Parshat Shemot, January 21, 2017

Sometimes you read something so obvious that you can’t believe you hadn’t noticed it before. In his remarkable book The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, Yoram Hazony writes:

The story of the Israelites’ escape from Egypt is the paradigm case of overt intervention by God in the affairs of man. Yet upon examination, it turns out that this story is told as though God only reacts in the wake of extensive and “unassisted” human reasoning and action based on such reasoning: It is only due to the deeds of Shifra, Pua, Yocheved, Miriam, and Pharaoh’s daughter that Moses is born, survives, and grows to manhood. It is only due to Moses’ own unguided choices that he kills the Egyptian, flees Egypt, and takes up like as a shepherd in the desert. Indeed, even God’s appearance at the burning bush is depicted as taking place only after Moses sets out to find him.

Before I read this passage, I always thought of Yetziat Mizraim, the exodus from Egypt as the classic example of unilateral action by God. Hazony points out, however, that even in Shemot, God’s action is anything but unilateral. God’s interference comes in response to human initiative. When I think of Parshat Shemot, I think of how God called Moshe, I think about the signs He showed Moses. I often forget that before those miraculous events could take place, we needed the heroism of the midwives, Shifra and Pua, who stood up to Pharaoh and refused to carry out his genocidal orders; we needed the heroism of Yocheved, who dared to have a child in what must have seemed like a bleak and hopeless world; the heroism of Miriam, who made sure that her little brother not only survived, but maintained a connection with his family and his people; the heroism of Pharaoh’s daughter, who rescued a child she recognized as an Israelite, and raised him as her own, flouting her own father’s orders that all the Israelite boys be killed.

I think many of us are waiting for God to speak to us from a burning bush or a smoking mountaintop before we feel confident taking action to make this world a better place. I know that a dozen times a day I see some injustice or untruth and I sometimes say and do nothing out of fear, lack of confidence, or even laziness. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Let us stop waiting and instead find the courage to act out of our own best instincts and values. If, instead of lamenting all the wrongs of this world, we all took it upon ourselves to start correcting them, maybe then God would meet us half way in bringing about redemption.

Rabbi Garth Silberstein