important that we stay hopeful about our capacity to overcome…bigotry. And I am persuaded that hopelessness is the enemy of justice, that if we allow ourselves to become hopeless, we become part of the problem.

Hope can spur us to needed action, he says:

Hope is our superpower. Hope is the thing that gets you to stand up when others say, “Sit down.” It’s the thing that gets you to speak when others say, “Be quiet.”

It’s the thing that gets you to walk toward people who are different and difficult when your instincts tell you to run away. And it’s the thing that may yet make healing the fractures in our families and our country possible.

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In the Exodus story, the signs and wonders God performs are for all to see: the Egyptians aren’t the only ones who need to realize Pharaoh is not the ultimate power, that it’s not up to any one person to determine who is unredeemable, or not.

We are all in need of forgiveness, for the opportunity to love ourselves and each other in a bigger way than we can imagine, in a way perhaps only God can bestow. Even while mayhem unfolded at the Capitol, we elected the first Black and first Jewish senators to the Georgia senate. Despite our foibles, we can still make choices, to bend the long arc of history towards justice,

May it be so.