Last night
Great Britain left the European Union.
And this
morning we read the story of the Children of Israel leaving Egypt.
So it’s one
of those days when the subject of the sermon is crystalline. But the guts of the
sermon are tricky.
When the
orthodox Chief Rabbi of this country spoke out publicly in the weeks before the
last general election, I got a slew of emails from congregants and others.
Literally, half the emails thought it was wonderful that a religious leader
should speak out on such an important political matter, and warmly encouraged
me to do the same.
And the
other half of emails warned and worried about the consequences for Rabbi Mirvis
and wanted me to keep away from the issue.
On the one
hand … and on the other hand.
But there
are similarities between the Exodus narrative and the Brexit narrative that go
beyond the letters ‘e’ and ‘x’.
For one
thing, not everyone wanted to leave. When Moses first went to the Children of
Israel, in events we read a couple of weeks ago, they weren’t interested at
all.
Shortly
after Moses goes to Pharaoh to instruct the King of Egypt that the Hebrew
should be freed, and the foreman of the Israelites comes to him and curses him
out, ‘May God look at you and punish you for making us loathsome to Pharaoh.’
And we’ve had a bunch of name-calling and bitterness in this journey also.
But eventually
the people leave.
Actually,
maybe not all the people. There is Rabbinic commentary to the effect that there
were some who stayed behind – maybe in today’s situation, they would be the people
– the tens of thousands of people who have rushed out to get an EU passport at
some point in the last three years.
But let me leave
the politics at this point. I’m going to make some points about leaving Egypt,
and I’m not trying to make a point about Brexit; whether it’s good or bad. I
suspect I’m firmly with the Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai who, when asked in the 1970s what he thought about the French revolution of 1798; "It's too early to tell." Let me instead think a little more deeply about the Israelites who stayed behind, and what the
Israelites who left were doing.
Next week we’ll
read a line that says the Children of Israel, as they left Egypt, were hamushim. That’s a
word that clearly has something to do with the Hebrew word for 5 or maybe 50,
but it’s unclear. Our most important commentator, Rashi thinks it has
something to do with learning military techniques from their oppressors - now
the Children of Israel march fifty abreast in military formation. But Rashi also says this –
there is a Midrash (and it’s in the Mekhilta of Rabbi Yishmael) that records an argument about how many Israelites left Egpyt. Perhaps when the verse says
they left Hamushim – it really means that it was only one in five of the
Israelites left, or maybe even one in fifty of the Israelites who left.
What
happened to the rest?
Shmeitu
Harbeh MYisrael BMitzrayim
Many Israelites
died in Egypt. They just couldn’t bring themselves to be ready to leave. So
rather than be left behind, the idea seems to be, they fell dead. When did they
die? The Midrash continues, in the three-day plague of darkness. And while the Egyptians
couldn’t see, the Israelites who were to leave buried the ones who were not to leave - so the Egyptians would know what had happened.
Because, it
seems, that leaving is hard.
Crazily, it
seems, there were Israelites who opposed to leaving Egypt even when they were abused,
beaten, and genocidally murdered. Actually, that’s a pattern we’ve seen time
and time again in history and across the globe. In the face of oppression and slavery, there are always those
who protest against any attempt to overthrow the status quo and leave. They
worry about what they might lose, they can’t see what they might gain.
And this is
the point about leaving Egypt.
When Moses
turns to the people of Israel and calls on them to follow him into the desert
he promises them something they cannot see. At the heart of the Jewish faith, there is a god who cannot be seen. That’s in radical contradistinction to life in
Egypt where the gods can be seen. Now it might be that the Egyptians gods and
magicians and the like are all pretty useless, but at least they are there. The
same goes for the foodstuff of Egpyt. Slaves don’t get much to eat, but there’s
nothing to eat in the desert – and you can understand an Israelite feeling, you
know, I’ll stay right here.
You can look
at the entire battle between Moses and Pharaoh, the entire point of Exodus as the
battle between the attraction of the material and tangible, as little and as
fallible as it may be, and the promise of a future that cannot yet be seen, and
might never be seen.
Here’s another Midrash, a rabbinic commentary on a verse
we read last week on the moment when Moses first turns up at Pharaoh’s palace
to request the release of his people.
[1]Rabbi Hiyya son of Abba said, ‘This was coronation
day, when all the Kings came to crown Pharaoh because he was the Emperor. While
they were placing crowns on Pharaoh’s head, Moses and Aaron stood at the
entrance to the hallway. Pharaoh’s guards told him, ‘Two elders are standing at
the doorway’
Pharaoh
asked ‘Have they got a crown?’ The guard replied ‘no.’ ‘Then let them enter
last.’ When Moses and Aaron finally stood before Pharaoh he said, ‘What do you
want?’ Moses replied ‘The God of the Hebrews has sent be to you to say, “Let
my people go so they will serve me.”’ (Ex 7:16).
Pharaoh
replied angrily, ‘Who is this GOD that I should listen to His voice. Doesn’t He
know enough to send me a crown, rather you come with words.’
Rabbi
Levi said, ‘Pharaoh then took the list of gods and began to read, ‘The god of
Edom, the god of Moab, the god of Sidon, yada yada yada,’ and he said to them,
‘There, I have finished all my records and your god’s not on the list.’
So
Moses and Aaron said to Pharaoh, ‘Fool, the gods you mentioned are all dead.
But the LORD is a living God, Ruler of the Universe.’
Pharaoh
asked, ‘Is he young or old? How many cities has he captured? How many states
has he humbled? How long has he been in power?
They
replied, the strength and power of our God fills the world. God was before the
world was created and God will be at the end of the worlds. He fashioned you
and placed within you the breath of life.’
What
else has he done? Pharaoh asked.
They
replied, ‘God stretched out the heavens and the earth and God’s voice carved
out flames of fire,[2] God rips open the mountains
and smashed the rocks.[3] God’s
bow is of fire, God’s arrows are flames, God’s spear is a torch, God’s shield
is the clouds, God’s sword is lightening,
God forms the mountains and the hills; covers the mounts with grass, the
heavens with clouds, God brings down the rain and the dew and gets the plants
to grow and the fruits to ripen. God afflicts the beasts and forms the embryo
in the womb of the mother and brings it forth into the light of the world.’
Moses is trying to explain a God
that cannot be seen, that is more important than all things that can be seen.
And Pharaoh, blinded by the idolatrous world he lives in doesn’t get it. It’s a
difficult thing to persuade someone; that the things you can’t see are more
important than the things you can.
We even have, in English, the idiom
– ‘do see what I mean?’ which is absolutely understood to refer to understanding.
So tempting to think that if you can’t see something that it’s not going to be
important. Tempting to place all our faith, our hope and our work into those
things we can see.
And put like that you can
understand why there were Israelites who weren’t ready to leave, you weren’t
able to get it.
It was a problem back then and over there, and it remains a problem over here and today.
We live in a world that loves the
things that can be seen. And we all
spend our lives chasing around after the things that can be seen, and collected
and stored up, or maybe not collected, just admired from afar.
And here’s the thing. None of the
things we chase after last forever. None of the things we chase after make us a
better person. None of the things we chase after unlock, for us, the reason for
our existence. Why are we here. What should we do with this extraordinary thing called our life?
To work that stuff out you have to
head off into the wilderness, with no-thing. You have to believe that the things
that can’t be seen will support us in our wandering.
Ben – you’ve done brilliantly today. I
hope you get a whole bunch of presents and things – stuff. But in 20 years
time, I guarantee you, you won’t remember the presents and things. If you
remember anything about today, you’ll remember things that can’t be seen – how you
feel. How you feel connected to your place in this world, as a son – a firstborn,
as a Jew.
The word spiritual is much
overused, and little understood. To be spiritual means to value the things that
can’t be seen more highly than the things that can be seen. It means to value
the invisible truths of faith, of love, of feeling, more than the material
things, the idols, the gold and the silver. It’s a tough challenge, to be
spiritual.
It’s what Moses demanded Pharaoh
understand when he attended Pharaoh’s coronation. And Pharaoh didn’t get it.
It’s what Moses tried to inspire in
the Hebrews as they were so weary as slaves in Egypt. And only one in five, or one
in fifty got it.
And it’s my call today.
Believe in the things that can’t be
seen.
Don’t be misled by the things that
can be seen.
The story of Exodus survives as a
marker of the power of the unseeable. We’ve been telling it and celebrating it
for three millennia at this point and it’s going strong, still inspiring
generations yet to make their mark on this planet.
And if I am to venture a view
on Brexit it would be this - Brexit will boil down to a bunch of complex
trading agreements about … things. And we won’t be reading about it three
thousand years.
Shabbat Shalom
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